DIY Mason Jar Snowman
I have kind of a thing for snowmen…and mason jars. So when I made those cute little mason jar ring pumpkins for Halloween - I knew that I had to take that same idea and make a mason jar snowman! Now that I’ve worked with the rings a few more times - I also figured out a handy little trick to make getting them to stay ring-shaped a little easier.
This is a super quick project (only thing you have to wait for is paint to dry) and would make a wonderful gift for a friend or just an adorable addition to your home’s decor. The project took me about an hour (not including paint dry time.)
Materials Needed
- 27 regular mouth canning rings (24 for the body - 3 for the hat)
- 1 regular mouth lid
- 24 wide mouth canning rings
- 1 wide mouth lid
- 4 pipe cleaners (white or sparkly so they’re hidden)
- 4 ” foam ball
- white spray paint
- red or red glitter spray paint
- chrome or silver spray paint
- 6 small black buttons
- 2 medium black buttons
- stiff orange felt (small piece)
- 2 twigs or sticks (I just found them in my yard)
- yarn or material for scarf
- twine (small piece - for tie on hat)
- small serrated knife
- hot glue gun with glue
Step 1 - Create the Body Parts
To start this project - I tackled the most time consuming part first - the body. I knew that the paint would need time to dry so I wanted to get the parts painted so I could work on the other parts while I waited.
I initially thought I would have to spray paint the rings before I assembled them so that’s what I did for the lids for the bottom of the snowman. But I found it hard to paint them while they were laying down. Also, the paint tended to get roughed up when I was putting the rings into the circular shape for the base.
For the middle portion (and touch ups for the bottom portion) - I put the lids into their circular shape and THEN spray painted them. It worked out much better for the best coverage.
Twine vs Wire
Whether you’re painting your rings before or after - you’ll need to get them into a tight circular shape to form the two “balls” of the snowman we’re building. When I did the project for Halloween and made the mason jar rings into a pumpkin - I used strong twine to shape them into the circle. Keep reading to see my new and improved method for a nice, tight ring…hint - you don’t use twine.
I wasn’t sure at this point how many rings to use. Here’s a shot of my first attempt with too few. Looks kind of sad huh?
So I added more rings and it started to look better. Eventually I settled on 24 rings for each layer for maximum cuteness (although the picture below only shows 21…so I went even fuller after this picture.)
After struggling to pull the twine tight enough - I finally realized it’s nearly impossible to get them nice and tight like you’ll need to make an attractive pumpkin (or snowman ball.) I had some sparkly silver pipe cleaners laying around from a previous project and thought why not? Turns out - it is MUCH easier to get a nice tight circle when you have a wire inside versus a more flexible medium like twine or string.
You can use extra long ones or two twisted together to form a longer one.
But no matter which way you do it - you’ll need to get all of the mason jar rings on your chosen medium all facing the same direction.
The trick to keeping the circle manageable is to tuck just a teeny bit of the ring inside the next ring. You can see in the pic below how the rings are sort of accordion folded together.
And here’s a shot of tucking the last and first rings together right before you tighten the wire down to make your circle.
And here’s the final circle with the wire tightened and twisted down. It’s so cute isn’t it?
Repeat this twice - one for the top and one for the bottom “snowball”. Then paint them!
Step 2 - Assemble Body
Now that you’ve got the two mason jar ring snowballs and your foam sphere ready to go - you’re ready to hot glue them all together. Just be generous with the hot glue on each layer.
You’ll see the scarf in the picture above, but go down to step 5 for further directions on how to create it (or something similar.)
Step 3 - Create the Hat
I wanted to use more mason jar lids to create a hat for the snowman. First, take a regular mouth lid and ring and glue them together.
Next, you’ll take a wide mouth lid and glue a regular mouth ring on top of it (facing the same way you’d use it on a jar.)
Then, glue the third ring on top of this and finish it by gluing the first regular mouth lid/ring combo you glued first on top of that ring. I glued them askew because I thought it looked cute.
I wanted to paint it red, but realized I only had chrome and red glitter so that’s what I went with. First, I painted chrome.
After the chrome dried, I added the red glitter paint. It dried a little bubbly, but again - rustic = charming in this case. I also added a string of twine for a little extra something.
Step 4 - Add Face and Arms
Now that the majority of the snowman was built - I wanted to add the finishing touches - namely arms and a face. I went outside and found two small sticks to use for arms. Then, I raided my button box and found 2 medium black buttons for eyes.
I hot glued the arms and eyes on.
Next, I found 6 tiny black buttons to use as the mouth. I used craft glue to attach these so they wouldn’t be instantly stuck down (so I could move them around a bit to make adjustments.)
Lastly, I used a small triangle of stiff orange felt to make the nose. I simply ran a line of hot glue down one side and rolled the triangle up onto itself.
Apply a little hot glue around the entire nose and attach to the face.
Step 5 - Create Scarf
I also finger knit a quick scarf (here’s a great tutorial - How to Finger Knit) because I had yarn left over from my pom pom garland project. But it would also look great if you used a small piece of fleece or other fabric.
Step 6 - Attach the Hat
At first, I just glued the hat on, but because the head was so round - it stuck up at a slightly odd angle. And it didn’t look very “snowman-like” because real snow has some give. So I detached the hat, and took a serrated knife and sliced a small bit off the head so the hat would sit flatter.
Then, hot glue the hat on! And it’s adorable!