Sunday, May 22, 2011

Witch jars now in production for 2011


Got an early start this year and started on my witch jars for this years haunt. Using Pumkinrots design, I  decided to customize mine a bit. I wanted more color this year, as last years were just clear. I looked long and hard for some orange glass paint, but could not find any thing that worked the way I wanted, so I did some experimenting and found the look that I wanted at the price I wanted. Since I have saved about 30-40 jars of various sizes since last October, I plan to steal from Shellhawk and the Bloodshed brothers (since their lighted and decorated trees were so cool), and completely fill my front tree with the jars. I found that orange spray paint lightly sprayed inside gave a great base to start with. I then used a waterbase matte varnish, mixed with amber aniline dye and slopped it on the edges for the drips and did some "spattering" on the sides. I think this got me the look that I wanted. Not really sure what that look is, but I think it's pretty cool.....Now only about 35 left to go......

26 comments:

  1. they look great. really like the orange glow!

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  2. These are so awesome! I can't wait to see a picture of these in your tree.

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  3. These look really nice. I like the cloth on top of them; it gives the perfect creepy touch!

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  4. Thanks all! The thing I like most is that they will keep the nice orange and black colors even in the daylight. Now I just need about 50 more feet of rusted chain....

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  5. I really like these. Such a nice glow those give off.

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  6. Those are great, nice variation - they will look awesome in your haunt!

    Cheers!

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  7. Wow, those are great! I'd love to do something like that! Great work, can't wait to see them all lit in the tree on Hallowe'en night!

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  8. These are REALLY nice. I have a whole box of jars I've been saving myself. I think I might have to try this out one day. ;)

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  9. What did you use to light them up? LED Tea lights?

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  10. How did you attach the chains to hang them? They are awesome !

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  11. ran some heavy gauge wire around the rim of the jars and then attached a "handle" of wire from side to side to attach the chains to.

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  12. These are so awesome! What did you use to light them up? Did you have to poke a hole in the lid?

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    1. Thanks Karen, I like to use real candles, they give off the best light I feel. Also, there are no lids on the jars for easy lighting

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  13. can you tell me what your mixture of varnish and dye is? that ratio, I mean.
    thanks!

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    1. Sure, I use a powder analine dye water based. I mix a tablespoon of "Flemmish Brown" with about six ounces of waterbased flat endurovar.

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  14. I LOOOOVE THESE!!!! Can you tell me where you got your supplies cuz I wouldn't even know where to start! Michaels? Home Depot?

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  15. The jars are the large oversized pickle jars, but any size will do. the rest is orange spray paint (Depot) black dyed cheese cloth and glue (any elmers glue will do) the dye I had to order but any water based brown stain will do and then mixed with the enduro var. you may not be able to find that, but you could mix it with waterbased matte varnish also at depot.

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  16. I Love these jars! Did you dye your own cheesecloth? I tried dying some and it turned purple. Thanks for sharing!

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  17. yep- used the RIT liquid dye straight with no water and left them sit overnight

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  18. Great job,how do you attach the chains to the jars?vickie

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    1. I ran a heavy gauge wire around the rim of the jar and then attached another as a handle attaching to the one around the rim.

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  19. Love these! Trying them this year thanks for the Info!!!

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  20. I have a large pickle jar in the fridge with 2 pickles left. I'm so glad I saw this before the jar would have gone into recycling!! Lol...I love it. Ty October boy!! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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  21. A great idea. I especially like your name, October Boy.

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  22. Yeah.. these are really cool. I'm trying a quick lo-buck version for my son's backyard woods haunt trail. Using orange spray inside of mason jars & using some Minwax (oil based) in Espresso to cover outside. Have to start somewhere ; might taint the stain w/a little orange spray enamel since it'll go w/the oil base. I'll top it w/black cheesecloth/creepy cloth. Nice work!

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