Halloween - Spooky Specimen Jars!

Time to get ready for Halloween!

Believe it or not, I am NOT making costumes this year! Lucky for me my father bought the girls their Halloween costumes. A bumblebee and a ladybug. I told my husband he could be a flower (NOT going to happen) and I would be an exterminator. HA!

Anyways! I had been saving some glass jars for a project that never happened (mad scientest party turned Pokemon party) and decided to put them to use. Spooky specimen jars for Halloween!

Top row - spiders, giant flies, mice

Bottom row - cockroaches, skull, eyeballs, giant spider, snakes

As you can see some of the jars came out better than others! The cockroaches (first jar on the left) started out GREAT - they were  floating around in the jars at different depths but then they all kind of clumped together and sunk. The giant flies and mice did the opposite - instead of sinking they floated to the top. I spent a great deal of time (WAY too much time!) trying to troubleshoot and figure out how to fix the problem. In the end I just gave up. Seriously, my kids aren't gonna care. If anything they'll shake the jars to see the critters better! 

And while I think the Halloween fabric and ribbons on the the lids are a little too cutesy my kids insisted. And since this little project is really for them I had to oblige. :)

Here's a close up some of the jars:

Spiders, skull & eyeballs!

Cockroaches & giant flies - BOMB!

It's hard to see the spider in the first jar but it is AWESOME!
Spider, snakes & mice!

I would've loved to have found some fake body parts - fingers, toes, ear, etc. as well as a frog, brain, giant cockroach (I know I've seen them somewhere!) worms, and whatever else!

Wanna know how I did it? I found an easy tutorial over at Mom Moments. Her jars turned out so colorful! But I have to tell you, nothing helped me make the critters float better except for cramming them in the smallest jar possible. I also tried adding cooking oil (as suggested) to get a cooler effect and that bombed. I also found that the clear liquid hand soap (Softsoap brand) worked better than shampoo....that's what I'll use next time.

By the way.....fabric lovers....did you notice the green fabric in the background? Well...I'll tell you this now so  you can go out and find some before Halloween has come and gone.....the fabric is GLOW-IN-THE-DARK! My kids tested it out and their response was, "SOOOOOO COOOOOOL!" I actually got three different glow-in-the-dark fabrics:

With Halloween less than a week away I need to make something with them soon! My plan (keyword - "plan") is to use the FREE circle skirt tutorial over at "MADE." Can't wait to try it out especially since I was eyeballing similar skirts in the stores (and refuse to pay that much for them!)

*eyeballing - I swear...it was purely a coincidence that I used that word! HA!

Happy early Halloween! Now off to make the spider Tootsie Pops for Kailani's class......

Last year's lollipops....gotta make a bunch more this year!

Need some more Halloween ideas? Check out ABC & 123's Show & tell Blog Hop!