How To Make Witch Jars
A key element to any Halloween party are decorations and while big and flashy certainly have their places in Halloween decor, it doesn't always equate to better. For an intimate party or even a big swinging bash, the devil really is in the details.
Witch jars are a great idea for a spooky walk-through, especially if your scene contains a kitchen. But simply scattering some of these homemade concoctions throughout your food displays will also be super effective and this way people are certain to see them.
Now, what you'll need:
- Several clear jars, any type, but with lids.
- Labels
- Glue
- Ingredients
- Imagination
We'll help with the first four, but you're on your own for the last one!
Jars
You probably already have lots of these around your house. Glass quart jars are ideal in that the sides are smooth which affords good views of what's inside and the lids are metal and old fashioned looking. Also, if you're looking to buy some, they're fairly cheap. Other jar possibilities are: old glass mayonnaise jars, pickle jars, jelly jars, even old peanut butter jars. Plastic is probably safer, but glass tends to look better. Just be careful where you set them.
Labels
You mainly have three options here; you can use whatever paper you want and write whatever you want them to say yourself, you can stain white computer paper and write on them yourself or design something on your computer and print it off, or you can use parchment paper and write or print something on it.
I like the last option the best for a number of reasons: 1.) I have terrible handwriting 2.) If you stain the paper yourself you almost always have to stain it, wait for it to completely dry, then stick it in your printer and print on it because if you print first and stain second, the ink will run and bleed to where it's almost unrecognizable. 3.) In my humble opinion, parchment paper just looks better.
The first option is pretty self-explanatory.
The second option is pretty time consuming. But if that's what you want to do, far be it from me to change your mind!
Staining paper is actually pretty simple and there are two ways to do it. You can either brew a few cups of coffee or tea or use cold, iced tea. Coffee will give you a darker stain but using cold tea will save you a bit of time. Simply find a dish big enough for your paper to float in, fill it with the coffee or tea and a bit of water, and place your paper in it. You need to swish it around a bit and make sure it gets fully emerged so that the stain will cover the entire surface of the paper. A couple minutes in the liquid should do it--you don't want the paper to disintegrate when you pull it out! Place it on a paper towel to dry and you're done. Now you just have to wait for it to dry.
Once it's ready, you can either write on it yourself or print something from your computer. If you choose to use your printer it goes without saying but I'm going to say it (again) make sure the paper is COMPLETLY dry! Then simply design what you want the labels to look like and print away.
The third option is pretty easy.
Places like Office Max, Office Depot, and craft stores have parchment paper. It's about $4 for a pack of 80 sheets and it comes in different colors like, ivory, gold, copper, gray, and blue. We used copper and we loved the look of it. Just load up your printer and print your design. Couldn't be easier!
Just keep in mind the size of your jars when making your labels; you want to be able to see what's inside. We made ours quite big with lots of info, almost too big!
Glue
The easiest, most mess-free way to glue on your labels is to use a plain white, roll-on glue stick. NOT a hot glue gun glue stick. A regular, old "school-use" glue stick. Just slap some on the back of your label and stick it on the jar.
Ingredients
Before looking for some cool things to put in your jars you need to decided what "kind" of jars you want. What would a witch be likely to have in her cupboards? Do you want really gross and scary things or more silly and funny? When you've gotten an idea as to what kind of things you want to have you can then go looking around your house for ingredients. You'd probably be surprised at what you can find! What ordinary things can turn creepy when given a gross name? This is where the Imagination part comes into play. Let yours run wild and you'll come up with some truly wicked witch jars!
Want to see some of our witch jars? Click here!