So after Christmas and New Years Holiday my house starts to look very empty. It’s depressing, or so I’ve been told by my so very kid children. It's tough to take the massive amount of Christmas decor down that I've accumulated throughout the years and look at my bare house. I'm not very good at picking out permanent decor for our house and we've lived here now for over 2 years and I am still a far cry from where I wanted to be, as far as decor goes. We built very tall vaulted ceilings on the main floor and I underestimated the echo factor this would cause. But when it comes down to filling our space versus taking vacations with the family, I'll always choose the vacations and let my house remain an empty echoing structure.
The next Holiday after New Years that we celebrate is Valentine’s Day. I know this Holiday is supposedly developed by the Hallmark card industry years ago and blah blah blah, but listen, my house needs some color and something bright to look forward to in the very long month of January!! I put up minimal decor but I think the pops of bright pink and red help bring a little life to house.
This year I decided to take some mason jars I had laying around, as most country houses seem to have mason jars galore, and do some more spray painting! My husband doesn't enjoy my affinity for spray paint as it actually landed me in the E.R. so many years ago because of my asthma. Don't worry dear, I now cover my nose and make sure to spray in the direction of the wind so it doesn't come back up my nose. :)
Mason Jar Craft
Items Needed:
Mason Jars- cleaned and dry
Spray Paint
Spray Primer
Rafia or other ribbon
Flowers or some type of filler
So I took my 3 mason jars, some white primer, pink chalkboard and red spray paint I already had laying around and got to work! It's important to use spray paint and NOT try to actually paint the jars because acrylic paint will not stick to the glass jars. I tried that. Didn't work. So I used the primer spray paint, waited ever so patiently for it to dry, then spray painted the colors on the other two. I left the one jar with the white primer spray paint alone because the primer made it actually look chalk-like. Plus I was saving money and not buying another can of spray paint!
Then, I used colored rafia and tied a bow around the jars to incorporate the other colors. I doubled the rafia up to make the bows look thicker as rafia is pretty thin. Then I picked out one large flower in each color and cut them with wire cutters to the appropriate height and just placed them in the jars. There's nothing in the bottom keeping them aligned but if I had smaller flowers and needed to keep them upright and centered, I know my trusty glue gun would've came in handy for that.
One of my favorite things to decorate for a new Holiday is my chalkboard sign on my coffee bar. I love making artsy crafts and this is something I look forward to designing. Given this years heated debate over conversation hearts, I felt like it was appropriate to pay homage towards this Holiday tradition. For this craft I just took an old 8 x 10" frame, took the glass out and spray painted it with chalkboard spray. Then I just took some chalkboard markers that I bought at Michael's and start drawing. I think it turned out pretty cute myself!
Easy Valentine's decor that was cheap and fun to make! I can also easily sub out the rafia and flowers and reuse these mason jars to decorate for other Holiday's as well. I'll also decorate my chalkboard next month. The splashes of color in my house are lifting my spirits on these especially frigid winter days! Hope you can find something fun to bring you joy like these crafts did for me.
XOXO
Ashley
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