Alright, alright – I’ll admit it. Like with most fads and popular things, I was skeptical of mason jars. Perhaps even avoidant. In my neck of the woods, mason jars scream HIPSTER. I can’t be ruining my street cred by drinking out of these things or adorning my apartment with them, ya heard?
(I know, I’m so silly – I claim to be super rational, but sometimes my logic is beyond absurd. Case in point, right here.)
However, sometimes I actually DO give in to the trend when it makes sense to. But always on my own time (i.e. well after the fact). Last weekend, when I was visiting my sister in Boston, we were making glogg and I went into her cabinet to fetch some spices and – lo and behold – they were stored in cute little mason jars, labeled in chalk on a little strip she painted with blackboard paint. And at that moment, I said to HELL with my street cred. I knew that as soon as I returned home, I had a new project on my hands.
First of all, how amazing is the idea of chalkboard paint?! I would paint my whole wall with it if I could (in fact, I probably WILL someday, when I’m living somewhere more permanent). And second, you don’t even KNOW the annoyance I’ve experienced over my extensive spice collection. We have SO MANY bottles of spices, but nowhere to put them so they just sit in a cluster taking over half of our countertop. All of the bottles are different, and many won’t fit in spice racks. The walls around the counter are tiled, so installing a shelf isn’t even an option. Simply put, it’s a big tacky mess:
Gross, right? ENTER THE MASON JAR PROJECT. Thanks to google, I had a pretty good idea of how to go about doing this. Last week, I scrambled to get a few materials before the weekend:
– a dozen 4 oz mason jars (@ Fishs Eddy)
– blackboard spray paint (@ Home Depot)
– painter’s tape (@ a local dollar store)
– chalk (@ Duane Reade)
I went a little spray-crazy and it looked like this:
And here’s what our counter looks like now!:
I didn’t have enough mason jars to house all of our spices, so there may be a Part 2 soon to come. Still, this is such an improvement from before, right?
And you might be wondering – what place does this cute little arts & crafts project have on a professional wedding photography blog? Easy – MASON JARS AT WEDDINGS!! Mason jars have become super prevalent as wedding decor. How awesome would it be to do a similar project for place settings at your wedding? Just buy a bunch of 12 oz jars, paint a strip (or some other shape) with chalkboard paint, and write each guest’s name on a jar. A quick search on pinterest (another trend I’m avoiding, by the way) yields countless possibilities. DO IT!!
(grabbed this from Pinterest, linked from Style Me Pretty)
