DIY Painted Glass Jars

Hello! I wanted to show you and teach you how I made these lovely decorations this weekend :)

So this week I ended up finishing off my jar of relish, salsa and taco sauce...(I know, what an uninteresting way to start off my blog, but wait!) As I was cleaning them out to recycle them I noticed how gorgeous some of the shapes and designs were on the jars. So I peeled off the labels, got rid of the sticky glue that was left behind (a whole lot of scrubbing or some goo-gone will work) and then I made sure they were all clean. I thought to myself, if these had a little color to them they would be perfect to decorate the house with! 

So you may be thinking "what on Earth would I do with painted glass jars?", the options are limitless! For example, if you have a side table, shelf or above cabinet space around the house you could easily place the jar (just the jar or add something fun inside of it) to add a pop of color to the room. Place them in bathrooms just for decoration or use them for toothbrush holders, makeup brushes, q-tip holders and so on! Even for those who enjoy giving homemade gifts in jars (whether it be dried herbs from your garden, bath salts, or a ready to make dry ingredient desserts) think of how extra special your jar could turn out! Or if you enjoy decorating for the holidays you can paint them christmas colors, or hand paint a snowman on the outside, any holiday/celebration would work. :)

So I want to show you how I made my very own painted glass jars that I absolutely adore :) I will be placing mine above my kitchen cabinets and also as a centerpiece on my dining room table.

First, before driving to the nearest craft store to spend money on the glass jars there, try and clean out your fridge..If you have old, expired food you can easily use those jars. Or if you can be patient wait until you run out of whatever it might be in the jar (my sister who did this project with me wanted this jar her jalepenos were in she transferred them into a Tupperwear container, ha!). You can also use canned food jars in the pantry! Now tear off those labels and clean them, thoroughly. 

Alright, so once you obtain all of the glass jars and make sure they're clean you can get your paint. I went to Wal-Mart and picked up the multi-purpose acrylic paint. They were on sale for 50 Cents a bottle! I like using acrylic paint because there it's basically free of any smell (I am SO sensitive when it comes to fumes, or anything overwhelmingly scented) so you won't have to worry about painting outside or anything. These are the kind of paint I picked up:

However, an important note. If you plan on using these glass jars for items on a daily use or roughly handling them the paint can peel off, so be careful!! 

Now let the painting begin :) 

The acrylic paint I bought was pretty thick, so if you buy other paint and it's thin I wouldn't recommend adding water. I just poured a bunch of paint into the jar and added just a Little bit of water (maybe a teaspoon) and then I carefully used a paint brush to mix the paint and water together. 

Once the paint was thin enough to move easily I used the brush to guide the paint down the walls of the jar and twirled it in circles to get everything evenly covered. (I actually used the paintbrush quite a bit) 

Also, when using a paintbrush it will leave brush marks and it will be very noticeable in the light, so add more paint or just don't hold it up to the light ;) 

Or you can also get creative like this:

I turned it upside-down once I was all done and let the paint pour out completely. Like this:

I just did solid colors to play it safe! Then I painted the outside with a little white, just to spice it up. The plus side of this is it's VERY forgiving. So if you paint the inside/outside and absolutely hate it, then rinse it off with water and then you'll be back to a clear jar! 

These are the solid colors:

These are the more creative ones, we decided to wrap twine around some to give a more rustic look:

So recycle those old jars and start painting! Overall the paint was 50 Cents a bottle and the fake daisies were 97 cents a bundle. Talk about a fun and cheap diy project :)

Have fun!!

Feel free to ask questions :)