Paper Scrap Recycling

April 13th, 2010

This weeks tutorial is brought to you from Design*Sponge. I was looking for a way to jazz up a few empty jars as I wanted to fill them up with spices and give to a friend as a gift and I came across this tutorial on the Design*Sponge website, which was not only perfect and exactly what I was looking for, it also gave instructions of how to apply the same process to pencils! So two tutorials in one here!

The tutorial suggests you need the following items:

Paper scraps
Mod Podge in matte finish
Pencil
Scissors
Medium craft brush
Jars with screw lids
Plain wood pencils unsharpened

I’m going to use some of my envelope patterns to decorate my jar lids and pencils. Instead of Mod Podge, I’m going to use watered down PVA and a water based varnish as they give the same results at a cheaper price.

Luckily I’ve got a load of unsharpened pencils too [as I have a bit of a stationery fetish], so can’t wait to brighten them up with patterns!

I think this could get quite addictive. I’ve got a load of really beautiful fruit/jam jars I found in the loft recently – all without lids. So I’m slowly collecting lids that fit from curry paste and tomato sauce etc. and it will be nice to decorate these with patterns so as to disguise the branding on them and make them pretty. I might even colour code the patterns I choose for the lids to suit the contents of each jar.