Monster Favor Jars

We just celebrated my son’s first birthday with a Monster-themed party on Saturday. So be prepared for a slew of monster party ideas in my next several posts – starting with this one! These monster favor jars are what I handed out to guests as a thank-you for attending the party.

If you have been following my posts, you probably already know that I am somewhat of a hoarder (at least I’m not in denial anymore) and tend to save things that most people would probably say should be thrown away (or hopefully, at least recycled). Number one on the list of things I can’t throw away is a nice baby food jar – or any type of nice jar or container, really. So, as you can imagine as a hoarder with two little ones, I have acquired a serious collection of these little gems. And by serious collection, I mean that if I had a penny for every baby food jar I have saved, I would probably have like……two hundred dollars. Okay, maybe I exaggerated on the penny bit – more like if I had a dollar for every baby food jar I have saved, I would have two hundred dollars. Hey, that’s still not a collection to be laughed at…or maybe it is 😉

Now that I have officially made you jealous of my baby food jar collection, if you are interested in making these monster jars, all you need are some baby food jars (or any glass jars with lids) and some paint. Read below for more detailed instructions. And sorry for the longer-than-usual introduction. That’s what happens when the kids take a nap at the same time and I don’t have to write my post at midnight!

Materials

– Clean baby food jars with lids

– Spray paint (in the color you want for your monster face)

– Acrylic paint in white and black

– Small paint brush

– Q-tip

– Favors

Directions

1. Spray paint the tops of the lids of the jars with your choice of color. This will be the main color of your monster faces. Allow them to dry. ***I allowed the lids to dry/air out for about a week so the paint smell had time to dissipate. Since I was planning to put edible goodies in my favor jars, I didn’t want to chance them smelling or tasting like spray paint. I even flipped them over so they could air out on the other side for a day or so as well. I would suggest that you do this as well so that you don’t unintentionally trap the smell of the paint inside the jar.

2. Once you have allowed the lids to dry, use a Q-tip to paint monster eyes on the lids with white acrylic paint. Just dip the Q-tip in the white paint and draw your circular or oval eyes. You could also use a small paint brush, but I found that a Q-tip was easier to use and took less time. The best part about the monster eyes is they don’t have to be perfectly symmetrical! You don’t even need two eyes; you could do just one eye or more than two eyes.

3. Use a small paint brush and black acrylic paint to paint monster mouths on the lids. Be as creative and silly as you want. 🙂

4. Once the white eyes have dried completely, use a Q-tip dipped in black paint to add pupils to the eyes. I just dipped the Q-tip in the paint and dabbed it onto each eye once to form the pupils. You can make the eyes look whacky by placing the pupils in positions other than the centers of the eyes.

5. Once the mouths have dried completely, use a paint brush to paint the teeth on the mouths with white paint. The amount of teeth and placement of the teeth is completely up to you.

6. Make sure you have allowed an adequate amount of time for your jar lids to dry/air out before placing them back on the baby food jars. Once they have dried, simply add your favors/treats to the jars and cap them with your monster lids. *In case you were wondering, I decided to put chocolate covered pretzels inside my jars. I used yellow, green, blue, and white melting chips to make the pretzels match the lid colors.