Make Something Monday : Birthday Party Favors

I'm glad I decided to save the plethora of baby food jars we have accumulated over the past few months. They came in handy when I wanted an original, homemade party favor for the babe's birthday party this month.

As you may recall from the last Make Something Monday post, the party theme is giraffes and the colors are a variety of bright primary colors. I had the *brilliant* idea of filling the empty baby food jars with yellow and brown candy to represent a giraffe. Lucky for me, our local HEB sells bulk Jelly Belly's in every color of the rainbow! I hope our guests like Root Beer and Banana!  :)

The first step was probably the most time consuming. I used Goo-Be-Gone (an AMAZING product that my dad first introduced to me years ago!!) to semi-easily remove the sticky residue left on the jars from the baby food labels.

Next, I spray painted the lids a bright blue - to match most of the party accessories. 

One thing I learned the hard way during this step was that spray paint doesn't exactly dry when you live in South Texas and have 100% humidity outside! So, a few of my lids have nice big bubbles on top (Warren says they have "character"), and the other lids I brought inside to paint. Don't worry- I did it in the guest room and didn't let the baby inhale the fumes.

I used the giraffe image from the banner and created little round tags that read "Thanks for coming".  Thank goodness for the circle cutter I finally gave in and bought! I used ribbon to attach some of the tags to the jars and tape to stick them on the lids of others - I couldn't decide which ones I liked better.

Next, I filled the jars with the yellow and brown Jelly Belly's (more yellow than brown, to look more giraffe-like). And ta-da! Super easy, super cheap birthday party favors!

I can't wait to see what they look like at the party- all in a row on the table with the other giraffe paraphernalia! You'll have to check back in a few weeks to see the finished party!

P.S. I think I'm gonna use this idea for other holidays - I'm envisioning candy corn for Halloween and red and green M&M's for Christmas!


I'm linking up to the following parties: