Painting Mason Jars

Hey there! A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to be featured on the amazing blog: Tatertots and Jello!

In case you missed my post over there, I wanted to be sure to share it with you here, as it’s such a cute and easy project…
painting mason jars!

I love all the mason jars I’m seeing everywhere in catalogs and blogland.  I especially adore the old vintage blue jars I’ve seen used for candles or flowers or anything for that matter.  Instead of searching thrift stores {not my children’s favorite pastime……..yet} I decided to make my own.  And it turned out to be super easy!

First I did a Freecycle post looking for free mason jars {do you freecycle? it’s like craigslist but all items are free}  I ended up with several dozen! Most of them are just spaghetti sauce jars, but when spruced up, they can fool you into thinking they are from an old vintage kitchen.

I picked up this glass paint from Michael’s….Vitrea 160, in turquoise.  I also grabbed some thinner from the Vitrea 160 collection. 

I gathered my materials: clean mason jars, paint brush {which I decided later was not the best way to apply the paint}, bowls to mix paint.

First I thought I’d try diluting the paint with regular ‘ol paint thinner. Made sense to me at first…

but you’ll see on the right {above} the turquoise just beaded up when mixed with regular paint thinner.  So then I mixed it with the Vitrea thinner and it worked much better {tray on the left}.  I started with about a 50/50 solution of paint to thinner and later realized that I only need a TINY amount of the turquoise to achieve the faint blue color I was hoping for.

I started off by brushing the paint on.  I used a large brush, hoping to have as few brush strokes as possible.

Both of the jars above were done with a paint brush. The first was a 50/50 ratio or paint to thinner.  The second was about 30/70 paint to thinner.  {Noticed I used the least attractive of my jars: labeled pumpkin soup, for my guinea pigs!}

Then I switched to a rag for the paint application:

I liked the rag MUCH better.  I got a smoother finish and less of that brush stroke look. Also I thinned the paint much more by this point.  I was using probably 20% paint and 80% thinner.

Above are the next two jars that were done with the rag instead of a brush and with a ratio of around 20/80 paint to thinner.

Here’s all 4 jars lined up for you to compare.  The far left is 50/50 paint to thinner and brushed on.  Next is 30/70 paint to thinner and also brushed on.  The last two on the right are both 20/80 paint to thinner and applied with a rag.

You’ll notice you can still kinda see some strokes of paint {even with the rag} and also places where the paint is thicker than other places…but when you bake the color on and fill them with water and flowers, that all fades.

Once I had my technique mastered, I did a few more.

Ok, so next step is to bake the jars in the oven. This step locks the color in, makes them dishwasher safe and gets rid of that tacky/sticky feeling they have.  First let them dry for 24 hours. Then bake the jars in a 325^o oven for 40 minutes.

And then I thought I’d accessorize them just a tad by adding some wire around the neck and as a handle.  I bought this steel wire from Home Depot. It bends pretty easily, but the next thinner gauge would have worked well too.

I just wrapped it around the jar and cut. I crimped down the ends with my wire cutters.

Then I eye-balled how long I wanted the handle, added a bit more for twisting it on and cut.

 

And there you go! “Vintage” blue mason jars!

I just love how the color came out. So faint and refreshing…...just beach-y!              

 Thanks a million to Jen for featuring me on her amazing blog Tatertots and Jello!