Cool Ideas: Sand Jars

 If you've seen my other posts, you'd know how much I love glass jars. It seems I can always think up cool ways to utilize them. Here's my latest idea.

Being from Hawaii, I miss the land and especially the beaches. I've always wanted to bring a little bit of home with me so I have that connection. I decided to bring the beach home with me. . . .I decided to bring home sand. Well, I did not only bring home the sand from 1 beach, I brought the sand from 6 different beaches home (go big or go home right? lol!).

Molokai, being an island, is filled with sand! There are hundreds of beaches so it was easy for me to get my hands on some. Sand is sand right? WRONG! The sand is unique to the beach it came from. Take a look at the picture above. These 3 different sands are from beaches next to each other and yet, they have very different characteristics. Sand may differ in grain size (course/fine), content and color of content (what the sand is made up of specific to the region), and shade overall (the darkness or lightness of the sand). Knowing all of this, I got to work on my project.

On my last trip home in March 2011, I brought home sand in water bottles.

I made sure to put their names on them with a permanent marker so I didn't mix any of them up.

I also labeled their caps with the 1st initial of the name of the beach they were from.

Great Tip! Here's a great tip if you are bringing more than 1 bottle of sand home on the plane. If you are on a trip and are bringing back a buttload of other souvenirs, it may be hard for you to bring back more than 1 bottle of sand especially if you have to pay the airlines those expensive baggage fees. Pack your sand (in water bottles, ziplocs or whatever else you can find) and label them. Go to the Post Office and get a small or medium flat rate boxes and ship your sand home. It will not matter how heavy the sand is, as long as it fits in the box (my baggage got very heavy bringing just 10 water bottles of sand home). This will save you time, $ and it will save your back!

Here are the steps I took once I was home.

1. I cleaned up the jar I was going to use by washing it and scraping the label off the outside. You may also spraypaint the cap if there is labeling on it.

2. Some of the sand I brought home was very damp. I got a tray that I had laying around, and I dumped the wet sand into it. (you can also use those cardboard soda boxes to do this part)

3. Then I smoothed the sand out evenly with a ruler (you can use anything to smooth the sand out).

4. I took my sand outside and let it lay out in the sun so it could dry thoroughly.

Here's a view from the back. I just put a piece of wood I had laying around underneath the trays so they could be propped up facing the sun. This helps them dry faster. Warning: if you have lots of cats in the area, make sure to keep an eye on your sand or you'll find a present they left just for you *;)

5. I labeled a sandwich size ziploc bag to store the sand once it dried.

6. Using the lid of the glass jar, I traced a circle on a clear plastic bag and cut it out. These circles are to put between the layers of sand so they won't mix into each other. Because you are tracing the lid of the jar you are going to be using, the circles should be the perfect size for your jar.

The circles should look like this

7. Pour the first layer of sand in the jar and then place a circle on the top of that layer. Make sure it is in the middle of the layer.

8. Pour each layer one after another. Using a tool (a little ruler or something that has a wide end) smooth the sand in each layer out and move it towards the glass (I wish I had a pic of this but I dont. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it). Make sure the layers are pretty equal in thickness.  

9. Warning! Make sure you keep track of the order of the sand! First off, I put all my bottles and bags in the order I was going to pour the sand.

10. Warning! Make sure that when you put the sand in order, you pay attention to the look of the sand. If you have the sand from 3 different beaches that look almost the same, you will want to space them out evenly. What you want is contrast. A black or darker sand against a whiter sand will look better than 2 white sands together.

11. Warning! This may be the most important thing. When putting the last layer of sand in the jar, make sure the sand goes all the way to the top of the jar so that it pushes against the lid when you seal the jar. This will ensure that the layers will not move and mix up.

 12. I labeled the jars with vinyl that I had cut myself. You do not need to use vinyl. You may label the jars with tape, permanent pens, stickers and paper.

 12. Lastly, I labeled the cover with the place I got the sand from. I got all my sand from my island so I put Moloka'i (the island), Hawai'i (the state). You could also put dates, like the date of your trip for example:

Hawai'i Trip 

March 2011

Now I have jars of sand from my homeland that I can display in my home. I love, love, love my jars!!! I also gave some of my friends a jar as a present, they make great gifts! I also made some sand jars out of baby food jars for my kid's rooms. Because they are smaller, they require less sand and are perfect for  gifts for children.

1. I cleaned and filled the baby food jars exactly the same way I did my large jars. Paint the lids.

2. I printed the names of the beaches on my home computer using a very small font. You can print on regular paper or labels. I suggest using labels so they stick to the jar. Using a ruler, cut the names out so they are in one straight rectangle.

