Elf Jar Huggers

Before I get to these little jar huggers, I just want to take a minute to wish my gorgeous little girl a happy birthday! One year ago, she made her appearance, and she has not taken a break since. She’s energetic, curious, cheerful, and so, so fun to have around.

So I’ll just drop this craft here before I run around like a chicken with my head cut off making cakes and playing fun games all day (You hold the toy, now I hold the toy, now you hold the toy…Seriously, it’s the best game in the whole world!)

These mischievous little elf huggers are made of fun foam and are the perfect way to jazz up that cookies in a jar treat. I’ve made two different sizes, just in case you were thinking of gifting someone one of these cute little mug cakes in a jar. The small ones are sized for a 4 oz baby food jar, and the large ones are for a round quart jar.

This project does involve painting, so although the craft itself is easy and the hands on time is pretty short, these do take a while because of drying. I would estimate they take about 2 hours from start to finish, simply because you want the paint super dry before you flip them over. They’re easy to mass produce though, so you could theoretically have 5 or 6 done in that time.

Materials

large piece of skin-toned fun foam (or white, if you plan to paint it)
red fun foam
wiggle eyes
red and black sharpies (or red and black paint and a small paintbrush)
white pompom
green, white, and black paint
paintbrush
hot glue and glue gun
velcro dots
ribbon
large elf template OR small elf template

Elf Jar Huggers, Step-by-Step

Start by printing off and cutting out the template. If you are using the large template, I could only fit half the elf on a sheet of paper, so just cut two and tape them together.

Next, trace the elf onto your skin-tone fun foam and cut out your base. You’ll also need to cut out one each of the hat templates in red.

Set the hat pieces aside and get out your painting supplies. I start by painting my elf green. I just eyeballed where I figured his shirt would go, leaving room for stockings, mittens, and boots.

I let this dry enough that it wouldn’t bleed into the next layer, then painted his legs white for stockings. If you are using white fun foam, you can skip this step.

Once the white is dry enough that it doesn’t bleed, I painted the mittens and boots black. If you are using white fun foam and painting it skin colored, go ahead and do the head now.

Now is the part where you go and do other things for a good 30 minutes while one side of your elf dries. Once it’s completely dry, you’re going to flip him over and do the exact same thing on the other side, then let him dry again.

When you’ve got the paint completely dry, you can add the details. I used a red sharpie to make the stripes on the stockings, but you if you have a steady hand, you could easily do that with red paint and a small paintbrush.

Next is to glue on the hats. The side with the rounded bottom goes on the front. Glue the side with the straight across bottom to the back of the hat and press the two hat pieces together. Add the white pompom at the top.

Then we get to is do the face. Begin by placing, then gluing your wiggle eyes. I used a black sharpie to draw in eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, and detail on the ears. Again, you could easily do this with black paint as well.

Now tie a bow from some festive ribbon and glue it to the top of your elf’s shirt.

Last step is to stick your velcro dots on the mittens so that they will overlap when you place the elf around the jar. You can leave the feet free, or use tape to stick them to the jar. (Gotta love my out-of-focus picture!).