Craft Test: Halloween Jar Lanterns

I mentioned on Facebook that I was planning on tackling this little project with my girls, Renee and Siena. Last week we got the chance to do it. The project looked so easy, that honestly, I just jumped right in and didn't consider one important thing as we were working on it...

First off, the project is actually titled "Painted Jar Luminaries." You can find the tutorial here. I purchased a pack of 12 wide-mouthed, quart size mason jars at Wal Mart for around $10. I only had to buy the purple and orange acrylic craft paint (Michael's $3.99 each) because I already had yellow and green. I also did buy the recommended Krylon Clear Glaze ($6.99 but used my 40% coupon off that). The girls and I had a lot of fun painting the mason jars. I set everything up outside, so it was nice relaxing in the backyard, in the sun, painting. Renee and Siena are 4, and they did a great job painting the jars. Once they were dry, I used a pencil first to draw the faces. I copied a lot of the faces in the tutorial and then tried to come up with a few of my own. I went over the pencil drawings with black paint. Once the faces were dry, I sprayed the jars with the Krylon. Here are the little guys taking in the sun to dry.

Easy breezy, right?! BUT, here is a vignette of the jars on my front porch during the day and glowing at night. (By the way--I use battery operated tea lights, instead of actual votives.) What do you notice? The purple and green jars are not as transulcent as the yellow and orange. Dang! Although I did add some water to the acrylic paint, I should have thinned it out much more. I tried to lightly sandpaper some of the paint, but it was just totally taking the paint off. So, at night we're only lighting the yellow and orange jars. Together, there are 8 of those, so it still looks pretty festive at night. So, if you try this, make sure to thin out the paint, or just stick to yellow, orange and white paint.

But I have to say, it was still a fun project, that was easy enough for 4-year olds, and quality time spent with my girls. And the collection of jars look very fun on our front porch--check it out below!