3. Now that you have the labels adhered to the outside of the jar, you need to put a laminate-like coating on the label so it won't smear. I used packing tape to do this.

1. Place a strip of packing tape over the label and trim.

2.Make sure to keep the tape smooth over the label.

3. and 4. Using an exacto knife, kitchen knife or scissors, score or cut the tape along the outside of the label with the blade.

5. Grab the edge of the tape and peel. It should peel off easily along the edges of the label.

Here's the sand jar in baby size. How cute!

Enjoy your little bit of Paradise!

Brandi-Lee

Cool Ideas (Vacation Keepsake Displays)

My children and I love keeping things that we've acquired from places we've visited and vacations we've taken. These special mementos usually ended up in our "special keeps" box (a plastic tote that gets rummaged through only once every year on our "memory day").

The thing that bothered me so much about chucking stuff in the keeps box is that we couldn't enjoy the mementos and  pictures more often.

Sure we could've brought them out to look at more than just once a year but going through a pile of ticket stubs, postcards, foliage (that's right, foliage) and reciepts doesn't really sound appealing, does it? Actually it kinda sounds like tax time! Groaaaan! Not to mention all

the pictures that were put on my hard drive stayed there . . . .doing nothing. . . .but sitting. . . .

THE MADNESS HAD TO STOP!!

Sorry, I got a little carried away there. Anyways, I had come up with a solution for those really special vacations that had lots of mementos and pictures.

I framed them!

Sorry bout the hideous pictures, no matter what, the "glass"

in the frame would reflect light from every which way so I had to improvise.

As you can see we kept our theme park maps, ticket envelopes, tickets, stroller tag, postcards, brochures, card keys, foliage gathered, wristbands, etc. We used whatever we kept to help us remember the wonderful time we had on that particular vacation. 

These frames are poster frames that I would buy whenever I saw some at a garage sale. I paid .25 for the 22x28 frame

and $3 for the 24x36 frame at two separate garage sales.

 I've found that these frames were the best for framing mementos because

1. There's no glass, just a thin, plastic covering so it's lighter (all the mementos tend to get a little heavy especially as the frames get larger)  

2. They are easier to hang because they come with "clips" that hold backing in place  

3. They are also able to accept not so flat items or bulky items (if you look really closely, I have an acorn in one of the frames) because of the clip backing 

4. You can find large poster frames for much less than what you would pay for regular frames of the same size. 

5. You can find these frames quite easily at almost any garage sale

When you have your frame and all your stuff,  take the frame off and just start placing the items on the "frame backing" according to how you want it to look. (make sure you are doing all this on a flat surface) I filled the entire area so that there was no background showing through. I used the maps and brochures in the background to cover more area. Put the frame over the backing to see what gets cut off by the frame (there will always be just a little cut off on the borders, this will help with placement. When you are sure you absolutely LOVE the placement, tack each and every one of the mementos down to the backing (either with double sided tape or fold pieces of tape on itself to make it double sided) This will ensure all the stuff won't fall down to the bottom of the frame when you hang it. Replace the frame and Hang!

These frames hang in our loft and the children love stopping to look at them to remember the good times we had on our vacations.

Another way I think is really cool to display keepsakes from a trip is to make Trip Jars.

These are very inexpensive because they can be extra glass food jars that you have laying around. These are pickle jars. Wide mouth jars are the best for this particular project. I also love the look of mason/canning jars.

All you need to make these is 1. the jar, and 2. the keepsakes.

I usually take the label off by scraping it with a razor blade (you know those razor blade scrapers). These are very effective tools to take all the paper and the glue off the glass. (Be very careful if using the razor blade method)

A lot of the time, the lids will also have labeling on it. All I do is 1. remove the lids and 2. give it a light coat of spray paint. Usually one coat will do!

There are several ways to label your glass. There's vinyl, sticky labels (file folder/return address labels), homemade tags, glass etching, etc. My favorite method is vinyl. I like to put, 1. where we went on that trip and 2. what year it was. You can put whatever it is that you want to put on it, it's all up to you.

There are soooo many ways to display keepsakes and mementos, this is just 2 of them! I hope you will go through those boxes and drawers of "stuff" that you're keeping and put it to use! (or you can just face the facts that you are a packrat and love holding on to stuff that you will never, ever be able to enjoy only to have rodents eat them forcing you to eventually throw them out and then feeling sad that you never actually did anything with them when you had the chance!) <---- This could be you! Don't let it happen, you're better than that!

Brandi-Lee