It's Gettin' Crafty Up In Here!

Well, my friend Alison has been harassing me (okay, okay...encouraging!) to get to blogging more since apparently she likes to read while she sips coffee. Clearly the girl has great taste. Well, that or nothing else to read in the morning. Whatever the case may be, I decided I'd let you all in on a 'lil bit of my craftiness as of late. When I say craftiness, I really mean that I have literally NO crafty ability, so anything I do better be quick and easy and require little more skill than a monkey could muster.

Enter, Pinterest.

I, like everyone on the planet, am addicted to Pinterest. I pin stuff that I like the look of, that I dream of owning or doing, or crafts that I have some modicum of ability of even tackling at a later date. The painted/coloured Mason jars were just that project.

I have a bazillion jars lying around because my mother in law is the Queen of homemade jams and pickles and salsas and well, anything  you can preserve in a jar. They were all just sitting in my cupboard (this is AFTER I've returned a box full!) taking up space so I figured, why not make use of them?

I saw a few different versions of tinted Mason jars, running the gamut from acrylic paint and baking them in the oven to the more simple white school glue and food colouring. Hmmm. I'll let you figure out which I chose. It was also important to me that I be able to actually put flowers IN the jars, so the painting of the inside wouldn't really work.

This is so simple to do, and I'm REALLY pleased with the results. Martha Stewart had them all together on a nice tray with flowers in each jar, but I'm not Martha so mine are currently just sitting on my mantel. I'll get to flowers later on! One step at a time for Tracey-kind here folks!

You literally put some white school glue in a receptacle (I used a plastic cup) with a splash of water, and mix whatever food colouring you'd like to a tint you find snazzy. I used about 2 tbsp glue to 1 tsp water,  and 3 hits of blue colouring with one of green. I'm guesstimating the glue and water because (and this is also why I don't generally bake very often) I'm just not a measuring sort of gal.

I mixed it together and got to painting the outside of the jars. I let each coat slightly dry and did 3 coats per jar. I then let them dry completely over night. Don't freak out (like I did) that they look streaky while they are drying. As they get completely dry, the streaks go away and the surface is smooth. It's not sticky or tacky at all. Magic!

This is my fancy schmancy set up for painting the jars. I know-I'm all professional with the kids paint brush and the flyer drop cloth. Don't hate.

Here they are all done and sitting up on my mantel! The colour looks more green in this pic (these are off my phone so...you know....) but they are actually a shade more blue. Let's say an aquamarine colour, tut tut.

And finally, on my mantel. I know I'm horrendous with a photo. I generally leave picture taking to my husband but I was emailing every one I know pics of my completed project because I was THAT excited by my cool new funky jars. It's the little things, clearly.

We had also just painted our mantel and that surround piece in white from an orangey wood yuck, and painted out the brass of the fireplace to that black colour you see peeking out in the photo.

Voila! This was literally the easiest project to do and despite my awful picture taking skills, turned out better than I imagined! I really like the beachy look of them as that is pretty much the theme of my home, in general.

I have more crafty ideas on the horizon and I am overjoyed to be able to share them with you in future, if only to convince you to give things a try, even if you have little to no skills, like me.

There ya go, Alison! Happy now? :)