Trashtastic Tuesday- Beachglass Painted Jars

I have been planning this project for some time.  I have been saving jars and bottles that I like the shape of ( I have way more than just these in my stash), and I bought the paint to do this months ago.  Well a couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to actually painting the jars, and I don’t know why I waited so long, cause they are awesome!  As you can see, I decided to put them on my mantle.  I have to admit, I kept my Spring mantle up (Easter eggs and all) for way too long this year.  I love these jars on the mantle for summer.

I think my favorite thing about this paint color on the jars is the almost ethereal glow they cast.  It is impossible to capture in a picture.  They see to almost glow!  And throughout the day they look different colors depending on the way the light is in the room.

The paint I used on these jars is Martha Stewart Satin Craft Paint (multi-surface) in the color beach glass.  I originally wanted to use the Martha Stewart Glass paint, but of course I could not find it locally.  That seems to happen a lot living in a small town.  It is so frustrating.  Anyway, I decided to give this paint a try instead because it was the color I wanted, and it said it could be used on glass.

Being the fantastic blogger that I am, I forgot to take a before shot of the jars.  So I recreated a before shot with some different jars from  my collection.  I can’t bring myself to throw these things away, can you?  You can use absolutely any jars or bottles that you like the shape of.

I used a small flat artist type of brush to paint these,  I started by painting vertical strokes.  I held the jar upside down with two-three fingers inside the jar while painting.  Let the paint dry for one hour in between coats.  For the next coat, I painted the jar using horizontal strokes.  This gave it the prettiest cross brushed type of look.  So I decided to stop with the second coat.  If you do not want any brush strokes at all, you will need more coats than that.  But I loved the way it looked just the way it was, and it is difficult to see in the pictures.  At least with my quality of camera ( I need to save for a new camera).

You can see the brush strokes probably the best in this below picture.  I bought the fresh flowers because I love the pops of pink and purple with the sea glass color.  I actually painted one more bottle that I took to a friend’s home as a hostess gift for a party over Memorial Day weekend.

You can kind of see the glow I am talking about in these next few pictures.  This project cost me only the price of the paint, which is just a little over $2 per bottle.  I didn’t even use a full bottle to get this done, so I have more to use for something else.  I am not going to count the cost of the jars, after all, we did consume the things that were in the jars, so that doesn’t count, right?  Two of the jars (the Ball jar and the Mason jar) were from food that had been canned.   Trashtastic?  I think so!

Thanks for joining me at Trashtastic Tuesday today!  This is my second time painting jars.  The first time, I painted the inside of a jar.  This time I painted the outside.  They have two very different looks.  What do you think of my DIY beach glass painted jars?  Have you used some other method that worked for you?  I would love for you to share it in the comments!  If you like today’s post, please feel free to check out all of my other Trashtastic Tuesday Projects.