Perfect Rainy Day

Today is one of those gross, rainy, kind of cold but not cold enough for a heavy jacket, kind of days.  Which I LOVE because it's a great excuse to stay inside and craft to my little heart's desire.  I wish that I would have stayed in all day but this morning I went to JoAnn's, then to a different JoAnn's, then to Michaels, then back to the second JoAnn's, then to Home Depot.  Phew...I'm worn out just thinking about it but it was all quite necessary and in the end I got (almost everything) that I wanted/needed for some new projects.

Speaking of projects, I love what I created once I got home!

These are meant to be for our wedding in September.  We're going with a rustic theme for the reception (we're having it in a barn) and nothing says rustic like burlap and mason jars.  But I'm really loving the look of them and already trying to figure out what to use them for once the wedding is over!

So..here's how I did it:

Materials:
 - burlap
- black acrylic paint (you can use fabric paint but I didn't have any of that around so I just used regular black craft paint)
- sponge brush
- 4" stencils (I picked mine up at Home Depot.  I looked at JoAnn's but theirs were all pretty frilly looking and I wanted something more basic and simple and Home Depot had the perfect ones near their mailboxes and house numbers.
- wide mouth quart mason jars
- hot glue (because what project is complete without hot glue?)

I started by cutting my strips of burlap so that they were wide enough that the number would fit on them, but not so wide that they'd be taller than my jars.

Then once I had the size I liked, I frayed the top and bottom a bit by pulling off a few of the horizontal strings on the edge.  They'll probably come off anyway and it gives the edge more of a rustic feel.

Once I had my burlap all lined up, I centered my number stencil and started stippling the paint on with my sponge brush.  I played around with this for a bit and realized that I like it to look not perfect - so I didn't use a ton of paint and didn't paint every bit perfectly or evenly.

See, not perfect by any means...

Then I used my hot glue to adhere the burlap to the mason jar.  I found that tacking the burlap in the front to keep your number center, and then tacking it to the jar the whole way around really helps to make it a little more solidly attached.

I ended up making 15 jars because we should have 15 tables at the wedding.  I figure, in the meantime these bad boys can decorate the house.  Pretty simple and just the look I wanted...

In other news..I'm thinking of reopening my Etsy shop after much encouragement from friends and family.  I'm not quite sure what all I'll put on there yet, I may use some Facebook reactions to get an idea of what would sell and what only I really love.