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?

Mini Pin Cushion Jars

Eight years ago I was working at the Holiday Inn in Memphis, Tennessee. I delivered room service during the week and bartended on the weekends. Everyone who ordered a sandwich for room service got a tiny little jar of mayo, a tiny little jar of mustard, and a mini jar of ketchup. I loved those tiny little jars and I would often rinse them out and bring them home. They were stored in boxes and hauled to several new apartments, back here to Nebraska, a few more houses, a storage unit, and then to our new house where they we promptly stored in the basement with everything else. I brought a box of them up this weekend, one of the treasures found while cleaning.
A milk jug cap was the perfect size for a pin cushion for the lid, I have attached it permanently to the metal lid with a brad.The pin cushion will, of course, be embellished more (rick rack!!!) and the metal lid will be painted. This color combo reminds me of cotton candy, which then makes me think of the circus, so I will be painting “big top” stripes on the lid. (Yes, that is exactly how my brain works!)
Fill the jar with buttons, safety pins, and thread card, add some more pins and a needle to the pin cushion and it’s a mini sewing kit, wouldn’t it make a great gift?
I have a lot of these little jars, anyone have any ideas on what else I can do with them?

Figure It Out Friday…

…Or what the heck should I do with these. 

I’m taking the day off crafting today because of a silly crafty mishap.  Wednesday I poked my finger with a pin, we’ve all done it, it hurts, there’s usually a little cussing, a little blood, and we get over it, but not this time.  All that pop tab crochet has aggravated it and that little poke is now infected and very tender.  Don’t worry I’ve soaked it in hydrogen peroxide and now it’s covered in antibiotic ointment and a Yoda band-aid and I’m sure it will be all better soon, so in the meantime I’m back to cleaning and unearthing crafting treasures from my basement.

Years ago (like six or seven) I worked at the Holiday Inn delivering room service.  In room service everything is little and fancy (and overpriced): tiny little salt and pepper shakers, miniture bottles of soda, and a itty bitty jars of mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise.  Little glass jars, with metal lids and I couldn’t just throw them out.  I have at least 100 of these little jars (probably a lot more), 1.2 oz., metal lids, glass, and about 2 inches tall.  They’re so cute and smaller than baby food jars (I have some of those too).What should I do with them?  I don’t want to use them to hold supplies, I want to make something with them.  Originally I saved them to put single use/sample sized bath salt in, but I haven’t really made any bath products and probably never will and if I did I don’t think I really need 100 little jars of bath salt, so lets hear your creative ideas.

Have a crafty weekend and I’ll see you all next week!