Silhouette Mason Jars – Fab Tutorial

May 3rd, 2011

I found this fab tutorial on the Lauren Elise Crafted blog on how to decorate plain jars with painted silhouettes. You don’t need very much equipment and stuff – just lots of imagination, a steady hand and a bit of patience. It’s a great way to recycle old jars and use them to decorate your home or give out as gifts – you could fill a jar up with sweeties for instance. If you’re getting married, they’re a great thing to use to decorate your tables or venue with personalised images and messages.

You Will Need:

- empty jars
- some paint – sample pots or stuff left over from painting your kitchen for example
- sponges or paint brushes
- sticky paper or some spray mount and plain paper
- sharp cutting knife or scissors
- ribbon and lace for decorating
- tags for labeling and decorating

First off you need to print out your design onto some sticky paper – I don’t have any of that so I would just print my design on plain paper or thin card and then use a fine coat of spray mount to stick the design to the jar – I use this method when stencilling and it works just fine. You could maybe use large sticky labels if you have them too.

Cut out your designs – if you’ve got fine details, then it’s best to use a sharp cutting knife, otherwise just use scissors – this is when a steady hand comes into play.

Next stick your design onto your jar and make sure it’s fully stuck all the way around the edges.

Then get your brush or a small sponge – I would use one of those kitchen sponges used to do the dishes, one that I’d be throwing out – and paint over your design and the entire jar. You could get a cardboard toilet roll and put this inside the jar and this way you’ll be able to paint the entire jar and it’s rim without getting paint on your fingers. You can then stand the jar and leave it to dry with the toilet roll inside and this means the rim, that will have paint on it, won’t stick to whatever you put the jar on to stand and dry.

Leave to dry, preferably overnight and then in the morning do a second coat if you think it needs it. If not, carefully peel your design away and viola… look what the results are…

You can then decorate the jars with ribbons, bows and tags, and personalise them to your hearts content. Visit the full tutorial here to see more detailed instructions and more images.

Posted in Tutorial Tuesday |