Christmas Painted Mason Jars
I absolutely love mason jars. They are just so cute! And with all the farmhouse style decorations that you see everywhere, mason jars just fit right in!
While mason jars were intended for canning foods, painted and decorated mason jars are the perfect complement to many décor styles.
And since they are easily dressed up in so many ways, why not use Christmas Painted Mason Jars for decorations?
If you are new to using chalk style paints, check out: Chalk Mineral Paint Basics
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Now that we’ve established that mason jars make great Christmas décor for your home, I want to share with you some of my recent Christmas painted mason jar projects. I most often use chalk paint to paint my mason jars.
In fact, I typically use chalk paint for all my painting projects! Chalk paint adheres pretty well to most surfaces including glass. But for best adhesion on slick surfaces, I first apply 1-2 coats of Dixie Belle Slick Stick to each jar. Dixie Belle Slick Stick is my go to primer for slick surfaces like glass and laminate.
If you don’t want to read this whole post, here is a short Instagram Reel.
and here is a Pinterest Story that you can pin for reference.
Prepping the Jars For Painting With Slick Stick
Next, after the Slick Stick is dry, proceed with painting your mason jars in your choice of Christmas colors and patterns. In this post, I share with you several different ways that I turned regular plain clear glass mason jars into festive holiday décor.
I started with 32 oz. clear Ball brand mason jars. But those are sometimes hard to find in stores. You can always check hobby and craft stores like Michael’s and Jo Ann’s Fabrics, Goodwill and other thrift stores, Walmart and Tractor Supply, and even check Amazon.
If you can’t find the Ball brand, just use empty clear glass containers of any kind. One of my examples in this post is a clear old-style milk bottle that I found at Goodwill for just a few dollars and it turned out beautifully!
Project Supplies List
Clear Glass Mason Style Jars or Other Empty Glass Jars
Chalk Paint brushes and some Artist Brushes
Chalk Mineral Style Paints – I used Dixie Belle brand but you can use what you have. I use Kudzu, Evergreen, Cotton, Fluff, Drop Cloth, Rustic Red, Barn Red, & In The Navy
Dixie Belle Clear Coat in Satin or other clear poly topcoat
Various ornaments and holiday greenery and adornments
Dry Brushed Rustic Painted Mason Jars In Wooden Box >
I did mason jars in several different styles, but I’ll start by sharing my favorite. Three mason jars, simply chalk painted in red and green got a dry brush finish. I started with three jars. After the Slick Stick was dry I painted with 2 coats each of Dixie Belle paint in Kudzu and Rustic Red. I then dry brushed with a chip brush using Dixie Belle paint in Fluff.
Dry brushing is a way to age items and add a little distressing without sanding. I have a little video on dry brushing the jars that you can check out if you’d like. Pardon the mess in my garage in the video as it’s quite a disaster. And the video is a little long but I do eventually get to the point of dry brushing these mason jars if you stick with me.
I then used some scrap 1 x 4 board pieces to make a box for the jars. After measuring for the right size for the wood pieces to make the box, I assembled using Gorilla Wood Glue and my Ryobi 18Volt One+ Airstrike Brad Nailer.
This tool is my favorite for these types of small projects. I stained the box with General Finishes Java Gel Stain, a gorgeous espresso color stain. To decorate the jars I added thin burlap ribbon and some holiday faux greenery from Michael’s.
Candy Cane Striped Painted Mason Jars
Next up I show cute candy striped mason jars. First apply a base coat of color. Then use painter’s tape to create lines to paint stripes. I used straight horizontal lines on one jar and diagonal lines on the other.
For this project I used brighter colors of Dixie Belle Cotton, Evergreen, and Barn Red. It is tricky to wrap tape around a jar because the lines will not be perfect. But in my opinion it just adds character.
After the jars were painted and the tape removed to show the striped pattern, I then top coated the jars with Dixie Belle Clearcoat in Satin. After adding some thin ribbon and little candy cane mini ornaments these jars were ready to hold candy canes.
Snowman Mason Jars
This next project was not my idea originally. I first saw similar snowmen mason jars on Pinterest. I saw several different designs of snowmen jars on Pinterest, but the one I loved the most is from Kelly at https://pjsandpaint.com/crafts/mason-jar-snowman/. Her snowman jars are just adorable!
I did something similar following her pattern. I used Dixie Belle paint in Cotton and then added Clearcoat in Satin. The jars were adorned with black buttons and a felt ribbon for a scarf. Here is a similar ribbon on Amazon.com.
I spray painted the jar lids with black spray paint. I had this little bitty round mason jar that I used to make a baby snowman, again using that same design by https://pjsandpaint.com/crafts/mason-jar-snowman/.
For the baby snowman I used tiny black buttons from an old sweater and cut out a scarf from a piece of red felt. I just think that baby snowman is the cutest thing.
Old Style Chalk Painted Milk Bottle
Next up on my list is the old style milk bottle I told you about. I found this clear glass milk bottle at Goodwill. It was painted with Slick Stick and then Dixie Belle Cotton. To give it a little character, I sanded the raised emblem on the front and around the top of the jar’s neck.
Next I added greenery and a red ribbon for decoration. It turned out really nicely and I show examples of it styled three different ways below. So you can see how diverse you can be with these painted bottles and jars.
Mason Jars Painted With Metallic Paints
Okay so now for something a little different I opted to use metallic paint on two mason jars. I painted the first jar with Dixie Belle Moonshine Metallic in Deep Woods. And the second jar I painted with an older type of gold metallic paint. Of course, this was after a Slick Stick base coat for best paint adhesion.
I used the same felt ribbon I used on the snowman jar above and added some Dollar Tree Christmas greenery. These jars turned out so pretty and shiny. It makes me want to paint everything with metallic paint. In this post, you can see a few other projects in which I used the Moonshine Metallic in Deep Woods.
Buffalo Plaid Painted Mason Jars
And another project was my buffalo plaid mason jars. I began to see these buffalo plaid mason jars all over Pinterest and just had to try this pattern myself. With the popularity of the farmhouse rustic style buffalo plaid is everywhere in home décor.
Basically it means a plaid in which two colors are painted in an overlapping linear pattern in “plaid” style. But where the two colors intersect is a color variation. Most often you see white and black or red and black buffalo plaid. But honestly you can do this with any two colors.
To paint the buffalo plaid I took two jars prepped with Slick Stick and then painted both in Dixie Belle Cotton. For the second color on one jar I chose Evergreen and on the other jar, I chose Dixie Belle In The Navy.
Using painter’s tape and working one color at at a time you can achieve this plaid look. After the last coat is done use a small flat artist brush and paint the intersecting squares with the darker color. This is how you create the classic buffalo plaid pattern. Here is a short Pinterest video I did on this particular project.
Just Simply Painted Solid Color Mason Jars
Lastly I’ll describe a final project, in which I just simply painted two jars. Nothing fancy, just simply painted jars with Dixie Belle In The Navy and Dixie Belle Rustic Red.
These are two of my favorite paint colors, both deep richly pigmented colors. It took two coats each of the paints for best coverage. Then I top coated with Dixie Belle Clearcoat in Satin.
These turned out simple but pretty. I styled the jars a few different ways to show the possibilities. I love the navy jar with the silver metal snowflake ornament the best.
Christmas Painted Mason Jars Summary
I hope that with this post, I have encouraged you to consider using chalk painted mason jars in your Christmas or other seasonal home décor.
Christmas chalk painted mason jars are fun easy projects and so versatile. I’d love to see your projects in the comments below or send me an email.
You can also tag me in your project pictures on Instagram, where you can find me at https://www.instagram.com/simplyrefinishedfurniture. The other place I hang out often is Pinterest! I’d love to have you follow me there!
