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Click Here to Shop Items Worn by The Real Housewives of New York via @Shop.LTK

Originally posted at: Real Housewives of New York Inspired Fall Looks from Saks

Photo: @kylerichards18

Originally posted at: Kyle Richards’ Chain Strap Swimsuit and Netted Cover Up

Click Here for Additional Stock in Her Leggings / Click Here for Additional Stock in her Jacket

Originally posted at: Sanya Richards-Ross’ Black Nike Fleece and Printed Leggings

Creating décor and handmade gifts with mason jars (or ‘Mason’s jars’ as they are known in our house due to a certain grandson called Mason…) has long been a beloved pastime for crafters. They’re the perfect canvases for creativity – budget-friendly, recyclable, and immensely versatile.

Painting mason jars is a lovely way to create personalised and customizable decor for any occasion, from weddings to baby showers, garden parties to barbecues and every seasonal occasion from sparkling-snowy jars at Christmas to dark mysterious jars at Halloween…

What You Need

• Mason jars (variety of sizes)
• Acrylic paint (including pearlized and glitter types)
• Paintbrushes (variety of sizes)
• Painter’s tape (optional; useful for creating designs)
• Stencils (optional)
• Mod Podge to seal
• Rubbing alcohol
• Paper towels

The Process

1. Preparing the Jars

Clean your mason jars thoroughly. Remove any labels or adhesive, then clean the entire surface with rubbing alcohol. Don’t skip this step; it ensures that the paint adheres well. Allow the jars to dry completely before moving on to the next step.

2. Choosing Your Colour Palette

Acrylic paint is a great and cost-effective choice for painting on glass. It’s versatile and easy to paint with, due to its consistency. You can find a wide variety of colours at any craft outlet, including pearlized and glitter paints. It’s also easy to mix unique shades.

Think about the colours you might need – hot or cool shades; colours associated with the seasons, or mixing colours to match your décor or theme.

3. Attaching Stencils or Masking Tape

If you want to create patterns or create stripes of colour, use painter’s tape to mark off different areas. You can also use tape stencils onto your jars to create designs. In both cases, do not remove the stencil or tape until the paint is completely dry to avoid smudging.

4. Applying Paint

Apply your paint in thin, even layers. You can create a most effective and neater finish by building up thin layers rather than trying to apply one thick coat – it never, ever works! Allow each layer to dry completely before applying the next.

This process takes patience, but if you paint your jars in batches, you have something to do while you wait – and adding paint in thin layers and allowing drying time will give you the most even and professional-looking results.

4. Sealing the Paint

Once your final paint layer is completely dry, it’s time to seal your jars. This will protect the paint from chipping or scratching. Apply a clear sealer or Mod Podge in two thin, even layers, allowing each to dry completely before applying the next.

Painting mason jars is a fun, simple, affordable and accessible way to bring a splash of colour and your own unique flair to any event or seasonal decor. With a little patience and a dash of creativity, you can fill your world with colour, one mason jar at a time.

Design Ideas for Painting Your Mason Jars

Life’s a Beach

Paint your jar in a shade of aqua with white ‘wave crests’ created by a swirl of a brush and a touch of glitter. After painting and sealing, paint an extra layer of Mod Podge round the bottom of the jar and dip it in sand. Glue the top of the jar and wrap rustic string around it. When dry and secure in place, tie on a couple of shells, hag stones or a dried sand dollar.

Message on a Bottle

Instead of painting your mason jar with standard acrylic, use a chalk paint and tie string round the top with a loop for a piece of chalk to leave family messages. It’s mason-jar-love-language!

Catch a Falling Star

Paint your jar at the bottom with black acrylic paint and add a swirl of silver stars (hand painted, stencilled or with tiny glow-in-the-dark stickers) above this, leaving the top clear and unpainted. Wrap rustic wire round the neck and coil a piece up into a half-moon curve. Hang stars made from wire, paper or card from the wire curve with clear fishing line so they dangle. Add a battery tea light to the jar for a lovely evening glow.

Vintage Village

Paint a collection of different sized thrifted mason jars in festive red or green, then hand paint or stencil around the bottom with a strip of houses or fir trees in white. Add fine touches of glitter before sealing and add a glow stick or battery tealight for a Christmas window ledge display.

Butterfly Beauty

Place small, cheap butterfly stickers on your mason jar and paint it in a summer colour (or do several in a range of summer hues). When the paint is dry, remove the stickers carefully to leave unpainted butterfly shapes. Tie a ribbon round the neck of the jar and pop a battery tea light inside for a flickering table decoration for those balmy summer evenings with friends.

Halloween Hootenanny

Paint your jar in ombre shades of orange from dark to pale and paint a witch on a broomstick freehand – or add a vintage Halloween sticker. Tie black raffia or ribbon round the neck and add a charm for extra decoration.

Candy Corn Collection

Paint your collection of mason jars of different sizes in stripes of orange, yellow and white by masking each section with tape before painting and leaving it to dry thoroughly before removing and repeating with the next colour.

If you prefer a less sharp, rustic finish you may want to freehand paint your stripes and stipple the finish between each stripe (pat the brush end gently on the colours to mix them slightly). When the paint is dry and sealed, tie a checked orange and black ribbon round the neck of the jar.

