Thanksgiving Craft: A Glass “Thanks Jar”: a house log

Updated 2019

With Thanksgiving around the corner, we thought it would be pleasant to adapt Sherry’s daily gratitude journal habit for a lively holiday craft for the whole family. Rather than keep the things we are thankful for stuck in our heads or on the page of a journal, what if we put the practice on display during the month of November? Who knows, perhaps it will even inspire more gratitude!

Craft Supplies To Create Your Own “Thanks Jar”

We got this idea after scoring this excellent 99-cent apothecary jar from the thrift store (it was originally $1.99 but we scored it during a 50% off glassware sale). But you can use any glass vessel you choose, even a regular drinking glass or flower vase!

• Small glass jar
• Glass etching cream
• Small paintbrush
• Craft knife
• Printer and printer paper
• Painter’s tape
• Colorful cardstock cut small sufficient to fit in the jar

Obviously you can also create a Thanksgiving “Thanks Jar” without etching your glass vessel, but we have been itching to try a glass etching craft ever since seeing this one on How About Orange.

Step 1: Design & Print Your Stencil

We ever-so-creatively (kidding) chose that we hoped to etch the word “thanks” on the base of our jar. So we used our computer to print it out on paper in a plain, blocky font (Helvetica) that was sized perfectly to our jar. You can create this in any word processing software (even a draft email!) simply be sure to keep the design plain and stencil friendly.

Step 2: Tape Your Stencil Over Painter’s Tape

Since we truly need to stick our stencil tight to the glass, we first had to transfer the design from paper to painter’s tape. So we taped a thick section of green painter’s tape to a cutting board and then scot taped our “thanks” print out over it. I promise this will make more sense in a moment.

Step 3: Cut Out Your Stencil

With everything taped down, we used an Exacto knife to cut out our letters one by one. Be sure to go deep sufficient to cut through the painter’s tape too. We chose not to be picky about preserving the hole in the “a.” But we did crack up when Sherry said “I do not think we need to save the a-hole.” I know, we are like fifth graders over here.

Step 4: Apply Your Tape Stencil To Your Glass

With the “stencil” cut, we then disposed of the paper print-out guide and slowly peeled the painter’s tape from the cutting board, being careful not to rip the tape or let it stick to itself. Once it was safely off the cutting board, we stuck it right onto the glass jar. Ta-dah! Tape stencil mission complete.

The hump in the “h” got a little wonky, but other than that we were pleasantly surprised by how well our makeshift stencil was holding up. And with a couple more strips of tape on the sides (simply to be safe) we were ready to apply the etching cream without having to worry about getting it in the wrong places.

Step 5: Brush On Your Glass Etch Cream

We picked up this Armour Etch cream for $6.50 at Michael’s (thanks to a 50% off coupon) and broke out this compact paintbrush to apply it over each of the cut-out letters. The painter’s tape does the job of not letting it seep behind the letters.

Step 6: Wait!

The instructions made it unclear how long we should keep the cream on (since that depend son your “stencil” material). But since our tape was not as durable as a vinyl stencil might be, we kept a close eye on the backside of the tape through the glass. We noticed after about 90 seconds that the edges of the tape were not looking as crisp as they had been (the etching cream was likely slowly degrading the tape). But the longer you leave it on, the deeper your etch will be.

Step 6: Rinse Off Cream & Remove Stencil

After letting the cream work its magic for about 1.5 minutes, we washed it off in the sink and took out our tape stencil. We had a compact smidge of bleeding between the “k” and “s” but otherwise it worked out beautifully!

Step 7: Starting Filling Your Jar With Gratitude!

Sherry cut out several small notecard from Fall-colored scrapbooking paper from Michael’s. Our goal is to write one per day all month long so by November 30th we will have accumulated sixty notes of gratitude. Oh, and we have a no peeking policy so we will not know what each other has written until the end of the month! That should be a lively little family reveal.

“Thanks Jar” Update

Want to see what we ended up writing? Here is are the results of our inaugural “Thanks Jar” Thanksgiving tradition.

BONUS: Save Your “Thanks Jar” Notes

We are also thinking at the end of the month we will punch holes in the cards so we can store the collection on a ribbon or a binder ring. That way when we break out our “thanks jar” next year we can relive all of the things that we were grateful for in 2010 and create another collection of things we are thankful for that year.

Who knows, it could become a strong little family tradition with Clara and future child(s) adding their thanks to the pile when they are older. And we enjoy that we will have a yearly account of everything that we are grateful for. Kind of like a diary, but less high maintenance since we only have to scribble one small thing down each day for a month.

Update: Our Continued Thanksgiving Tradition

We did end up keeping this tradition for several years and even blogged about it several other times, along with other Thanksgiving crafts and traditions we undertook. Check them out here:

• A free Thanksgiving printable to mail messages of gratitude to friends & family
• Creating A Thanksgiving gratitude chalkboard display
• Our daughter’s first year writing Thanks Jar messages

Do you folks have any lively Thanksgiving traditions? Any glass etching stories of success or horror? An acute attraction to printed scrapbooking paper like my wife? She cannot be the only one who geeks out in the paper aisle.

Update: You can check out all of our go-to holiday decor finds here – many of which are under $15!