Our family just confirmed our Walt Disney World travel dates for 2013, and we are so excited! The trip is several months away, though, so to help the time pass till we get back “home,” we have Disney crafts planned. The one I’m featuring today is both fun and functional, utilizes found items around the house, and creates a little cushion for the wallet when the trip finally arrives. Our Disney Trip Savings Jar!
Create a Disney Trip Savings Jar
Get the kids involved in this one! Look at the supplies list below. Write each item on a strip of paper and send the kids off on a scavenger hunt to collect them. Have lots of kids? Split them into teams. Have an only? Let him race the clock.
You will need:
- A container – You probably want something transparent, so you can see the money adding up. Maybe recycle a spaghetti sauce jar & cut a slot in the lid, or use an old vase with a narrow neck (don’t want grabby fingers pulling coins back out). We chose a candy/miscellaneous jar we had with a snugly-sealing lid and a chalkboard strip on one side.
- A hot glue gun with refills – If you don’t have one, grab some Scotch tape.
- Decorations – Whatever sparks your creativity! Gather up some ribbon, jingle bells, Disney stickers, buttons, pompoms, chenille sticks, paint, glitter, sculpting clay, dried pasta, pebbles, duct tape, etc.
What to do:
- Be sure you wash your container before beginning your craft. I know that’s common sense, but sometimes kids just want to get going and don’t check first.
- Moving on. If you choose a jar and lid, you may want to hot glue the lid onto the jar so it cannot be opened and the funds “borrowed.” Be sure to cut the coin slot before you glue the lid on! Our jar is openable, but more in that in a minute.
- Get decorating! We chose ribbon with Mickey and Minnie colors. I hot-glued them around the jar’s lid and tied a pretty bow. Then, we strung jingle bells onto a small ribbon, hot-glued them into a Mickey shape, and threaded it through the bow. (Here’s the “more in a minute” part!) This way, IF that jar gets opened, the jingle bells sound an alarm! That way, we can jingle them to celebrate too, whenever we add money to the jar.
- We added some white buttons to the jar lid in a 3-circle Mickey shape and secured a piece of chalk to the front with adhesive Velcro strips, so we can update the amount as the funds grow. My daughter later added some Mickey and friends stickers and additional jingle bells (lots of alarms will sound now, lol!).
- Let your imaginations go wild and personalize your savings jar to suit your family’s Disney passion!
Now that your jar’s ready, empty out your pants pockets and coin pouches, search under sofa cushions and between car seats, raid those piggy banks (ok, let the kids do that themselves!) and clean out the bottom of your purse. Then dump all your loose change—and even surprise dollar bills—into your savings jar. Repeat that process daily, and watch the money add up. Earmark the savings for whatever suits your family’s needs, like paying of the trip or maybe purchasing souvenirs onsite.
Hop over to Couponing to Disney for more saving ideas, like this one I learned from Kristen: if your family was planning to eat out but opts to dine in instead, bank what you would have spent into the Disney Trip Savings Jar.
Jodi Whisenhunt is the author of MAGICAL MOUSE SCHOOLHOUSE: Learn While You Play at Walt Disney World Resort, and operates a blog by the same title. Her book is available for purchase at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and CreateSpace. (Kindle and Nook versions also available.) Come, think outside the textbook and stretch the walls of your home classroom with Walt Disney entertainment!
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I jst have an old plastic jar from Costco cashews . I throw my change in it very night. By the ime the next trip comes, I’ll have a couple of hundred dollars. I call it my WDW slush fund.
That’s great! I bet that thing is heavy when it’s full! Ought to have lots of $$$ in it, though!
We use an empty 5 gallon water jug, the kind from an office water cooler. We painted it up with different Disney stuff and have it by the fridge so we can all easily drop in some spare change.