Faux Raku Recycled Jar

Recycled Body Butter skin cream containers make great homes for little art supplies. The large size from the Body Shop made a great home for my teeny alphabet stamps—I had about four sets in various fonts that fit nicely into the beige plastic jar.

At first I just taped the stamp label to the top of the jar…but it looked sooo ugly on my art shelf. I recently decided the time had come to kick it up a notch. Using a generous amount of matte medium as an adhesive, I started by gluing a pretty beige and white  vintage paper—compliments of my friend Susan Morgan Hoth—onto the jar’s lid, side and bottom. Pretty, but once it dried—lumpy. Maybe I hurried, maybe I used too much matte medium, or maybe the paper was too thick and stiff.

 

Instead of ripping it off, I decided to try and camouflage it with Dina Wakely Crackle Paste. I selected the Garden Gate stencil, applied the paste, and waited a couple hours. It was worth the wait. When the paste dried on the jar, the effect reminded me of raku pottery. I rubbed on some antique linen Distress Stain and brown chalk ink to enhance the crackle.

 I wasn’t sure about the treatment of the side of the lid. It would have been awkward to stencil it with the crackle paste, and might have worn off over time from twisting and handling.

A light bulb went off in my head—washi tape would do the trick—and what could be more perfect than alphabet washi tape? I wouldn’t need a label because the alphabet tape would remind me of the alphabet blocks inside the jar. The tape was just the right width to fit on the lid's side, and should also be durable.