Quick and simple upcycle for baby food jars to do with your child.
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| Supplies for Baby Jar Ornament |
You will need to gather a few items to begin this craft with your child.
- Clean empty baby food jar
- paper or foil shreds (yarn or similiar threads will work as well)
- Glue (Be sure to have glue your child can use for wrapping yarn)
- fastener (or something similiar to attach ornament hook)
- ornament hook (paper clips, pipe cleaner and yarn will work as well)
- Colored Paper for name and year card (pictures cut to size look wonderful as well)
- Crayons or markers for your child to decorate the card
- Yarn or ribbon to decorate the top
I outlined the bottom of the baby food jar and precut the card for the bottom. I wrote our names and year on each card and asked Connor to color his card with any design he chose.
After he finished decorating his card I demonstrated how I wanted him to place in the baby food jar. Decorated side down, so that it would be visible when we were finished.
He thought he was one step ahead of me and excitedly put is lid in place and declared he didn't like it all. He wanted more shinies like other ornaments.
I let him choose two colors for his shreds. I demonstrated pulling a few from the bag to place inside the jar. Connor was only pulling from one of the colored bags because he was finding it difficult so I quickly changed tactics and placed a few shreds of each color on the table for him to choose from. Cutting down shreds to smaller lengths is an option as well.
Once we had achieved our desired mixtures we finished stuffing all the shreds into the jar.
Connor chose to hold the lid while I placed glue along the inner ring. He then placed the lid on to the jar and we sang "1,2 Buckle My Shoe," to pass the setting time.
I added a pea size drop of hot glue on top of the lid and pressed my fastener into place. I inserted both ornament hooks to be sure I did not fill the fastener holes with glue. I removed th hook from Connor's ornament to allow him to decorate his lid with wrapped yarn.
We used tacky glue on the top of the lid to glue the wrapping string in place.
Allowing your young child to wrap a long string will result in a tangled mess and frustrated feelings.
Instead try holding the string out and above while your child presses the yarn onto the lid.
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Children with the fine motor skills will be capable of holding the string and pressing the yarn onto the lid while you turn the ornament for them. Be sure to place your hand on the bottom of the ornament below your child's and the wrapping string. Connor preferred this method of wrapping because he had more control over where the yarn laid on top of the lid. When he wrapped the entire lid up to the fastener, I cut the string and had him press it down into the lid. We sang "10 in the bed" while we waited for his yarn to stick.
I re-inserted the ornament hook into the fastener on his lid and our ornaments were ready for hanging on the tree. I did not decorate my lid any further so I could focus on helping Connor finish his ornament.
Follow me for more on upcycling with your child. Read more about the skills arts and crafts develop for your child here. As always email jennifer@theupcyclingnanny.com pictures of you upcycling with your child and your completed projects.
This work by Jennifer@theupcyclingnanny.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.theupcyclingnanny.com.
