Thursday 28 March 2013

Ressurecting vintage stoneware jars

I have a bit of a thing about old stoneware jars. There is something pleasingly homely and weighty about them. Added to which they turn up at boot fairs for about 50p.


Having amassed a number of them for no purpose I came up with idea of using them in the kitchen. I bought corks from Just Cork so that I could use the jars for tea and sugar and labeled them with blackboard paint and have been fairly happy with the result:



A year later and having accumulated a few more jars I had another look and decided that the idea was great but I needed the paint to be a little more uniform. Still clearly hand done and a bit uneven but roughly the same size labels. That was what this post was going to be about. Masking tape, paint and a few top tips about what did and didn't work for me.

BUT! The blackboard paint I used was a different brand and behaved in a totally different way. It would do a beautiful light first coat but when it came to second and third coats the paint would disintegrate the first coat leaving a blotchy mess. Rustic is one thing rubbish is another. I cleaned the pots and attempted to do it again......eight times. I was not going to be beaten. I was doing something wrong. After the eighth time I decided that either I had to buy the original brand of paint or come up with another idea. Well I was not going to buy an entire tin of paint to use a few paintbrushfuls.....

I had some De-cal paper left over from another project so decided that this would be the answer. (Truth be told I was starting to get fed up of this.) If you have never come across this paper you really need to give it ago. Using a normal home printer and a bit of patience you can stick an image onto just about anything and it will look as though you bought it like that. It isn't that expensive. I get it from Crafty Computer Paper.

I am not going to go though exactly how to use the paper as I would only be duplicating the instructions that come with it. However I do have three top tips:

Top Tip 1: Read the instructions properly. Yes I know, I know! I printed it on the wrong side twice and had a mini meltdown when the whole lot didn't seem to be working. I was just peeling the wrong bit off.

Top Tip 2: When you get to sticking the adhesive film onto the printed image peel an inch of the paper off and fold it down.

Top Tip 3: Everything will be a mirror image so turn the image round before printing.

My original plan was to make black labels to stick on but as I had to use at least an A5 sheet to put it through the printer I did a few words to see how they would look, I used a typewriter font so they would look a bit smudgy. The black labels looked good but boring but the words looked ACE! 

Ahem. I forgot to turn the words round so we had mirror writing. I kinda liked it though so showed it to my Matey. We agreed that we liked the topsy turvy look and did the rest like that:


If I say so myself I think they look fantastic and the mirror writing gives a bonkers edge which stops them looking too twee. I'm on the hunt for some larger jars now that will take a whole bag of flour. It rather defeats the purpose if only half a bag fits in.

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