Mason Jar Craft for Kids to Make as a Gift

We’re out of school before Father’s Day rolls around, but we make gifts in preschool anyway.  Yes, the presents end up going home a month early! Since we make a big deal about Mother’s Day with the kiddos, I think it’s nice to do so for the dads too.  This year, I came up with a simple mason jar craft for kids to make.  The children and I thought their dads could use the jars to store spare change, pens, pencils, paintbrushes, etc.

Hand print mason jar craft for kids

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Materials we used
16 oz glass mason jars
Apple Barrel acrylic paint (leaf green)
Delta Creative acrylic paint (magnolia white)
Craftsmart paint pen (white)

How we made it
I didn’t like how it looked when we painted the outside of the jar, so we decided to paint the inside.  To do this, we placed a few squirts of green paint into the jar (the kids loved this part). We moved the jars around to spread the paint around, adding more paint if needed.

After the entire inside was covered, I left them upside-down to get rid of any excess paint.  Before leaving school at the end of the day, I righted the jars and left them to dry.

The following day, the kiddos and I set about adding hand prints to the jars.  Before painting their hands, I had the kids practice what we’d do.  This really helped prevent too many mishaps!  I then painted their hands, placed the jars into their hands, and had them gently grab the jar.  When they released their hands, we had some cute hand prints!

The jars were set aside to dry for another day.  I added “Father’s Day 2014” to the side of the jars, making sure their names were on the bottom.

To wrap the jars, we just used white paper lunch bags.  The children wrote “Happy Father’s Day!” on a piece of white construction paper.  We backed their notes with green paper, then used edger scissors to cut a design around the card.  The card was glued to the outside of the paper bag.  We wrapped the jars with tissue paper, put them into the bags and tied them up with ribbons.

A few tips

• Be careful not to add too much paint to the inside of the jar!
• Have the kiddos practice how to place their hand print on the jar.
• Use baby wipes to wipe off any large mistakes.  This can only be done if the acrylic paint it still wet.
• Use a damp cotton swab to clean up any little mistakes.  Again, this works best when the paint’s still wet.

Ideas for next time

• I might use a larger mason jar next time.  That way the hand prints could be vertical, rather than at a slant.
• I’ll consider using mason jars that have one smooth side.  That might make the hand print part even easier.
• I’ll likely give the children more choices in terms of paint colors.  I had a ton of the green already on-hand, so it made sense to do it this way this year.

Other mason jar crafts for kids to make as gifts
Beautifully tinted mason jars from Hands-On:As We Grow
Sparkly and colorful jar candle holders from Fantastic Fun and Learning
Creative table centerpieces from My Nearest and Dearest
Washi tape decorated vase from Coffee Cups and Crayons at Inner Child Fun
Lantern with beaded handle from Buggy and Buddy
Rainbow-hued luminaries from Twodaloo
Glitter Timers from Fireflies and Mud Pies
Thanksgiving turkey centerpiece from Yesterday on Tuesday

What do you think of this mason jar craft for kids?  Do you have any suggestions like it to share?