Personalized jars

We have these nice glass jars that our coffee comes in that I did not want to throw out. Instead I decided to pull the labels off and paint them with chalkboard paint for reuse around the kitchen and house.

Materials needed:

coffee jar

contact paper

Design of your choice 
permanent marker
craft knife 
Brasso metal polish 
alcohol swabs
Tape
contact adhesive 
chalk board paint

Instructions:

Soak an empty and nice coffee jar in water to soften and remove the label. Some elbow grease may be required. Let it dry.

Stick a piece of contact paper onto the bottle. 

Pick your design and trace it onto the contact paper. I just outlined it with a permanent marker.
Using a craft knife cut out the design and pull the piece off the jar. Keep in mind that where you cut out and pull off is where the paint will go.

I didn't get off all the gooey sticky label glue and murphy's law that showed up in my cut out design. So I just wiped it off with a bit of Brasso metal polish, ( I don't know why that works but it does) and wiped it off with an alcohol swab when I was done. Needless to say only use the Brasso on the outside of the bottle.









Tape off any remaining exposed areas.
Spray a layer of contact adhesive and wait about ten minutes until it is dry (or however long your contact adhesive tells you to wait to achieve a permanent bond). Don't forget to work in a well ventilated area.

Did you notice how the contact adhesive seems to crack? I didn't know how that will influence the painting part of the project and the final outcome so I decided to wipe it off with another alcohol swab and try again.

This time I stood further away when spraying the adhesive and only added a thin layer.
...wait for another ten minutes...

Spray on a layer of chalk board paint. I stood at about the same place I did when spraying the second coat of contact adhesive. It felt like far away. I also only sprayed a thin layer. I could still see the back of the bottle. I figured a few thin coats would be better than one thick one.

Let it dry and repeat as needed.

After I painted the third coat I almost immediately pulled the tape and contact paper off and left it to dry properly. 

Once properly dry; wash the bottle, dry it off properly, add a pretty ribbon if you like and find something to put in the re-purposed bottle.

Milk box revamp

All my paint brushes were positively annoying me just lying around in a drawer that I decided a plan must be made, and quickly. We had just bought some milk, the long life kind that comes in those cardboard boxes. I saw an opportunity and decided that it would be a perfect box to house the brushes in, once prettied up a little. So here is what I did...

What I used/ what you need:
Random piece of wood for the bottom (because it is semi open and just to give it some support)
scissors
spray paint
stencil
tape 
old coffee tins (optional)

What I did/ my instructions:
Size and place the random piece of wood on the bottom on the box. 

Cut off the top flaps of the box with a pair of scissors because lets face it those just get in the way.
I painted the box with one layer of matt white spray paint because I didn't have primer. I don't know if it actually makes a difference priming the cardboard or not.

Let it dry. 

Spray a few layers of dark brown spray paint. It's what I had a tin of and a color I don't often use. I could have wrapped it with pretty paper or fabric but I wasn't in the mood to sit and neatly wrap a milk carton box.
Pick and place a stencil on the box, on the side that is going to show forward. 
After I sprayed on my stencil and removed it I did notice a little bit of bleed through so perhaps I should have stuck the stencil down better. Oops! That said it is a quick, easy and impromptu box to house all my paint brushes so perhaps it doesn't have to be perfect and the imperfections just add character.


I let the paint dry after spraying the stencil pattern onto the box, added my paint brushes and Tada.
Now that I think about it, I could have painted the tins and left the box altogether.

I didn't bother with the bottom or the inside. It's just a quick box to house my paint brushes after all.
Wait for the brown to dry... Felt like it took forever....

I then sprayed a layer of fluorescent fire orange to make my stenciled design. I chose that color because that is what I had and I thought the orange might just look good on the brown. I was careful when taping the stencil though as I didn't want to put tape on the box in case it pulled the brown paint off when I removed it. For that very reason I also didn't use spray adhesive.

It's probably prudent to note that the brushes disappeared into the box so I separated the brushes from the rollers and put them into two old coffee tins which I then placed in the box.