At our last MOPS meeting, our craft coordinator issued us a challenge. We made jar cookies; that is, we put the dry ingredients for cookies into a Ball jar to take home. After we baked the cookies, Anggie told us we should reuse the jar and then send her pictures. I had no idea what to do with my jar. Make a fancy pen holder? Fill it with marbles? Drink lemonade from my jar?  Hmm.

I finally thought of a project I wanted to try. Some people call it a calming jar, or a settle-down jar. The idea is that you fill it with water and glitter, shake, and watch the glitter settle to the bottom, which has a calming effect. What a great idea for tantrum-prone girls and their mommy! (This frazzled Mommy could also use a settle-down jar, especially now that school’s out for the summer!)

At first, I thought I added too much food coloring, but as I watched the jar, it reminded me of The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. Another use for this simple Ball jar…teaching great art!

How to make your own Starry Night Glitter Jar:

Fill your jar about halfway with hot water and add some blue glitter glue. (I bought a small bottle on sale, and squeezed the whole bottle into the jar.) Stir. Add silver glitter, blue glitter and blue food coloring. (If you can find some star-shaped glitter, that would add to the effect! I didn’t have any.) Stir, and fill the jar with water leaving about an inch at the top. Fill the jar to the top with vegetable oil. The oil is an unnecessary ingredient, but it did add some fun “bubbles” to the jar. Tighten the lid securely. Shake and whirl to make your own Starry Night!

I own a series of art books by Mike Venezia. The library also has a lot of kid friendly art books which you can use to introduce Van Gogh and The Starry Night to your own kids. Van Gogh was a very interesting character!

Speaking of Ball jars, I’ve also been the lucky recipient of a jar of strawberry jam from The Mayor of Crazyville. Yum! What other ideas for jars do you have? Leave a link in your comment if you’ve blogged about using jars. I’d love to see your ideas!