Supplies:
- Glass jar. I purchased mine from Dollar Tree.
- Acrylic paint (color of honey jar and yellow for honey)
- Baking soda
- Water
- Paint brushes or sponge brush
- Optional: honey dipper
- Optional: clay to make a bee or you could buy a bee.
I started out by mixing some blue and tan paint together to get my desired paint color. I then added roughly a 1 to 1 ratio of acrylic paint to backing soda, and mixed it together with my paint brush. It looked very thick, so I decided to add a little water to the mixture. I accidently added more water than I intended too. This meant I needed to add a second layer of my mixture. Once my first layer was dry there were a few areas that were a little see though. So, I mixed together another batch of the acrylic paint and baking soda and applied it all over my honey jar.
You have to be careful when your container is still drying or when applying additional layers to it. It is easy to scrape off the layer below. I ended up accidently scrapping off parts of the first layer when applying the second layer. I then had to wait for the piece to completely dry, and apply a third layer to cover up what I scraped off. This third layer did not look as nice as the first two layers. I was trying to go faster since I did not plan on spending this much time on this part of the project. It took about two days, because I had to let each layer completely dry before I could apply another. This last layer I did not cover up my brush strokes very well. I was afraid to pull off a bottom layer and would have to wait and apply another layer. To cover up a brush stroke I would apply some of the baking soda and paint mixture with my paint brush or a foam brush in a dabbing up and down motion, instead of the brushing side to side motion. Doing this many layers also made it look a bit thick. I recommend doing two layers.
Once my honey jar was painted and dry, I hand painted the word hunny on the side. I wanted it to look like someone, possibly a child, hand did the letters. I chose to spell honey incorrectly, because when I was searching for honey jars for inspiration, this is how many of them wrote the word honey.
Next, I wanted it to look like honey was seeping out from the lid. I tested two different methods to make my honey drippings. The first test was to apply the hot glue drips, then paint it yellow when the glue was dry. This gave the honey a more mat look, and the paint brush stokes showed more. The second test was to paint the drips with yellow paint first, then apply the hot glue on top of these painted on drips. Since the hot glue was transparent the yellow paint should show through the dried glue. This method showed less paint brush stokes, and the honey looked more shinny. On the test cardboard I liked the second method much better. When applied it to my honey jar and honey dipper the yellow paint did not show through as much. So, I ended up painting the yellow paint over the dried hot glue drips as well. I applied this honey drips to the top of the honey dipper, and like it was coming out of the lid of my honey jar. Feel free to apply more or less honey drips to suit your liking. I was going to only apply the honey drippings to the front of the honey jar in a small section, but ended up making them all the way around the honey jar.
Lastly, I decided to make a little bee out of clay. You could also purchase a pre made bee if you do not wish to try and make one. I started off by making a head and body for my bee. The head was just a round ball. For the body I made more of a cylinder shape, and pinched the bottom to make it pointy like his stinger. I then combined the head and body. Next, I rolled out three very thin black pieces of clay for his stripes, and pressed them onto his body. I used a tooth pick to help me smooth things together for a better bond. I then made four little gray wings and attached them at the bottom of my bee. The last step was to make his antennas. I rolled out two very small pieces of black clay, then rolled them at the top. I had not worked with clay in a while and was a little messing with my work. The clay I used was also just some cheap kids clay I had from when I was little. Many of the colors have pieces of other colors mixed in. Since the bee is pretty little most people probably will not notice some of these spots and mistakes. My camera does a great job of picking up little details and really shows off my imperfections. I just used hot glue to glue this little bee to my bee hive. Feel free to make more bees to attach to your bee hive.
I really like how this piece turned out. I was amazed by the texture this baking soda technique added to this glass jar. This technique would also be very pretty on old vases to bring new life and a completely different style to them. I will probably use this technique in future projects. It is hard to pick my favorite honey/bee theme item I have made. They all turned out so cute. Can you pick a favorite? Have you tried making any of these or other bee theme items yet? If you are interested to learn how I made the bee hive, then click here. If you are interested in the bee theme cutouts, then click here.
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