On the ninth day of Christmas ...

I had almost all of the ingredients:

Empty jars - check

Matching lids - check

Spray paint - (optional but) check

Tiny plastic toys - check

Corks - check

Plastic greens - (cut from fake garlands) check

Glitter - check

Epoxy - check

Distilled water - check

Glycerin - hmmmm ... you mean the stuff people make soap out of?

Yes, but no:



You can find it in the drugstore, but not in the soap aisle.

Oh ... I kid the Santa Claus.

Anywhoo ... Here's what you do:

1. Collect all those toys you've been stepping on. I used the holiday set from Playmobil that I bought last year, but any plastic toy will do.

2. Clean out some jars, make sure your toys fit inside. Ittybit helped with this. I couldn't for the life of me fit the snowman in the artichoke jar and was rummaging through the recycling for a bigger jar when she simply took off his hat. So. There.

3. Spray paint the lids to make them a uniformed color (you can cover them with fabric or leave them alone. It's fine for people to know you've sealed Frosty in an old artichoke bottle. You can also use bottle caps to act as pedestals if the jar is large and the toys are small.

4. Wait 24 hours for the lids to dry.

5. To make the trees I cut little bits of fake greenery off our garland, trimmed them a bit and stuck them in little slabs of cork I sawed into quarters. I punctured a little hole in the cork with the tip of a knife to make tree insertion easier.

6. Mix the epoxy and dab it onto the toys, press them on the inside of the lid and let dry for a couple of hours.

7. I added a half teaspoon or so of glitter to the jars and a dab of glycerine (seriously only about a dime-sized dab for the largest jar) and then filled them to the top with distilled water.

8. Over the sink, I inserted the lid scene and shut it as tightly as possible.

9. Of course it still leaks a little.

But look ...







So pretty.

Maybe ... if I ever do this again ... I'll try a silicone sealant on the lid.