Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

DIY: Mini glow-in-the-dark patio jars

The hubby and I are having a housewarming party in August, and it’s never too early to start planning! I’ve seen a lot of different versions of the glow-in-the-dark mason jar floating around Pinterest, so I figured I’d try to make my own. Instead of mason jars, I turned little peach preserve jars into glow-in-the-dark lights that will be perfect for around our patio. I picked up these cute jars at a yard sale for one whole dollar. What a find!

To get the glow effect, I decided to use glow-in-the-dark paint. Other e have been using glow stick “juice,” but that doesn’t last more than a night. If you use paint, the glow will recharge once reintroduced to light. The paint I chose was less than $2 and I was able to paint half of the jars with it.

I painted half of my jars using a paint brush and the other half with a sponge.

I originally wanted to see if one would cover the jar better than the other, but I liked that the paint brush created a vertical stripe in the paint, while the sponge created a horizontal stripe. I did a thick coat on my jars, then let them dry overnight.

With the inside of the jars covered with glow paint, the jars had a splendid little glow. BUT, I wanted a fantastic glow. So, I squirted gobs of the glow paint into the bottom of each jar, then swirled each jar to spread it around. I then flipped each jar upside down so the paint would trickle down the sides.

I’ll admit, the jars aren’t  super pretty or anything… but man do they look cool at night!

Once it got dark out, I held my glow jar up to a light in our bedroom.

I then went outside and put the jar on our patio to watch it glow.

Pretty cool, huh? For less than $3, I have seven glow jars for our patio! They are too fun.

Craft Projects, Mirrors

Project No. 1: Cork Mirror

OK, I’m pretty pumped that I’ve finally got this thing going… so here’s my first project post EVERRRRRR!

I’ve had this mirror for a while and I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it. You will soon learn that I love mirrors and think they are so fun to refinish. This one was used as a display case for three old coke bottles. If you look closely you can see the slats in the sides where two shelves (which are long gone) divided the bottles from one another.

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I also have a ton of corks that my hubby and I have been saving. We go married at a vineyard last September, so we have a bunch of corks we bought from the vineyard for wedding diy projects, so between those corks and the corks we’ve saved from the yummy bottles of wine we drink, I had plenty for this project.

Supplies:

Mirror — this mirror is about 2.5 inches deep

Corks

Hot glue

First, I picked out the corks I liked best. I thought the ones with wine stains had a lot of character, so I used all of those that we had. We also had a champagne cork that was a little funky, so that was a must.

I started to play around with the corks, lining them around the edges until they all fit smoothly around each side. That actually took quite a bit of maneuvering and switching of the corks, but I cam up with this:

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Then this:

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I started gluing each cork directly onto the mirror.

Note: It is smart to clean the mirror first, but my husband decided to throw out our Windex. Lame.

It’s important to go in order so the corks all fit nicely, so I made sure to glue them on in order.

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Just a small dab of hot glue works great. Glue all your corks on and you are done! I might add another row to the mirror once we drink enough wine for me to do so, but for now… here’s the finished product:

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It will look great in my kitchen, right next to my wine rack.

Thanks for reading! And yes, I did this project this morning at 6:15 a.m. I was just that excited.