Mason Jars On The Mantel

The mantel got a make over….AGAIN!

(I think this one should stick.)

I showed you how I got that big metal medallion at Hobby Lobby before.

But I just felt like the stuff around it was too messy and disheveled.

I’ve been looking at it and moving it around and trying new things for weeks.

Eventually I just took everything off and started fresh.

I knew I wanted greenery. (Hobby Lobby and their 50% off floral stems.) But I didn’t really want to shop around for vases (3 kids, one’s a baby… so over the work of shopping right now.)  So I realized I had some half gallon Ball mason jars I didn’t use very much. But they looked dumb up there when clear. So I did some googling and decided to paint and distress them.

I just love how they look. If my house winds up covered in them, don’t be surprised.

I also wound up painting these plant pots. These are my girls’ plants. And I haven’t felt like they made any sense visually anywhere I’ve put them. But painting the pots white fixed that for me.

Most people seem to paint Mason jars with chalk paint. They say it adheres better than latex. I’ve never used chalk paint. I didn’t want to pay for it just for this little project. And then it dawned on me -- I have a lot of Bonding Primer left over from other house stuff. It’s MADE to bond to slick surfaces (which a glass jar is) and it’s kind of chalky white looking. Done and Done!

I wound up buying some smaller pint sized jars too and painting and distressing them as well.

This is a great tutorial on how to do this.

My finger’s kind of worn out today from all the sanding on tiny letters and numbers. 

But it was worth it.

  

The white thing in the middle of this cabinet is my essential oil diffuser. (If I was going to have a diffuser, I had to get something pretty -- you know me. It’s the only one I’ve ever been around, so I can’t compare it to any others. But it works great! I usually turn it off long before it’s used up because I have enough scent.)

I finally got around to painting that paper mache “&.”

I used Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. Then a layer of silver spray paint. And another layer of ORB.

And it looks pretty adorable between the girl’s Beta Fish bowls.

Moonlight-Starlight & Lion together (separate bowl style) forever.

The three jars on the left are our unity sand jars from our wedding.

(These are our toy holding cabinets on the sides of our fireplace. I think that some day we will do something more built-in/permeant here, but for now they actually fit surprisingly well into the nook, for being made to fit our last place.)

Even with the messy toys spread around the room on the regular, these white jars feel really serene and calming to me. (Sorry again for the crappy iphone pics -- they don’t do the jars any justice. Refer to the up close photos to get the right feel.)

These jars are making the room for me right now.

I’m almost done painting my coffee tables (sheesh!) and I’m really excited about having all the punches of white in here. (My new white pillows too.)