Mason Jar Sifting Shakers

Supplies:

• Mason Jars with rings (any size will do!)
• Plastic canvas #10 (10 holes per inch) - fine filter
• Plastic canvas #7 (7 holes per inch) - medium filter
• Marker (I used a fine point Sharpie)
• Scissors
• Winter Snow (coarsely shredded Styrofoam)

Fine Sifting Shaker:

I used a 1/2 pint, regular mouth mason jar & ring for this shaker. You can use whatever size mason jar you have on hand, you just need to size the plastic canvas filter to the opening of the jar. For the filter, I used #10 plastic canvas which has more holes per inch so it will sift out the finer particles.  

Simply place the ring on the canvas (top side down) & trace around the ring with a marker. Cut out the circle following the line on the inside. 

Fill jar with Styrofoam snow & place filter on the jar. Trim off any excess plastic canvas, if needed. Screw on the ring & you now have a handy-dandy sifting shaker!

Medium Sifting Shaker:

Steps are the same as the Fine Sifting Shaker, I just used a pint, wide mouth  mason jar (again, you can use any size jar you like) & #7 plastic canvas which has larger holes, allowing slightly larger particles to sift through the filter.

To be honest, there is not a lot of difference in the size of the snow particles that sifts through the fine & medium canvas filters. The fine filter gives you more control as it shakes out slower than the medium filter. If you only have one type of canvas on hand, I would not go out & buy the other as either one will do an equally good job.

Results:

Beautiful! Look - no chunks, just finely filtered snow.

Once you've filtered out all the fine snow from the sifting jars, you can either grind down the chunky snow or use it on larger projects. To learn more about grinding the snow using a personal blender, see this tutorial.

Give it a try & let me know what you think in the comments below!

Keep on Crafting!

Susan