Buzzin About Planters

Any time of the year is a good time to transform old unwanted glass jars into cute, whimsical and useful items that will decorate your living space. But best of all, will make you smile every time you walk into that room.¬? This is also a really great gift idea!

Supplies Needed:

• #77-7721 Armour Bottle & Jar Cutter
• #15-0315 Glass cleaner
• #08-9415 Masking tape
• #30-2391 Clear glass gems
• #61-3341 Quick Grip Glue
• Large jars and bottles
• Acrylic white glass paints (for the base coat)
• Acrylic paints (these do not have to be glass paints): Sky blue, grass green, hunter green, canary yellow, bright red, black, white
• Semi gloss or matte acrylic sealer (use an outdoor type if using planter outdoors)
• Paint sponge or sea sponge
• Assorted paint brushes, including a ½" flat shader brush and liner brush
• Blending palate or plastic plate
• Marker pen (washable)
• Pencil
• Paper Towels
• 3 in 1 Oil
• Protective gloves
• Safety glasses
• Old lazy susan or cardboard (to spray sealer on planters)

1. Put on gloves and eye protection.
2. Oil the cutter wheel as specified in instruction booklet
3. Set the cutter head to the desired height for the planter
4. Score the bottle, then break on the cut line with the tapper. Follow the instructions that come with your Bottle cutter or click HERE
5. Place 2 straight and even rows of masking tape about a ¼" below cut rim to protect sides of bottle while sanding rim.
6. Sand the raw, cut edge of the bottle with the sandpaper provided in your kit. Continue over the edge and down the side to the top edge of the masking tape. Sand until lip is evenly frosted and the edge is no longer sharp. This will give you a nice, rounded, frosted lip that will accept the Rub N Remove tape and clean bottle with glass cleaner.

1. Basecoat entire jar with Acrylic white glass paints, as well as at least a dozen of the glass gems (try to pick ones that are more oval than round). This will allow you to use regular acrylic paints over the white basecoat. If you are making the green planter, you may want to basecoat with green glass paints first instead. Let basecoat dry overnight
2. Sponge sky blue randomly over entire jar to look like clouds, leaving some areas white for contrast. Let dry
3. Squirt a puddle of hunter green, grass green and canary yellow on the plastic plate. Don't put them too close to one another, you don't want them to mix together. Take the flat shader brush and dip into the grass green. Load the brush until full. Pat brush onto a folded paper towel and remove excess paint, but do not remove all of it.
4. Dip one corner of the same brush in the hunter green, the other side in the canary yellow. Blend the three colors on a clear spot of the plastic plate by stroking the brush on the plate several times until the three colors are loaded side by side on the brush, but not mixed.
5. Paint the grass: Hold the planter upside down. The bottom of the planter will be up so you can paint the grass in a downward stroke. First you will be painting the taller grass in the background. To create a blade of grass, press the flat side of the brush against the base of the planter and pull down toward, twisting the brush halfway down the blade as you go, turning the edge of the brush toward the hunter green side. Ease the pressure as you go, until you are on the brushes edge and lift up to form the tip on the end of the blade of grass.(see picture-practice on scrap jar first to get the hang of the technique). Make the grass no more than half the height of the planter. Continue making more blades of grass all the way around the planter, making some straight up, some a little bent, some taller, some shorter to look more natural. Reload your brush as needed (every few blades of grass)
6. Now create some blades of grass in the foreground. These blades of grass will show some highlights on the edge. So, load your brush again as you did before, but when you twist the brush, do so onto the yellow edge of the brush,. Nestle the blades of grass in between and overlapping the background ones, bending some over the front of the background ones. Make them shorter and fewer, so the background blades of grass are not drowned out. Let dry
7. Paint the bees & ladybugs: Take half the base coated gems and paint them mostly canary yellow, leaving a small portion for the head to be painted black later. Paint the other half of the gems red, leaving a small portion alone for the head. Let dry
8. Now paint the heads of the bees and ladybugs black.
9. For the bees: paint black stripes on the bees backs, using a slightly squiggle motion or dotting the black on to make stripes so they look a little furry".
10. For the ladybugs: Paint a black stripe down the middle of the back to create wings. Make three small black dots to either side of the stripe for spots.
11. Make two yellow dots for eyes on each bug or bee.
12. Glue the ladybugs on the some of the blades of grass with Quick Grip glue. Have some crawling up and some crawling down.
13. Glue the bees in the sky, some flying upward, some downward and some sideways. Let glue dry before next step
14. Add details to the bees: paint wings by loading a small flat brush with white and making two consecutive semi circles on either side of each bee (see pic) for wings. Outline the wings with black using a small liner brush. Add two thin black lines on the white portion of the wings to add some definition and to make them look like they are almost transparent. Paint two thin black antennas and a short stinger if desired.
15. Add detail to the Ladybugs: paint two short, black antennas on the head and four short black legs, two on each side.
16. Place planter upside down on an old lazy susan covered with a piece of cardboard or place directly on cardboard if you don't have one. Spray planter with several thin layers of acrylic sealer, letting sealer dry between coats

Article Posted: 02/09/2018 03:00:06 PM