Advent Activity--Day 6--Making snowglobes

Our sixth Advent activity was making snowglobes. This activity was a little challenging. I'm not sure we'll repeat it next year. However, my youngest son especially loves his snowglobe, so I'm glad we did it. I purchased some miniature items in the dollhouse section of Hobby Lobby. I wanted more seasonal things such as trees or deer, but instead got a pack of dogs and a pack of sports balls. My little one (of course) chose the balls and my oldest a dog that resembles our dog, Magic. I used a super-strong adhesive to glue the items onto a water bottle lid, then glued that lid inside the lid of our baby-food jars. It is important to glue your ornament item onto something else to make it tall enough to be seen when you are finished. The photo below shows the two "bases". We had to let these dry for about a day before going to the next step.

I made a few mistakes on the next step which I will share with you so you can avoid them! First, I'll tell you what TO do. Fill your jar with water up to about 1/2 inch from the top. The directions I had said to use distilled water but I didn't. Next add 1/4 tsp. of glycerin or corn syrup. (We used corn syrup.) This will slow down the glitter when the snowglobe is shaken so it will seem more "snowy". Then add about 1/2 tsp. glitter. (We used silver.) Screw the prepared lid onto your jar. Then, if you wish, put a thin line of glue around the OUTSIDE of your jar lid to seal it. I was a ding-dong and put the glue inside before I glued it on and then the water became cloudy and I had to dump it all out, rinse it, and start over. In the end, my oldest son's snowglobe was cloudy because I guess I didn't get it rinsed well enough. UGH!! And we only had 2 jars because I had bought the toddler fruit jars special just for this project. UGH again!! Anyway, in the next photo my oldest son is pouring the glitter into the water.

After we did the above steps and put the lid on all the glitter stuck to the objects as shown in the photo below. I was a little freaked out that the whole project was a bust. But, I just left the jar upside down for a while to allow the glitter to "uncling" itself, which it ultimately did. THANK GOODNESS!

And below you can see my youngest son's snowglobe all finished. It works pretty well and looks neat when you shake it up. My oldest son's, as I said above, is really cloudy. He hasn't commented on this yet, however.

Another option you have, but we didn't do it, is to fancy-up the base by painting the lid a color or hot-gluing ribbon or trim around it. We are just leaving ours as-is. And that's OK.