Holiday Treat Jars

Gingerbread Man Cookie Jar

You can paint just one friendly fellow or a whole brigade to march across your container.

This guard is always on duty.

• Glass jar with glass lid (look in discount or crafts store)
• Newspapers
• Tracing or typing paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Tape
• Disposable foam plate
• Acrylic glass paints in green, white, red, brown, and black
• Paintbrush

1. Download the free pattern for this project. (This requires Adobe Acrobat software.)

2. Trace the pattern onto tracing or typing paper. If necessary, reduce or enlarge the pattern on a copy machine to fit your jar.

3. Clean glassware. Before beginning to paint, wash the glassware and let it dry. Be careful not to touch your fingers on the areas that will be painted (use a towel).

4. Cover your work surface with newspapers.

5. Position pattern. Trim any extra paper away from the traced design. Tape the pattern to the inside of the candy jar.

6. Paint background. On a foam plate, mix a small amount of green paint with white paint to make light mint green. Paint the background shape, going around the shape for the gingerbread man. While the paint is wet, add a few swirls of white paint. Paint the lid with the light mint green paint. Highlight with white. Let the paint dry.

7. Paint the gingerbread man brown. Let the paint dry.

8. Paint in the details of the gingerbread man, the background, and the lid. To mix pink tones, stir a dab of red paint into white without mixing completely. To make dots, dip the handle end of a paintbrush into the desired color of paint and dot on the surface. Let the paint dry.