Pasta Jar Lanterns

I love the look of Moroccan lanterns, but I have yet to find any in my price range and they aren’t really the sort of thing you see at a yard sale in Nebraska. When I saw these lanterns on DesignSponge I envisioned a backyard filled with them!I had plenty of jars on hand (yay, recycling!) and I decided to try some different paints. I picked gold and black puffy paint and I also got some liquid leading. For the glass tint I used stuff I had from a kit in iridescent purple, PermEnamel in rooster red, and PermEnamel Shimmers in blue ice. My tips for this project are:

• Be generous with the puffy paint, the jars that have a thick coat of paint look the best.
• You can use a sharpie to evenly divide your jar and make guide lines to follow (any mistakes or lines that show can be cleaned up with rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip).
• Use a sponge brush to apply the glass paint on the inside of the jars and don’t use too much, it will run and look bad (see the blue jar).
• If the color on the inside isn’t dark enough or is uneven another coat of glass paint will help.
• any brand names embossed in the glass can be easily hidden with the puffy, plan your pattern accordingly.

I am very pleased with the results, I like the pattern of the gold jar the best and the blue glaze the best. I was not really impressed with the liquid leading (I do still like the jar), it was hard to squeeze out of the bottle and it is a gray color when dry.
This was the test, seriously I want a large collection of these for my back yard. I have a large selection of different sized jars and now I need to get some more of the shimmers glass paint and some sponge brushes. I am anxious to see if the paint will peel off the jars after being out in the elements.
I’m curious, do you use candles outside a lot or is it more of something that is just for show? What kind of out door decorations do you have in your yards?