Recycled Painted Jar Lanterns

Theres nothing like a softly lit up patio in the evening for me! I love the ambiance of a flickering candle in the corner of my eye. Candle just induce a relaxing atmosphere! In an outside space, I absolutely love the look of little lanterns and votives floating around everywhere. Like the inspiration picture below.

Hanging jar lanterns by Martha Stewart

So as I'm preparing to up the cozy feel in my courtyard...I decided to take on a lil project, and recycle while I'm at it. Ready?
Like everyone else reading this(probably) I save jars. Who knows what you can do with them later, right?! So first step is to collect some jars.

Now we are going to paint them...snazzy them up a bit. So get together your supplies, Mod Podge, food coloring and, or paint. Oh and some paint brushes, and we're ready to roll.

All you do is mix some mod podge with a mixture of your choice, be it paint or food coloring, and paint, you can even water it down a bit...I think that will make the end result more translucent. ( I didn't water mine down) Check out this other tutorial at Gingerbread Snowflakes. Hers turned out very pretty!

My son and I did these together. They were fun, and quick! We just painted on like normal then tried a few different techniques to add some texture, instead of seeing just the brush strokes. We dabbed the surface with a paper towel, stippled with the brush, oooh and on one I did a swirl effect with the brush...they all turned out great.

Here they are all painted, now to wait until they dry, and I'll add some wire hangers to it for extra spunk :)


Here are some of them all lit up. eh hem please pay no attention to the candles inside... I couldn't find my stash of tealights anywhere! So I cut down some birthday candles to get the effect in the pics :)


Now for some wire play... I purchased some stainless steel 16 gauge wire ($3).


I first cut a long piece (lengths will vary depending on how wide of a mouth the jar has). And I began to wrap it around, manipulating it with needle nose pliers as I went along...

And the result.



For the handle I started with a long piece again, approx 8 inches long worked it into a "U" shape then took the pliers to the ends and and made some loops to hook onto the wire around the mouth.


And here is the finished result. How cute huh? *Beware of picture overload*


This one was inside...the lighting was all wrong, and my camera (the operator) was not working well... So I waited til morning, and did a little shoot outside :)




I have decided...you have to try this! The result is awesome...even if you don't put candles in them, place a few on your window sill and let the sun shine through them. Do a vase, to place some pretty bright white flowers in! So yeah try it and let me know how they turn out...k :)