The World is now our Campus

Happy Autumn everyone!   We celebrated the first day of Fall by making apple crisp, leaf-hunting, replacing a hair bow for a fake orange leaf at the top of my Autumn's braid, and setting out our handful of fall and Halloween decorations.  I can appreciate a well-decorated, seasonally-themed home. However, at this point in my life, I don't have the time, means, or space to have decorating be a priority.  I love the holidays, though, and a few simple items can make them more exciting and magical!  

I spent an afternoon making these Halloween mason jar lanterns a couple of years ago, and I still love them.  They are easy, adaptable, and inexpensive.  You might already have everything you need to make them in your house.  In addition to decorating your own home, I think they would also make a great gift or Activity Days/Relief Society meeting/craft group activity.

I got the idea from Our Best Bites-- a fun blog that I like to visit for their recipes and craft ideas.  A couple of tips from my experience: 

-You can use any glass jar that you have.  One I used was a maraschino cherry jar, and I love that it's a unique shape and size.  The variety of sizes makes it look great as a set.

-The photo is from Our Best Bites, so mine look a little different.  I made two orange pumpkins and also did the white ghost, purple vampire, and green Frankenstein, and it's so much cuter to have the variety of color than if I'd only done orange.  

-Some white tissue paper is SO thin.  Try to use white tissue paper that's a little thicker if you can.  The thin stuff kind of disintegrates on contact with the Modge Podge.  (p.s. If you live by me and don't want to buy a big jar of Modge Podge, you can use mine!) 

-To store them, you should put each jar in a plastic bag (like a Twist and Tie or Ziploc bag, and maybe a grocery plastic bag would work), then you can pack around them with tissue paper or newspaper.  The Modge Podge stays a little sticky, so new tissue paper/newspaper adheres to it even after it has dried.  If you pack them all together in a big plastic bag, they stick together and pull off each others' colors.  

Here are the step-by-step instructions, along with patterns for the faces:

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/10/crafty-in-the-kitchen-mason-jar-lanterns/

Happy crafting :)

p.s. Congratulations Laura and Stephanie on your little bundles of joy!!!