Gratitude Jar

Not long ago I stumbled across this on Pinterest:

It's a gratitude jar.  The idea is to begin in January, and write down good things that happen throughout the year.  Then, on New Year's Eve, you open the paper slips and reflect on all the good things that have occurred throughout the year.

This idea isn't something I could keep up year after year, but is certainly something I'd like to give a try for 2013.

I took at look at the selection of jars at Hobby Lobby and decided on this one.

Of course, then came the brainstorming...what will my Gratitude/Good Things Jar look like?  I had envisioned the glass being spray painted.  Glass...it can be spray painted.  I've done it before without a problem and I'd do it again.

NOT!

OK...so I started with a primer, which went on beautifully.  Then came the color, a celery hue, that I used on this lamp.

Ugh...not much luck.  It immediately started to shrivel up.  The weather is pretty cold here right now and that might be why it did that, and this is what I ran into.

Ugh...now what?  Well, I pulled out the steel wool and tried to rub it to a smooth surface.  It worked out all right so I tried adding another coat of paint.  No luck...still had the shriveling problem.

BACK TO HOBBY LOBBY 

This time around I changed jars and chose this style instead.  I liked that it could be placed upright or tilted, as it is in the picture.

Obviously, I wasn't going to paint this jar.  So what now?  I strolled down the aisle that had all the different do-dads for scrapbooking and decided on these things.

I sat in my kitchen and started to arrange the flowers on top of the lid of the jar.  They ended up being placed too perfectly, or too spread apart, and nothing was working.

I headed out to my craft cabinet in the garage and came back with this, to add some texture.  I ended up gluing it on the entire outside of the lid.

From there I started (hot) gluing the flowers.  Once the lid was finished, I looked through my old scrapbooking paper and cut out a couple of circles to make a tag.  I added some sticker lettering and ta-da...finished!

 

I look forward to adding memories to my jar this year.  Bring on 2013...we're ready!