Chalk paint mason jar planters for spring.
So what do you do if you’re in the middle of packing up your house to move 700 miles away? Well, if you’re me, you get your craft on and make chalk paint mason jar planters. I was planning on doing this craft long before we knew that we were going to move, and painting is therapeutic for me when I’m stressed, so one afternoon I pulled out my paints and a few mason jars and did this fun and easy craft. I enjoyed myself but the hubs thought I was nuts, which is nothing new. 😉
The idea behind this simple DIY was to use pastel chalk paint and live greenery to add a bit of spring to my new kitchen. I had to tweak my original idea, but I love how they turned out.
You can’t get any easier than slapping a couple of coats of chalk paint on mason jars. There was no prep involved but I did use a bottle to make it easier to paint each jar, and I also toned down the green and pink chalk paint with a bit of white.
Once they were dry, I lightly rubbed a buffing pad over each jar to smooth out some of the brush marks. Then I took a piece of course sandpaper and sanded the high spots to bring out the words and designs.
Next, it was time to play in the dirt. I was going to plant a few seeds in my jars but ran out of time, so I went for wheatgrass instead, with its bright green color. Perfect for spring.
Each jar got a handful of potting soil and a clump of grass.
After a little haircut, they were ready for their spot on the windowsill.
I loved the spring color but something was missing, besides the fact that their haircut was a little too perfect. Oops.
One thing about wheatgrass is that it grows quickly so their uniform haircut only lasted a day before it started growing out.
Besides the new growth, I thought the addition of a spring tag to each jar would finish it off. I had the tags in my stash but when I found these cute bumblebees and butterflies, I could hardly wait for the glue to dry so I could tie them on.
Just what they needed, don’t you think?
I won’t get to enjoy them in my new kitchen for as long as I’d hoped, but I can always recreate them in my new home.
Hope you have a great week!
I was really, really hoping that this post would be a kitchen reveal but no such luck. December and January turned out to be a bust, as far as the kitchen renovation goes. Right after the New Year the hubs’ truck broke down and the week after that mine went, which meant he spent 3 weekends in a row in the cold garage fixing our cars instead of working in the kitchen. The weekend after both cars were fixed, our youngest daughter was in a horrible car accident. All is well now but that terrible weekend was spent on the phone, the kitchen far from our minds. With all of that going on, plus the holidays, we were never able to get to the bigger projects that are left on the list.
I also gave the back door a fresh coat of paint, BM Wrought Iron. It’s not black but a pretty dark gray and I love it. You can clearly see that the lighter gray of the door did not go with the Gray Owl on the walls and I couldn’t paint over it fast enough.
I’m trying to share pictures of the painted walls without giving you a complete reveal but it’s not an easy task when your kitchen is as small as mine.
Just a few more projects and I’ll be able to show you every inch. On the list is the installation of the recessed lights, painting the ceiling, painting the cabinet kicks and adding 3 cabinet doors (that are on order). Hopefully February will be a more productive month.
The stool that the tomatoes sit on was a recent $5 garage sale find and it’s, hands down, my most favorite thing right now. It was a lovely shade of green but I wanted to put it in my new kitchen so I could sit and talk to my husband when he’s fixing dinner (yes ladies, he’s not only handy but he likes to cook too 😉 ), so I painted it in this pretty shade of robin’s egg blue. Love it!
The wall in this picture is one of the very last ones to get painted (which I’m in the middle of right now). When we moved into this house, every wall was painted in this pinky beige flat wall color. It marks up if you just touch it and forget about wiping it off. I’m so glad to see it go.
Last weekend we went to an all night flea market, a first for both of us. It opened at 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon and went all the way until 3 a.m. Sunday morning. Crazy, I know. We ended up going around 7 p.m. and it was already crowded, and not at all what I was expecting. I saw a few things that I liked, like these cool vintage pulleys, but the prices were outrageous. The only thing I ended up buying was an oil painting for $2. It was a bit disappointing but it was fun to look around.
There was fair type food, music, celebrities and lots of vendors. I go to a flea market to look at vintage items but there were a lot of vendors selling things you’d find in a dollar store. Nothing wrong with that, if that’s what you’re looking for, but it’s not for me. One of the vendors had this cute little vintage camper that she lives in. She even let me take a peek inside. It was tiny but so adorable.
We hit every vendor (I peruse very quickly) and walked out the gates at around 9. The lines to get in were outrageous, hundreds of people, and a lot of them were complaining that they had to wait 2 hours to get in. No thank you!
Once all of my doors were removed and numbered, I used a high grit sandpaper and sanded the front and back of each. Then I used a mixture of TSP and warm water to thoroughly wipe down the door to remove the dust from sanding and grease from cooking.
