Well, in honor of my new book hitting the shelves, my daughter Rose, my friend Theresia, and I all decided to try our hand at making snow globes. This could have proved to be a big nightmare since I did not inherit the craft gene. My mom had it, my daughter has it -obviously, in my family it skips a generation. But this turned out to be great fun. So, what do you need to make a snow globe? Cute jars (pickle jar, jam jar - anything that will hold a miniature ornament), ornaments for inside the jar (which you can get at craft stores such as Michael's and JoAnne's), glue & glue gun, glycerin, glitter, distilled water, and some ribbon to cover up the jar lid.
We did this in stages, gluing our figurines one day and then filling the jars with water and glue after the decoration inside had time to set up. To make it more visible, we mounted a bottle cap on top of our lid (which served as the base). Vitamin bottle caps work great for this. So, once your decoration is in there and you've filled your jar with water and added glitter, how much glycerin? Well, it depends on how slowly you want your glitter "snow" to fall. The more glycerin the slower the snowfall. I think we used about a quarter teaspoon. Experiment with this. Some sites suggest mineral water instead of glycerin but we found that it made the water cloudy. Some sites called for waterproof glue. We tried that. The figurine fell off its stand with one small tap. Regular old glue gun glue worked like a charm.
One of the globes we used aquarium sealant to make sure our lid stayed on. The other two though, again, good old glue gun glue did the trick. You want to fill your jar as full as possible so you don't wind up with an air bubble at the top. But hey, if you get a bubble, put a decoration on the top and no one will be the wiser. This makes a great project to do with girlfriends or older children. We had a wonderful time together doing this. And our snow globes turned out great. The picture doesn't do them justice. (I didn't inherit the photography gene either!)
We did this in stages, gluing our figurines one day and then filling the jars with water and glue after the decoration inside had time to set up. To make it more visible, we mounted a bottle cap on top of our lid (which served as the base). Vitamin bottle caps work great for this. So, once your decoration is in there and you've filled your jar with water and added glitter, how much glycerin? Well, it depends on how slowly you want your glitter "snow" to fall. The more glycerin the slower the snowfall. I think we used about a quarter teaspoon. Experiment with this. Some sites suggest mineral water instead of glycerin but we found that it made the water cloudy. Some sites called for waterproof glue. We tried that. The figurine fell off its stand with one small tap. Regular old glue gun glue worked like a charm.
One of the globes we used aquarium sealant to make sure our lid stayed on. The other two though, again, good old glue gun glue did the trick. You want to fill your jar as full as possible so you don't wind up with an air bubble at the top. But hey, if you get a bubble, put a decoration on the top and no one will be the wiser. This makes a great project to do with girlfriends or older children. We had a wonderful time together doing this. And our snow globes turned out great. The picture doesn't do them justice. (I didn't inherit the photography gene either!)
snow globes
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