Falling Leaves

Paint your mason jar in a fall shade (or shades) and decoupage dried pressed leaves or leaf skeletons around the bottom. Tie a burlap ribbon round the neck and add a sprig of berries (real or artificial) for extra autumnal goodness.

Read WHAT IS DECOUPAGE: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE.

Frosty and Bright

Paint your mason jar by using a small sponge dipped in white paint – one layer only. Add glitter paint by flicking some from the tip of a small paint brush and leaving it to dry. Seal the jar, and when it is dry tie white ribbon round the neck and add a small die cut snowflake to each end of the ribbon. Pop a battery tea light inside for a beautiful table decoration.

Wedding Wonders

Paint the bottom third of a mason jar white or cream (according to the bride’s dress) and leave the top two thirds of the jar clear. When the paint is dry and sealed, glue a strip of cotton lace round the jar at the top of the painted section. Tie raffia and glue tiny sprigs of artificial flowers or ferns round the rim. If using your jars as table settings, add names on tags cut from vintage book print mounted on white/cream card.

 If you have a go at painting mason jars, we’d love to hear about your experiences and see your crafting photos, so please share them here in the comments and on our Facebook page.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you ever decorated a mason jar for the holidays? How did you do it, and what challenges did you encounter? Do you prefer using vintage mason jars for crafting, or shiny new ones – and why?

Would it surprise you to learn that only 5 percent of women at age 65 will meet a new man in the next 12-month period? And it’s not because all the good men are taken. It’s because so many single women don’t truly want to date. They think they do, but when they really have an opportunity, it turns out they are online dating for many other reasons.

In a dating study, 44 percent of people admitted that they use dating apps to boost their confidence, provide entertainment, and validate that they ‘still got it’. Meaning that singles post an online profile, and maybe even respond to messages only to see how many men like them so they can measure their attractiveness. Many women have no desire to meet up with a man for a real date. They are looking for validation, rather than love.

Everyone likes to be liked. And our brain gets a rush of dopamine every time we see those magical words, it’s a match, pop up in a dating app. You get a rush of ‘feel good’ chemicals when you get a respectable number of likes, compliments, and messages from men. You can prove to yourself that you are still attractive and loveable, even at this stage of life, all from the comfort of your own home.

Can External Validation Be Harmful?

Feeling flattered by compliments is natural. It only becomes dangerous when your personal self-worth becomes tied to those compliments. The dating world is fickle, and you always get more attention when you’re new to a dating site and you first post your profile.

If you’re feeling beautiful only because you received 20 ‘likes’ in one day, how will you feel when two months later, this number dwindles down to five? Confidence is such an important aspect of successful dating that it’s important to feel confident in yourself regardless of how men view you.

Yes, women are confident at this stage of life. However, being confident in your work life or social circle can be very different from feeling confident in love and relationships. If you are new to the dating scene, it’s natural to feel a little uncomfortable. Everyone feels awkward when learning something new. Yes, it’s safe.

However, if you settle for keeping men at arm’s length and never meet men in real life, you’ll never increase your skill level, self-confidence, or self-esteem at your core. And it’s your strong and worthy mindset that keeps you from feeling needy and powerless.

How to Foster Internal Validation

If you go into dating with the old-fashioned mindset of, ‘I hope he likes me’, it can be easy to fall into this external validation trap. You’re waiting to be picked by a man. However, when you shift your mindset to, ‘I hope I like him’, it gives you back some control of your love life and helps you date for the right reasons; to find someone special you can invite into your life.

If you notice yourself having a hard time setting boundaries, jumping from man to man, saying “Yes” when you want to say “No,” avoiding conflict, or stretching the truth to earn a sympathetic ear, here are some simple strategies to help strengthen your self-validation from the inside out.

• Give yourself a high-five every time you do something good – it doesn’t even need to be something big.
• Spend time with people who celebrate you, not tolerate you.
• If you have a tendency to dwell on your mistakes, ask yourself how much it will matter to you in the next five minutes, five days, and five years. You‘ll be surprised how short-term most mistakes are.
• Create your personal mantra. Mine is, “I’m worthy simply because I am”. (Feel free to use this.)
• Put a rubber band on your wrist and snap it every time you wait for someone else to validate you. Follow it up with a positive affirmation that feels good.

Worthiness is not a commodity. There are no requirements or qualifications you must have to be worthy of love. Even though our worthiness may have gotten tarnished along the way, we were born with a full love tank. Now rather than wait for someone else to assure you, know you’re the one person you can always count on. You know who you are and what you need to be happy. All you need to do now is give yourself permission to ask for what you want.

Successful dating is an inside-outside process. You want to feel worthy on the inside of dating those high-quality men who can love you the way you want to be loved. And you want to understand positive age-specific dating tips and strategies from the outside so you can date with clarity and confidence on your journey to finding love.

This is why I include my exclusive outside/inside coaching system in all my coaching programs. If you don’t have the right mindset, your skillset won’t matter.

Let’s Start a Conversation:

What’s the one thing in your life you are the proudest of and why? Where do you find your worth? Do you wait for others to appreciate you? Or do you have your own self-confidence that is above all?