Staining Those Maccona Jars.

I showed off the Maccona jars that I coloured for my daughter's 18th party, last week, so this time I will show you how to stain them.

Here it is on the table, with the battery operated lights in it. I also had fresh leaves placed around the base of the jar, so that you  couldn't see the battery pack, but I didnt get a photo of that, unfortunately.

So the process of staining the glass is quite simple, it just takes patience & time.

All I did is make sure the labels are all removed & the gum from the jar is completely cleaned off & they are dry.

Next I dropped 3 drops of blue &5 of green food colouring in the bottom of the jar & then an amount of PVA glue. As I continued with each jar, I learnt how much to put in. It's easy enough to add more along the way, or even tip out what you dont need from each jar.

Then you simply roll the glue and food colouring around & around & around, until you get the coverage & colour that you want.

You can manipulate the glue to ensure it covers the whole area of the jar & just be cautious when you are near the neck of the jar, as it can tip out, obviously.

I preferred to not have any white showing, as I knew when it dried, it would simply be clear & not coloured, so I just took longer to ensure the glue & food colouring was mixed properly.

I loved the ombre effect & I almost didnt want it to dry clear... (Perhaps if I mixed white paint with it, it may not dry completely clear?)

And for some jars I added more green or more blue to the glue, so they were all slightly different, as you looked around the hall.

I stood the jars up-side-down on a cake rack & allowed the excess glue to run out, (or balance it on top of another jar, to use the excess glue for that one) & when it had stopped dripping, I simply tipped it the right way up, cleaned the mouth of the jar & allowed 48+ hours for it to dry.

Make sure you have a sheet of baking paper or similar under the drying rack, it's quite surprising how much drips off.

You can see here how the strength of each jar is different :)

The beauty of doing this is if you want the jars for another project, you simply soak them in hot water & the glue comes off!!


Thanks for reading my instructions on how to stain glass jars, be sure to show me what you make from my ideas too...

Stay crafting,

Jo

Rachelle's 18th has kept me busy!!

In the middle of April, my husband & I celebrated our daughter's 18th birthday with her, family and friends.

There was such a lead up to it & even so, Im so glad that we had planned her party in the middle weekend of school holidays, it gave me even more time to get things done!! As it turned out, I was quite sick with a chest infection, so that week of no work allowed me to get things done in between coughing bouts & the occasional Nanna nap in the arvos helped to get me to the finishing line!!

These are the invites that I made Rachelle to send out a while ago, her choice of colours - aren't they great? Bermuda Bay & Whisper White with a flash of silver & bling are stunning together!!

So with the invites sent out, I began to work on some of the decorations for the tables. We had hired a hall & was having a catering company coming in with roast meats, vegies & bread rolls, so I didnt need to worry about that, yippee!!

I decorated the largest of the Maccona jars & used battery operated lights, to give off a soft look in the middle of each table - there were 16 or so to decorate!!

Did you know that you can remove the inner part of the lid & decorate that too? Luckily I did, because they finished the jars off!

And they turned out great!! The Bermuda Bay cardstock for the 18 & R was embossed with silver embossing powder while the Whisper White cardstock was sponged with Bermuda Bay & then placed onto the larger BB circle.

One of my younger sisters made Rachelle's cake, & it was the highlight of the dessert table!! The pop of purple looked amazing & the taste was fantastic!! Thanks Brooke!

The night went by so fast, that we didn't get many photos, (although there may be more when the disposable cameras are processed!!), but Rach had a great night with her family & friends!! The jelly shots cannot be mentioned for a while though!! LOL!!

We have 20 moths until our next 18th birthday party, lets see what Kyle's colour scheme etc will be, hey?

Tune in next week to see how I decorated the Maccona jars, they really are super simple & can be re-used again & again!!

Thanks for reading,

Jo