come diwali, and all of us here in india are abuzz with
activity. cleaning and decorating the house, preparing for the festival in our
own ways. during one of my “surfing for creativity” sessions, i came across all
these beautiful ideas to redo empty mason jars, and i thought, why not? this
diwali i can create some interesting mason jar lights to adorn my home.
so here’s what I had with me:
- an empty mason jar
- spirit to clean off the jar
- some glass paints of your choice
- leaf skeletons
- white PVA glue
- varnish
- tea lights
- brushes
- water
- soft music playing on your laptop (optional)!
and here’s what i did:
·
cleaned the jar thoroughly from outside with the
spirit.
·
then, mixed one part PVA glue with one part water to
make a thin paste.
· dabbed this paste very carefully over the leaves with
a wide paint brush and pasted them on the jar. dabbed some more glue paste to
make the leaves stick properly to the surface. NOTE: this step needs utmost care with those fragile leaves which can
break off any moment without a warning. wipe of excess glue that has trickled down carefully with the help of a
paint brush.
· once the leaves were pasted nicely, next step was to
paint over the jars with glass paints and give them a nice colorful look. NOTE: since, i’m in my initial stages with
this whole craft DIY, i made mistakes and learned as i went along. with my first jar, i painted it before i
had pasted the leaves and the glue-paste made the paint come off. i had to
repaint it, doubling my labour and paint usage. so, painting after pasting
worked better. and painting over the leaves made them stick better.
·
when the paint dried up, i put a
thin coat of diluted varnish on the outside to preserve the whole work.
· lastly, i put a tea-light at the bottom of the jar and
lighted it. It was lovely to watch the color reflected from the jar and the
patterns made by the thin veins of those leaves.
if you liked this post, please leave comments and i would love to see your versions of jars if you made any.
wish you a joyous DIWALI!
