I think almost all of us missed the end of the school year festivities because of the pandemic and, if you’re like me, you would have loved to thank the person who had literally filled your child’s head with amazing knowledge for the previous seven months. It has to be something easy. It has to be affordable – especially if there is more than one teacher. It has to be pretty quick. Maybe even something you can do with your kids.

How about making one of these super cute and simple crayon- or pencil-covered jars? Boom. A great summertime activity that can be shared when we all get together again!

Crayon Jars

Materials

1 jar with smooth, vertical sides (I found mine at the Dollar Tree)

Approx. 40 crayons or 32 pencils for each jar

Glue (I recommend a quick dry glue that dries clear)

Rubber band or washi tape

Coordinating ribbon, bows and/or flowers

Instructions

1. Clean the outside of the jar with alcohol.
2. Spread a thin layer of glue on one side at a time. (FYI – you
   can use hot glue, but the crayons melt and they tend to pop off the glass pretty easily.) If your jar is round, spread enough glue to place 8-10 crayons or pencils. 
3. Place crayons or pencils on the glue and adjust to make sure they are relatively level at the bottom. They should also be side by side with no gaps. I try to face the labels the same way, too.
4. Complete two sides or about half of the jar this way, then secure with a rubber band or washi tape (won’t stick to the paper crayon label) to dry.
5. After it dries, remove the band/tape, cover the remaining sides the same way with crayons or pencils, secure again with a rubber band or washi tape, and allow to dry.
6. Wrap a piece of ribbon around the circumference of the jar and cut to length.  Hot glue in place.
7. Add a silk flower, ribbon, bow, wooden cutout, or whatever embellishment you like.
8. Fill with more crayons, pencils, candy, silk flowers, paper clips, scissors, etc. I was also able to use a round crayon-covered jar as a holder for a big bottle of hand sanitizer to sit on the teacher’s desk. The yellow pencil jars on a taller glass vase – small sunflowers look amazing in this one!

These are really cute using random colors of crayons, but I also like to sort them and do team colors or school colors. Colors for holidays are super cute, too – think black and orange for Halloween or green and red for Christmas.