Decorating your canning jars

Besides using my jars for canning, I also like the way they look around the house.  They serve many uses in my house, candle holder, button container, candy corner corraler, etc.  I decided to  put together a little photo tutorial to share over at A latte with Ott, A  she is having a canning party this week.  Stop by her blog and check out all her fun recipes and ideas and visit the linky party.

I am all for deocrations that are reusable and easy to move from one jar to the next in the event I actually decide to use a precious jar of home canned goodness. 

I made two versions and here are the final products.

FYI Just imagine that jar filled with little pumpkins. 

(Many were sacrificed during the making of this tutorial)

This projects requires the following

sewing machine or needle and thread

scissors

elastic in your choice of size, I used 1/4 inch width

fabric or ribbon in several sizes and colors

I started with fabric for one jar and ribbon for the other.  I measured my jar and doubled that to get the length of my fabric and ribbon.  I also took away an inch and that was my measurement for the elastic.

Here is the ribbon and ric rac I used for my Halloween jar along with the elastic cording

Here are my strips of fabric.  I cut them with a pinked edge so they would have a more primitive rustic frayed effect.

next you are going to go to your sewing machine or grab your needle and thread.  we are going to sew two lines of stitching and create a tunnel for our elastic to go through.  Make sure you make it wide enough fo ryour elastic and to allow for whatever you will use to thread your elastic through.  I like to use a large safety  pin.  You can see it in the pictures below.

When you have your little tunnel made start threading your elastic thru until the end is even with the edge of your fabric or ribbon.  STOP at this point we are going to make a few stitches so the elastic stays put and we can keep threading our elastic thru so our material will gather up.

Once we secure the first end, continue threading the elastic thru and secure on the other end with a few stitches, either by hand or using your sewing machine.

Once your elastic is secured at each end, put right sides of fabric or ribbon together and sew the edges together.  Seam allowance is what ever you think works for your fabric.  You may also heat seal your ribbon ends at this point to keep from fraying.

And here is the finished product.  I trimmed my fabric down on the first one I made.  I think it looks better this way on my jar.

Enjoy. 

 Tomorrow I will be canning meat sauce.  Stop back in and see what I come up with.

Table dismemberment

Awhile back while visiting the house of my neighbors parents, I came across an item I just had to have.  Problem is I'm super cheap. (just disregard the recent purchase of my Bernina 830, lol) My neighbs mom had this cute round coffee table that was once a dining room table.  Ever since I had been on the lookout for the perfect, cheap, round dining room table to turn into the cutest little coffee table. Well fast forward to a month ago when I bought a dining room table that was quit large from a different neighbor.  It was her mothers, and she talked about how it was their table as children, blah blah blah.  I was having a hard time thinking of dismembering someones dinner table, where they might have once shared great memories, so, I moved on.

Fast forward to last weekend during our Indy excursion, Mamabee found a small round table that the previous owners had left.  Problem was solved, it came home with me.  Thats what I'm here to show you today.

Here is the before, just pretend the legs are attached and its standing upright.

It was just about 100 degrees outside where we live, so I brought this project inside.  Make sure that you pick a place on your nice hardwood floors that you had just cleaned, the spot right next to the white couch, that was also just cleaned because your big bad nasty dirty dog decided to nap on it.  Yep thats the perfect spot. now you need some supplies, since we are wanting to take this from dinner table to coffee table, I used a jigsaw, and a palm sander, your gonna need an extension cord.  Make sure you take safety measures.

First leg off, now three more.

I sanded the bottoms of her legs.  They will get felt pads but I wanted them smooth before I painted. I took my legs outside and I painted them a toupe color to match a side table I already have in this room.

Here she is (and the big bad dirty dog who nastified my white couch!)

The top is laminate, and I wasnt in the mood to fool with painting it, because you see I have the perfect fabric picked out to make a table cover for her, and her matching side table.  More to come on that later.

Have you modified something that you would like to share?  Please leave a link in my comments.

Thanks for stopping by.