Reindeer Mason Jar Christmas Lantern

We have a quick cheeky post for you today – actually, this was sent in my a lovely reader Kathy F., who enjoyed making our Halloween Tissue Paper Lanterns SO MUCH, that they had to give these lantern jars another go at Christmas… and voila.. we they made some adorable Reindeer Mason Jar Christmas Lanterns/ Treat Jars!

These are an ideal Christmas Preschool Craft for Reindeer Craft Fans! But of course, kids of all ages, including adults can have lots of fun making these!

How to “use” your Reindeer Christmas Mason Jars:

These are super cute and fun to make, but also have several “uses”:

• Use them as simple decorative pieces on the Christmas table
• Fill with treats and small gifts and use them as a gift jar (would be great as part a Secret Santa gift wrap)
• Add a tea light and use them as Christmas lanterns

What age group as these Christmas Lanterns for?

Any age of course!!! Teehee. But I do feel toddlers and preschoolers will especially benefit from making this cute craft:

• Easy and cute (!)
• Great for fine motor skills – not only when adding your features to your mason jar, but also when either cutting your tissue paper (scissor handling skills) or tearing the tissue paper (finger strengthing skills)
• Seasonal activities are always a wonderful way to include young children in holidays and traditions

To make a reindeer mason jar lantern for Christmas, you will need:

• Mason jars/ jam jars (washed and dried – learn how to remove labels from glass here)
• Brown tissue paper (or other suitable reindeer fur color)
• A little pva glue/ white glue water down
• An old paint brush to apply the glue
• Brown pipe cleaners for reindeer antlers
• Red pom poms (optional)
• Googly eyes (optional – you can also cut out paper eyes)
• Other embellishments, such as red or brown ribbons, paper for additional details such as bow ties, smiley faces etc
• A dose of GOOD FUN and HUMOUR!
• optional: LED tealight or regular tea light

How to make your reindeer lanterns for Christmas

We have out super handy Halloween Tissue Paper Lantern video for you – but will also write out the step by step instructions! Please do give them a read too as I give you some additional handy tips!

Step by step Instructions for making reindeer mason jars:

Prepare and clean the mason jam jars

Start off by removing all labels from your jars. As you will be decorating them, it isn’t terrible if you have some glue marks left on them. However, they bother you, you can remove the glue from glass with this method.

Prepare your tissue paper

As you can probably tell from Kathy F’s finished reindeer jars, you can make these reindeer lanterns in different ways. You can, like with our Halloween Lantern Jars, cut or tear your tissue paper in squares to then apply in layers. Or you can use a larger sheet, so that the glue doesn’t make your tissue paper transparent. More on that in a moment.

Prepare the White Glue

Take your white glue/ mod podge/ pva glue and add a little water to make it runnier. Not too much!

Start adding your tissue paper to the jar

Now, some tissue paper will go a little transparent when you glue it down. I actually quite like this effect, but it does mean, that you have to add more layers, to get the colour to show. Alternatively, you can add a lot of glue to your first later of pieces of tissue paper and then not soak your tissue paper quite as much with subsequent layers. I would probably add 3-4 layers of tissue paper if using this method.

OR: you can go old school and make your self some paper mache glue paste from flour and water. This will be a little less transparent and actually would work really well with your brown tissue paper color.

You can see that Kathy F’s friends simply added a whole sheet if tissue paper to some of their jars at the end.

Simply use your brush, to add glue to the jar and then place each piece of tissue paper on top. Use the brush to flatten in down and add your next piece of tissue paper!

Decorate your mason jar rudolphs

Now it is time to have fun with your decorating! Grab pipecleaners, googly eyes, pom poms and pretty Christmas ribbons and turn the brown mason jar, into a happy reindeer mason jar! Glue everything in place.

And voila.. you have yourself a fun and festive Christmas Lantern or Reindeer Treat Jar! If you are adding real candles to this jar, just make sure your pipecleaner antlers are pointing away from the centre of the jar and keep them fire safe!

Don’t they make an adorable Christmas decoration? So fun!!! Fancy some more adorable Reindeer Crafts for Preschoolers? Check these out:

Check out the rest of the Christmas Preschool Craft collection: