Spring Habitat Jars

Over the holidays I made a set of wintry jars. I think these jars are such a fun, and surprisingly easy, project. I wanted to try out the same idea, but instead make the jars themed around spring. My favorite part is picking out what to put into the jar, and I must say these were even more fun to put together than the winter jars. I liked figuring out a nice mixture of bright colors, creatures, and plants to set the scene in the jars. I definitely plan to keep these out throughout the summer. To me, they look like mini habitats!

What You’ll Need:

• Mason jars in different sizes 

• Glue (I used Aleen’s tacky glue)

• Mini bottle brush trees

• Bag of moss

• Styrofoam pieces (to both glue your moss on and raise your scene higher in the jar)

• Little critters, mushrooms, bugs, fake flowers/succulents, etc. to place in the scene

• Ribbon or cord to wrap around the lid of the 

• (optional) Pom poms or glitter for extra effects

• (optional) Paint brush to spread glue and knife to cut styrofoam

Directions:

1. To start your jars, you’ll want to pre-plan the scenes you want to display in your jars. This will help you know what you want to do before you start gluing and allow you to also test if they will fit into the jars. I had three small jars and two large jars. For each jar I did a slightly different arrangement, but it helped to visualize what I was going to do for each scene.

2. Once you decide what you want in each jar, place it into the inside lid and practice putting the jar over the scene. This will show you if the jar fits over your scene and how far into the jar the scene will be. 

3. Next, I used a knife to cut my styrofoam into five pieces, one for each jar. Each were a few inches in height. They needed to be flat on the top, but the width will also need to be small enough to fit through the rim of the jars. You may need to do some additional trimming after testing it with the jar, but you can just shave on the sides until it fits correctly.

4. After my styrofoam pieces were cut, I glued a piece onto the middle of the inside of each lid. I then let them dry overnight.

5. With the glue dried, it was now time to attach the moss. To begin, I squeezed out a large blob of glue onto some tin foil. I then used a paint brush to spread the glue all around the styrofoam. I took pieces of the moss and broke them up between my fingers if they were too clumped together. I then stuck larger chunks all around the styrofoam, and sprinkled tiny pieces to fill in all the gaps. Patting it down as I went, I filled the foam until it was completely covered. Finally, I added some moss to the parts of the lid exposed around the styrofoam to give it a more finished look. 

6. Once finished attaching the moss, I put it aside to dry and continued this process for the other jars.

7. With all pieces dried and topped moss, it was time to start assembling the scenes. To do this, I started by attaching the trees inside the larger jars. I was able to push the trees into the foam, but I added some glue around it for some extra security. I then glued on my frog, turtle, bee hives, and mushrooms. I added the smallest items last, including the tiny succulents and bumblebees, so I could see what spots needed something. I finished off with sticking in some butterflies into my small jars. After everything was attached, I allowed them to dry once again overnight.

8. Once everything attached was inside and dry, I turned them around and screwed on the lid. To finish up the project, I tied a cord around bottom rim of the lid. The jars were then finished and ready to display!

Here are some photos of the final product: