Storage Solution {on the cheap}

While looking through Pinterest and reading a few blogs, I ran across a tutorial (which I can't find now to give someone the credit) for some recycled storage jars.  They're so much prettier than anything I've been using. 

Seriously?  I am pretty good about taking the labels off, but the lids...well, I need the lids.  Dust has a way of finding anything not sealed. 

That translates to: I use the lids just as they are...yes, the clearance stickers included.  

The solution?  Glad you asked, cause the solution is really pretty and....ta da!  can be matched to your decor.  Or in my case, to the free paper you happen to have.
I guess you need the backstory now.  I received these "books" of sample fabrics from a friend earlier this summer.  In some of the books are glossy print pages of card stock that show the coordinating wallpaper for the line of fabric. 

Crafters keep everything, right?  So of course, I kept the papers.  As I take the books apart, I make a few piles: fabric, card stock and plastic (the clear cover of the book).  I toss the heavy cardboard, but everything else has great potential.  

I had the jars and lids and the pretty card stock--the main ingredients for this project.  AND it's cost me.....$0.  Yahoo!

Hmm, the only other ingredient is Mod Podge....nope.  Didn't have any.  But I have Pinterest, so I found a recipe for decoupage medium--Elmer's glue and water.  Those I had.  The recipe calls for equal parts glue and water, so I poured the glue into a glass bottle and filled the glue bottle with tap water to measure and get the last smidge of glue out. Can't waste a drop, you know.

I must have played an hour or so, but the results are pretty nice, don't you think?

Thinking of covering some jar lids?  Here are a few suggestions: 
1. Prepare to get messy.  Using your fingers to roll the paper around the edges and into the inside of the lid works much better than anything else I tried.

2. Apply the glue mix to the lid and let it begin drying while you cut the paper.  Remember that you need a circle large enough to cover the lid, the sides and roll into the inside.  The inside section should be long enough so the glass jar catches it when you screw the lid on.

3. Use the jar.  After you get the paper going around the lid and into it, hold the paper and push the lid onto the jar.  That just worked wonders for me.  I removed the lid to let it air dry.  After the first bit of glue dried, I put the lid back on the jar and painted a couple more coats of glue on holding onto the jar.

Happy Crafting
Mary