Summer Souvenirs

What You Need:

• Empty glass jar
• Souvenirs collected from a vacation such as: sand, shells, rocks, stickers, postcards, stamps, coins, ticket stubs, small representations of places visited such as a toy Statue of Liberty, etc.
• Hot glue gun
• Paper and pencil
• Scissors
• Label sticker (optional)

What You Do:

1. During your next family vacation, have your child collect the souvenirs described above. Tell them they will create a “Glass Bottle Vacation Memento” to help remember the  fun trip.
2. After your travels, have you child decide which mementos they want to arrange as an artistic display inside the empty glass jar. Postcards and photographs will probably be too large, but they can use scissors to cut out important parts so they can then include them in the display.
3. Your child may have some items that she wants to glue to the back inside of the jar, such as pictures, stamps or ticket stubs, which they can do using a hot glue gun (with a parent’s help).
4. Some items can be displayed at the bottom inside of the jar, such as sand, rocks, shells, toy representations, or coins.
5. When your child has finished creating their artistic display, they can use a small 3" x 3" piece of paper and a pencil to write a memory of her trip. This will be the “message in the bottle,” and can be folded up into a tiny size to go inside the bottle.
6. Your child may want to use a plain white sticker label on the outside of the jar (but not covering the pretty display) to write the name of the place they visited and the date of the trip. Now they'll be able to enjoy their vacation memories for years to come!