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Friday

Painting Glass Jars



Last month my parents gave me a whole box of empty baby food jars.
I know...it's sounds a bit strange to receive baby food jars from my retired parents.
No, silly...they still have all their teeth!  Haha!
  (My mom is going to love that one!)

Let me explain:  my folks are foster parents.
(They have more energy than you can imagine!)
For the past few months they've had a baby to take care of...
so I received about 30 cute little empty baby food jars.
(It's been quite awhile since I've had baby food jars in my house!)

I wanted to add some turquoise color to my Mother's Day table
and immediately thought I should paint the jars to match.
I had seen lots of painting jars on the internet, so I knew it wouldn't be hard...right?
You just add paint, swirl it around, let it dry and ta-da!
{Let's just say that I had a lot of learning to do!}

 
At least I got the first part right...Clean the jars!
I scrubbed off the glue from the labels with GooGone.  This stuff works miracles!
I washed and dried the jars.
Next, I poured some craft paint in each jar and
swirled it around to cover the entire inside of the jar.  'My this was easy!'*

(*Please read to the bottom of the post for the correct instructions!)

I then placed the jars upside down to dry on some sheets of newspaper.
5 days went by and they were still not dry!
Seattle had beautiful warm weather, and the jars would NOT dry!
2 days later, it's Mother's Day, and I needed these jars for my table!  What's a girl supposed to do?

 
Use them anyways!  Of course!
I filled them with water* (don't do this!),
added some cute flowers and tied them up with some ribbon.
I put one at each place setting.
Adorable, right?  (Well...my mom thought so!)

They did add some great color to my table,
and everyone thought they were cute...

However,
the paint in the jar started bubbling, peeling off
and making very unusual designs inside the jars.

This wasn't the look I was going for!


Take a look at the messy lip of the jar.

The longer the jars sat there, the more the paint played games!
It even started coming off in spots!
A few days after Mother's Day, Jennifer at Delightfully Noted
posted her painted vase.
(Ohhh, if only I had seen her tips, first!)

  *Click here to see her directions using ModPodge, WATER! and DROPS of paint!
{My, that would have come in handy.} 

She also mentions to rotate the jars as they dry and wipe off the lip everytime. 
One other important piece of information...do NOT put water in them!!
I guess these painted jars are for fake flowers?!

Now...how am I going to clean up the mess I made?





For more Mother's Day--'turquoise fun':

A Ruffle Cake!








A Gumball Wreath









A Love Tree for Mom





4 comments :

  1. Even though they messed up later, they are beautiful in the photos!

    ReplyDelete
  2. how much do i love that you published an entire blog post about your "failure." i love watching how God uses your creative gifts even the "unperfect!"

    ReplyDelete
  3. The whole context of the article speaks accurately and deliberately.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You can probably bake them for a half hour and the paint will not come off.

    ReplyDelete