Saturday, June 23, 2012

DIY Frosted Name Jar

A few months ago HeyMatthew and I spent a week in Tennessee with HeyMatthew's aunt and uncle from Michigan. They were two of most the unique people that I've ever had the pleasure of vacationing with and some of the things we all talked about have really stuck with me since our trip. One of these things is sun tea. Now, precious Charleston friends... I know that you all make sun tea... now that I make sun tea, I realize that you were also making sun tea and I didn't really pick up on what was happening... so please, no "WHAT!?!?! YOU DRANK SUN TEA AT MY HOUSE FOR 6 STRAIGHT YEARS" comments. I realize that I was being so insanely unobservant. Anywhoo, for those of you who, like me, have no previous knowledge of sun tea- let me explain. Sun tea is tea made from the sun's warmth rather than boiling stove water. You fill a jar with water, drop a tea bag in and set it in the sun to heat/morph into deliciousness all day. So, this brings me to my next subject and the main reason for this post- I needed something awesome to make tea in! I've been using a mason jar which I really liked BUT it really needed some pizzaz so I set out to make this happen. Here is what I came up with...
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Isn't it beautiful!?!? I am so extremely excited about how it turned out and I'm equally excited about how easy it was to make. Here's how it's done...
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First, gather your supplies. I just used my mason jar, a paint brush, gloves & Armour Etch glass etching paste. I found this little jar of Armour Etch at Michael's but I know you can find this + tons of awesome stencils and tools online a bit cheaper. The gloves are actually really important (the paste will blind you if you get it in your eyes, eat your skin if you touch it and kill you if you eat it) so just go ahead and pick up some gloves while you're out and about.


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Next make a pattern on your glass object. I used scrapbooking letters and packing tape and it worked wonderfully. If you want to make something a bit more formal I suggest looking at the stencils online. They have the super popular 'framed roses and wedding date' kit if that's more your style. I prefer the uneven stripes.


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Finally you paint the stuff on there (don't forget the gloves) let it sit for AT LEAST 5 MINUTES (the jar says 60 seconds.... this is wrong... let it sit) and then wash it off with your gloved hands. Special thanks to my friend Amanda for being the demonstration model. She left her paste on much longer than mine and her jar ended up looking way more dramatic than mine did. So, there you go. A simple but fun way to spice up that sun tea jar. Back soon with another post about sun tea. Is it really more tasty or is that just hippie nonsense? I'll let my taste test panel decide. Love. Jb

1 comment:

  1. Do you know if you should etch the jar first before you paint it to make the blue mason style jars?

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