As I said earlier, I was painting this jar for a charity basket.  The theme of the basket was local crafters.  My good friend Ronda asked me to contribute something, and my first notion was to say no, because I really don’t consider myself to be a crafter.  I certainly do not make anything from scratch.  You might be surprised to read this, but I am really not confident when it comes to my own abilities sometimes.  I do love the things I make for myself, and the things I do around my own home.  But when it comes to making something for someone else or helping someone else decorate ( I get asked to help people decorate a lot), that is when I lack confidence.  I am not professionally trained or educated in design or decorating, and when I do my own thing in my own home, no one is judging me.  But if I am doing it for something else, I am afraid to express myself in that way.  Just a little something that I need to work on I guess.  So back to the story- I told my friend that I could make something over if that would be acceptable.  She said it would, so I started thinking of ideas.  It needed to fit into a basket, so I decided to paint a jar.

Here’s the part where it was almost a fail.  In my mind I planned to paint this jar a metallic gold first, and then I planned to paint over that with chalk paint.  Then I was planning to distress it and the gold would show through.  Lovely idea, right?  This is what the jar looked like after three coats of gold acrylic paint.

You can see both of the types of paint I used below.  I really like the color of this champagne gold acrylic paint.  And the color of the chalk paint is Refreshing.

After the gold metallic paint was completely dry, I started painting over it with the chalk paint.  When I finished the first coat, I walked away to allow time for it to dry.  I came back after I had given it time to dry, and this is what I found.  The paint had crackled, and even some spots had come completely off!  And none of the gold was showing underneath of all of those crackles.  I went ahead and gave it a second coat of chalk paint hoping that would completely cover, but to no avail.  It crackled again.  So now it was time to think about how I was going to salvage this jar because I had already come too far with it, and I had no time to think up another idea for this basket.

I decided to dry brush some of the metallic gold paint over top of the chalk paint and hoped that it would turn out pretty.  First, I used a sanding block to sand the entire jar smooth.  It didn’t completely take away the look of the texture of the jar, but it did make it feel as smooth as butter.  I then set about dry brushing it.  I got paint on my paintbrush, and then I stamped the brush on a paper plate until the paint wasn’t runny or drippy on my brush.  And next I painted the jar in small sections.  I then very quickly wiped the fresh paint with a paper towel.  As you can see below, I also painted 4 coats of the gold paint onto the lid of the jar.

The finished jar is very smooth to the touch, and it has kind of a glowy sheen to it.  I have to admit that I kinda like the way it turned out, I like it a lot!.  I am so thankful that I was able to salvage this project!  I almost felt unworthy of contributing to this charity basket, so I really hope that whoever wins the basket liked the finished product!  I guess I may never know.  Although I did wrap a pretty tag around it with my name and blog address on it.  So maybe I will hear from the person who ends up with the jar.  You never know.

Aren’t the white planters you see pictured so cute?  I found those at the Target Dollar Spot for $3 each.  I plan to use them outside eventually.  I recently purchased the air plant you see pictured and I have plans for it.  First on the agenda is to learn a little more about air plants!

And that is a wrap for my Trashtastic Treasures post today!  Thanks so much for stopping by and spending a little time in my little corner of the Internet today.  What do you think of the painted jar?  Have you ever had a project not turn out the way you pictured it in your mind before?  I would love to hear about them in the comments below!  I love your comments, and I read every single one!  Have a fantastic Tuesday!