Mercury Mason Jar Centerpiece

I love mason jars.
And pallets, and mercury glass.
So this project would be a perfect gift ~ for me!
I'll bet you know someone who would love this versatile tray of mercury glass jars, too!
When I started this, I was thinking "centerpiece for the Holidays."
But you can do almost anything with these half gallon Mercury Mason Jars, and use them all year long!

Since these are, in fact, storage jars, I thought I would start out by using them to store small craft items like gluesticks and buttons, and my price tags. They are the perfect size for this! To add some "cute" to this storage, I shredded some old hymal pages to use as filler, and added some raffia bows, along with a little burlap bird I had.





I like the junky-cute, messy look of this! (what can I say, I'm a junker!) You could neat it up, I guess, by cutting the raffia way shorter, but where would the fun be in that?
You could use these to store all sorts of things; they would work great as cannisters in the kitchen for coffee, dry goods, or pasta. You could use them to store headbands, barrettes, and pony tails in. They could also be "saving jars" for pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Oh, the possiblities!





Although I like the idea of all the storage, I was still pretty sold on the whole centerpiece idea. This would also work really well on a mantle since it's so narrow. So I put together a Fall centerpiece, with a tiny bit of Halloween added, in the form of two crows.





I added the crows because I don't do creepy for Halloween, and they are perfect to carry this through until the end of October. I love the crow peeking out of the greenery!





Although this is probably how I'll be using these jars for a while, I still wanted to try out a Christmas theme. I used gold-and-white tissue paper, and holly from my yard as filler, and some sparkly red ribbon around the neck of the jars.





I plan on using electric lights to illuminate the jars. Sadly, I could only scrounge up one today (out of my faux pumpkin), but at least you can see how the light makes the mercury glass show up so much better!





I really like this idea; that I don't have an entire set of pretties that sit in the closet for ten months out of the year, but instead use what I have in new ways all year long. By making everyday things also special occasion things, I cut way down on the clutter and stuff I have in my home. Simple is a wonderful thing!
For the tutorial on how to make the tray and the mercury glass finish, come check out the full post at The Flying C!
And Happy Fall, Ya'll!







Original article and pictures take http://www.hometalk.com/9969134/mercury-mason-jar-centerpiece site