So I have been harassed by multiple people in the last week about my lack of blogging. The hiatus was not on purpose, was not planned and is officially ending. To those few who really missed the blog posts, I’m back!
I actually have a plethora of items to share with you and now that life is a wee less crazy and there’s this lovely amount of vacation looming on the horizon, I think I can honestly say you’ll be seeing quite a few blog posts come up by the end of the month. And perhaps one will be a giveaway since I was intending on doing one a few weeks ago and we all know what happened there.
Fail.
However, let’s move forward and not dwell on the past 5 weeks of no blogging. I thought it would be ideal to bring you a relevant Holiday season post, this one being in the craft genre.
Are you into decorating for the holidays? Or are you into crafting things that you could, in theory, buy at the store for a high price and instead you’ll be making for CHEAP? Or perhaps you’re that guy still trying to figure out what the heck to give/make for a female in your life? Any of these things and many others leads us to this…stained mason jars.
Now, if you’re anything like me (though your intelligence may far exceed mine), you may not have known mason jars could be easily stained different colors. I had no clue and was extremely curious when I saw a pin on pinterest describing this particular craft. And as usually happens when I’m extremely curious about a craft, I decide to do it.
The Six Sisters blog is where I found this version (there are many versions out there on pinterest and on different blogs):
And my attempts did end up turning out very cool. I’m excited to share just how simple this craft is with you. With the current festive Holiday season upon us, these could be great in shades of red and green and could be perfect decor for your house, used to hold a Christmas gift (non-edible as we’re dyeing the inside of the jar) or even lined up out in the snow with candles inside to assist in your Christmas light display. The finished jars look neat and vintage, something a pricey store could persuade customers to buy when in reality, you could craft up a batch yourself.
If that doesn’t persuade you to give this a try then I’m just plain out of arguments.
So just decide to do this one. Agreed? Excellent.
Materials:
- Mason jar/s in any size you want
- Mod Podge
- Food coloring
- Paper plate (square shaped if you have it)
- Spoon
- Wax paper or parchment paper
- Baking sheet
- H2O
How to Make:
First things first, you will need to preheat your oven to a cool 200 degrees. You can’t do this craft without heat, so don’t forget this step!
Next, highly recommend you mix up your dye concoction on a paper plate. The Mod Podge is messy and I just didn’t want to taint my dishes. If you are comfortable with the risk, then game on. Go for it.
I chose paper over a ceramic plate and had a snazzy zebra printed plate option thanks to a bachelorette party that took place earlier this year. Thought it added a little extra something special to this post. Don’t you think?
On to your plate of choice goes 2 Tbsp of H20.
Then, drop on 4 Tbsp of Mod Podge…
…thoroughly mix the two liquids together. Use a spoon or whatever other utensil you feel will accomplish this task. Mix together until it’s one lovely shade of white and there’s no obvious separation between the white Mod Podge and the H2O.
Now is the time to add color! If you want the pale shade that just tints the jar (my preferred method), you’ll want to only do a few drops. Obviously, the more saturated and dark you’d like your color, the more food coloring. Truly, a little goes a long way!
I wanted a really light green so only used four drops. Using your mixing utensil once more, mix the color all the way in until the entire liquid is the same shade. You can see below I copped out and didn’t FULLY mix, there’s some green and white swirls still visible but ah well. 97% mixed worked for me.
Now this lovely mixture is going to go into your jar. All of it.
I lucked out with a square plate and thus an excellent pouring mechanism using the corner. If your plate is round you will need to be creative and find a funnel of some sort or roll the plate a bit (if you can). Rolling up an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper is my go-to for things like this and would have been my plan b if I didn’t have a square plate. Highly recommend that particular method.
Now, while slowly turning the jar, pour the liquid back out on to the plate. Your goal is to coat the entire inside of the jar while pouring out the liquid, so take your time. You may need to repeat this process a few times until the entire jar is fully coated.
Once you’ve completed the coating process, turn the jar upside down on a cookie sheet that has been covered with a length of parchment paper or wax paper. I did three jars in my first batch, as you can see below. Make as many as you’d like at a time but do note the longer you let the jars sit upside down, the higher likelihood that the liquid inside the jar may start to drip down the jar. You will want to get these into the oven as quickly as possible to avoid that. You can also use slightly less water to make it a little less liquidy (though this may make the coating step take a little bit longer…pros…cons…you get the idea).
Now bake these babies for 3 minutes in their upside down pose. That’s enough time to put on a song and bop around your kitchen while you wait. Ok, maybe that’s just me that does that but I do highly recommend. Apparently I recommend a lot of things in this post.
When your 3 minutes is up, remove the jars from the oven. You’ll likely need to wipe the rims with the excess liquid that’s accumulated. You can see in the above picture the rim marks these jars made. Once the excess liquid is removed from the rims, keep the jars right side up and pop them back into the oven for another 30-40 minutes. You’ll essentially be baking them until the opaque liquid becomes transparent with a hint of your chosen color.
Like…
This:
You can see the hint of green in all the lines of the jar and it’s even prettier in the sunlight. However, I failed to take a picture with these in the sunlight as I made them at night (well, when they came out of the oven and the sun was down) and then plain forgot to photograph them the next day. But as SOON as I get home on Thursday (or ok, as soon as I remember when I’m home on Thursday) I will update this post with a sunlight/mason jar photo.
I know it’s subtle in my version, but that’s what I really liked. These look great lit up with a candle inside too, that’s what I really made them for. They’re simple but pretty to have throughout the apartment/house/condo etc. I also plan on experimenting with a red version in the coming weeks, and I promise to update this post with a photo of that version too. If you don’t see an update, please harass me via the comments below.
Happy crafting, all!
Spatulas & Buttons 