I'm always saving old glass jars for craft room storage for all those little bits and pieces - but I'm not fond of their less than inspiring lids in most cases. So this is a simple upcycle you can do that has a little secret to add some extra vintage style to your jar lids.
The secret to having lids that have a little style is to not leave them flat, but to add a simple cheap item available at plumbing stores to make the lid appeared domed - the humble plumbing wall cover plate.
All you need to do is buy cover plates that are just a little smaller than your jar lid, and that have a hole in them smaller than the knob you will be using. You drill a hole in the centre of your jar lid first, then you use a strong glue suitable for metal to glue the edges of the cover plate onto the lid.
When the glue is dry paint your new domed lid and the knob with a suitable metal spray paint - I chose Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze as I wanted a slightly industrial vintage look, but white would look good as well.
When the paint is fully dry you can screw the knob onto the jar making sure as you tighten the screw the knob is centred over the hole in the cover plate. All done!
You can lots of other things to help give the lids some dimension, on small jars try large flat buttons or tap washers, basically anything round you can glue and paint that won't collapse under the pressure of the knob being screwed down.
But if you want to add even more character to your jars you can also create some faux porcelain numbers and glue them to the sides like I did with these 3 jars.
The jars I had were perfect for this idea, they had a flat oval spot on one side, but this will work on normal jars as well.
I made the numbers from air dry clay, rolled it out flat and used a small oval cutter to lightly mark the shape, then used a cling stamp to press the number into the clay.
Then I placed a piece of thin plastic kitchen cling film over the clay, and cut fully through the clay with the cutter, using the cling film gives the edges a nice rounded effect and creates a cleaner cut. Don't cut the shape first or you can distort the shape when pressing your stamp into it.
I then painted the front of each piece with white acrylic craft paint taking care to avoid filling the indented number, and then after the white paint dried I used a very fine thin brush to fill in the number hollow with black acrylic paint.
I then glued the finished discs to the jars and used a gloss sealer to simulate the shine of the porcelain ones.
Make sure to glue the clay onto the jar before it dries if you need to mould the clay to the shape of your jar - it's very flexible and will then dry in the correct shape.
I hope you enjoy this tutorial, let me know by adding your comment below.