Craftwork: Use Those Hands

Although we didn't complete any of our snow globes, we got about half way through, and we can tell you that one of the best parts is picking out the supplies. We were overwhelmed with the possibilities when we made a special trip to the supermarket looking for a jar that would act as the globe for our project. You will need a jar with a tight screwing lid, the jar you use can be as large or small as you like. You don't have to buy a new jar, if you're like us you have a refrigerator door lined with expired condiments, pick one of those and wash it out well. Once you have your clean jar start looking around the house for some little things to stick in your globe. The items you use will have to fit on the underside of the lid, and we found that taller items looked better in the jars we chose. We also found it was helpful to glue a sort of stand on the lid before we stuck our figures on them, so they would be raised. For a stand we found some old bottle caps. Use epoxy for gluing your figures on the lid of your jar, its water proof and strong.

A note about what you put in your jars. Some of you may have drawers full of old supermarket toys, we do, but that didn't stop us from going to Pearl and buying more. The Pearl at Fifth and Market has a pretty extensive dollhouse section. Why do you care? Because those mini coke cans and trees and people sitting waiting on a mini train, all make fantastic things to stick in your snow globe. We bought four mini Singer sewing machines, mini people, mini farm animals and plastic swans. Sure, we felt a little embarrassed when the uber-hip art student rang up our items, but we were too excited at the prospect of what we were about to make to really care.

After we spent too many hours setting up little mini scenes and gluing them onto our jar lids we were tired and set the project aside for another day. We're assuming you have a better attention span than us, so we'll tell you what to do after you glue your figures to the lid. Note that even if you are feeling motivated you still have to wait at least 24 hours before adding the water to ensure that the glue has completely dried. For snow you can use white or colored glitter, but make sure you don't get too fine a glitter so it falls more like snow. We didn't find too many great suggestions for snow, one place told us to boil some eggs and crush the shells, which seems like a lot of extra work to us. An important ingredient in making your snow globe look authentic is glycerin, which you can get at a pharmacy. We hear Rainbow sells glycerin in bulk, which might be a good way to go since you'll only need a couple of drops for each globe. Be sure not to get too over zealous with the glycerin or your glitter won't fall at all. Before you add the glycerin you need to fill the jar with distilled water. You can buy distilled water or just boil water at home (maybe for your hard boiled eggs?) and once it's cool you can pour it into the jar. Fill the bottle with water, add the glycerin and glitter or snow and then screw on the top. There you have it. Easy. If you want to get all cute you can glue ribbon or felt around the base of the lid. You can make it cuter by writing a little something and gluing it to the side of the lid. You can even steal our idea of making a globe with the little mini Singer sewing machine, and typing up this phrase for the side of the jar: "Sew glad you're mine." Cheesy, we know, but we bet someone on your list will dig it.