Etc etc

You Will Need:

- 2 Jars – One Big, One Smaller
- Loose, Sand-Like Soil
- Water
- Sugar

Step 1. Clean both jars out, and dry them out. Take the outside wrappers off so you will be able to see inside the ant jar.

Step 2.

Put the smaller jar, without its lid, upside down, within the bigger jar. Try to center it. Poke a few tiny holes in the jar lid, small enough for ants to not escape.

Step 3.

Fill the outside area between both jars, with the sandy-soil. Make sure that the entire area is filled, but don’t pack it tightly or the ants will not be able to dig their way through it.

Step 4. Finding and Trapping the Ants

Now you must find the ants for your ant farm jar. Go looking in your back yard or in the local park. If you still can not find any ants then you can build an ant trap. Ants love sugar, so what you should do is put some sugar, mixed with a tiny bit of water, into a jar or can. Put it on its side and keep an eye on it…when you have about 20 ants. Don’t get more than 20 ants…crowding too many ants in the jar will make them less active and less fun to watch. You can close the jar and put them in your ant farm jar (DO THIS OUTSIDE – NOT INSIDE YOUR HOUSE).  Important : Make sure that these ants are from the same colony or they will land up fighting and killing each other.

Step 5. Close That Jar Tight

Make sure to close that jar tight. Don’t worry about the ants getting enough air because you will be opening it to put food in there. Believe it or not, that is plenty of air for your ants.

Ant Care:

Feeding Your Ants
Do the feeding of your ants outside to keep them from escaping into your house (or I will get a lot of nasty emails from your Moms).
Once a week (no more than this) feed the ants a few drops of sugar water. You can put it directly into the soil. You can also drop in there a few grains of bird or grass seed.
FEEDING ANTS TOO MUCH CAN KILL THEM!

Keep Your Ants Safe
- Keep your ant jar away from direct blow of air conditioners, radiators, and heaters…keep them at normal room temperature.
- Keep them out of the direct glare of sunlight.

You Will Need:

- a mason jar with a clear glass lid like this one from ikea
- a solar garden light like the ones pictured above, which i found here
- adhesive
- glass frosting spray.

Step 1. Start by spraying the inside of the jar with the frosting spray – this will help diffuse the light and give it a warm glow. don’t spray the lid though! it needs to be clear in order to work.

Step 2. Next you’ll need to take apart the solar lamp – apparently this can be a lot easier than it sounds, depending on what kind of lamp you purchase. Certain kinds can simply be unscrewed and the solar/battery pack remains intact, whereas others will require some reassembly with adhesive. See here and here for examples.

Step 3. Glue the solar cell, or the parts you’ve harvested from the garden lamp, to the underside of the jar’s lid, and you’re done! Close the lid, put your jar in direct sunlight, and it’ll glow all night long!

You Will Need:

-  old glass jars (spaghetti jars, jam jars or any plain glass jar will work)
- gold dimensional puff paint
- glass paint (Delta or Pebeo Vitrea glass paint are great options)
- paintbrush
- wire (optional, for hanging lanterns)

Step 1. Remove labels and any glue residue from the glass jars and allow them to dry completely.

Step 2. Apply the gold dimensional paint in various patterns. You can use the applicator tip to create small stud-like dots, draw various decorative patterns or push around the paint to create solid areas of gold. Let dry.

Step 3. Pour a small amount of glass paint inside the jar and use your paintbrush to drag the paint up the sides of the jar, coating all of the jar’s interior. Let dry.

Step 4. Your lanterns are now ready to enjoy indoors or out! Simply fill them with candles or add loops of fine-gauge wire to the tops for easy hanging.

You Will Need:

- As many baby food jars as you have spices to fill them with
- circular magnets
- hot glue or superglue.
- decorative cardstock or similar
- modge podge (or some glue substitute)

Step 1. Rinse out your baby food jars and then soak to remove the labels. Put them in the dishwasher to get out all of the food and the last of the label residue.

Step 2. I Mod Podged 1” strips of paper around the jar. The cardstock I had was 8x8, and I found that a 1”x 8” strip is the perfect size to wrap around standard baby food jars. I Mod Podged them to the jars, and then covered the strip in Mod Podge, too, to give it a nice finished sheen and to make sure the end of the strip wouldn’t ever start peeling up. 

Step 3. I made the labels out of two circular pieces of paper. I used a half dollar for my big circles, and a quarter for the cream colored circles and wrote the names of the spices on the cream circles and let them dry for a bit, just to ensure they wouldn’t bleed at all when I put Mod Podge over the top. I the glued the big circle to the bottom and let it dry a bit. Then I covered it in Mod Podge and put the cream circle on it, let it dry, and then covered the whole thing in Mod Podge again. 

Step 4. Now for the magnets. The ones I had were smaller, so I used two on each jar. If I just hot glued the magnets straight to the lid, they might not end up being level, which would make the magnetic bond with the fridge weaker, and could even cause the magnets to pull free from the lid. So we got out an old card table and I stuck the magnets to it, put hot glue blobs on those, and actually set the lid (with the jar attached) on top of the magnets. That way, when the glue hardened, the magnets would be perfectly even. Worked like a charm. That wouldn’t be an issue if you had magnets with a nice big radius, though. I reinforced the magnet by putting a ring of hot glue around the edge of the magnet. 

Step 5. Fill the jars up and set them on your fridge to serve you.