Ice Cream Social Centerpieces

For our recent ward Ice Cream Social, I made simple and fun centerpieces using canning jars, Styrofoam balls, wooden skewers, and plastic spoons. I got the idea from a cute centerpiece I found in a "Parents" magazine a few years ago, but adapted it to fit the theme of the party and what I had on hand. Please ignore my mess in the background...these aren't the most tidy project, but they were worth it!

First I grabbed some small canning jars...the pint size, not the jelly size...and stuck a 3 inch Stryofoam ball in each one. It took a little pressure to get them in there, but not much.


Then I took some shredded paper (I bought mine pre-shredded at the craft store, but you could grab your handy paper shredder and make your own just as easily) and stuffed it down around the ball. I tried to keep the ball towards the center of the bottom of the jar. Using the flat end of one of my wooden skewers to tuck the paper around the ball worked really well. I wanted to hide the styrofoam the best I could, so I used white paper.


Once the ball was hidden I took some more paper and tucked it on top, filling the jar most of the way.



To make the jar a little more decorative, I tied a piece of ribbon around the rim. I cut a piece of ribbon long enough to go around the rim and tie a bow. I think they ended up being around 10-12 inches long. Then I placed a glue dot on the back of the rim of the jar and attached the center of the ribbon to the glue dot. I wrapped the ribbon around and made a little bow in the front. I used two different types of ribbon. Both were from American Crafts.

One was white multi dot:



And the other was yellow:


After I tied a bow around each jar, I got busy painting my wooden skewers. You could use dowels or heavy wire or something like that. I just used bamboo cooking skewers that I found at the grocery store. They were about 12 inches long and a little thicker than the shorter lengthed skewers. I painted the skewers yellow, pink or green with regular craft paint and trimmed about an inch off the sticks I was planning use in the smaller jars. After they dried I used hot glue to attach white plastic spoons to each skewer. I glued some spoons pointing up and a few pointing down (that took a little more patience). I apologize for the lack of pictures of this process...if you have questions, please let me know, but it is pretty basic. One thing I would have done differently is use a foam brush instead of a regular paint brush. That would have made the process go a little more smoothly.

Once my spoons and skewers were prepared, I stuck 3 in each of my small jars, using the sharp end of the skewer to anchor the spoon and stick into the ball. I did make 2 larger jars and used 5 spoons in each of those...I think I liked the look of the 3 spoons in the smaller jars a little better, though. Then I fluffed up the paper a little and added a little more paper just to fill in any empty head room in the jar. Here is what they looked like when finished: