Removing Labels pt3 Lids

Pretty jar lids!

Written by megan

Remember back when we removed all the labels from a zillion jars? We promised *two* ways to cover the lids. Unfortunately, what you're gonna get instead is one method, and a failure! This is still good info because now nobody, but me, will have to clean up a horrific gluey mess! Sorry I didn't pause for a selfie while my hands and counter and life were covered in glue- my first priority was getting it cleaned up before it dried.

You can see what method I tried here or here, those people managed to do it... However, when it came time to cover our jar lids, we only found success using spray paint.

The best part about spray paint is that you can do many of them at once. The spray paint holds (so far) and it covers completely. If you are a crafty person you can do many fancy things with stencils, but for the sake of expediency, we just went with plain.

We bought Rustoleum Universal Textured Paint in two colors, Pewter and Rosemary. It's supposed to hold on both plastic and metal, so it should work for everything we've got. It also claims on the can to be both primer and paint, and thereby saves us a step, which we both agreed was nice.

Before, mismatched and chaotic  

We prepped our lids the night before by washing them in soapy water, rinsing really well, and letting them dry. This guarantees there's nothing on them that may interfere with the spray paint adhering.

We set up a workspace out in the open air, so we didn't get too messed up on paint fumes. We laid out cardboard until we had something flat and protecting the grass. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. We laid the lids out, trying to keep them far enough away from each other that we could reach all around them.

Then we sprayed! Following the directions on the can, we got the lids from all four sides and both of us walked around several times making sure there were no missed spots. We were supposed to do "two even layers" within an hour of each other, but it's more like three patchy layers within an hour and a half of each other. The two colors we got are black tone and green tone silvery shades that go really well together, and we intentionally combined them in thin patchy layers. The effect is pretty cool, but I would hesitate to do something like this unless it's the same brand/style of paint, for fear of chemical reactions causing weird effects.

We'll update this post if that turns out to be a mistake, but right now they're looking glorious!  After an hour or two, we moved the whole bit of cardboard into the garage, where they could be protected for the full curing time (24 hours according to the can).

Here's my hoard of jars, all ready and waiting to be filled. I'll be reorganizing my pantry soon; emptying out the canning jars I've been storing my dry goods in, so they can be used for canning again. I've also started drying herbs from my garden and they keep so much nicer in whole form in a jar, rather than jammed into a bag in a drawer.

I just got an entire matching, glass, pantry storage set for the cost of two cans of spray paint, a little oxiclean, and some elbow grease, plus about three months of saving every jar and bottle that came through my house. Think about what you threw away or recycled in the last month. What are you discarding that you could be reusing?

`Megan