Hi everyone! I am back today with another “Mason Monday” project, and this one involves using wide mouth lids and bands. No jars; just the lids. I have been working on this idea for almost a week now, and it really started out as an experiment.

I have a set of these coasters, and I love the combination of the galvanized metal and the cork and how striking the embossed white seashell looks against the cork background. I have always been curious as to whether I could duplicate this design using mason jar lids as the base, and, since I could use some coasters for our outdoor seating area, I decided it was time to find out.

Before I could even start this project, I needed to make sure that I had stamp images that were proportional to the size of the cork circles, and that I could emboss these images on to the cork. I would have loved to use seashells, but all of my shell stamps were way too small. I did find a set of chair images that looked like they might be large enough, so now it was time to see if the detailed images would emboss well on the cork. I am happy to report that the embossing went well, and here is what the chair images looked like on the cork circles:

I really thought that the uneven surface of the cork would make it difficult to pick up the fine details of each of these chairs, but that wasn’t the case at all! You can see each image very clearly. I’m so excited! This project was dependent on being able to emboss on cork, and now that I have accomplished that, I can start working on the jar lids.

Here is a picture of the adhesives and paints I used on the mason jar lids:

I started by gluing the lids to the bands with E6000 adhesive. I tried hot glue first, but it was too thick and bulky. Once the lids were secure, I whitewashed each lid with the white chalk paint.

I then applied a thin coat of the vintage chalk paint, making sure to leave areas of the white paint exposed. I wanted the lids to have a distressed, worn look. Once the paint was dry, I adhered a plain cork circle to the bottoms of the lids for furniture protection.

I couldn’t wait to put the embossed cork circles inside the jar lids to see how they would look!

I liked the contrast of the embossed cork against the paint color, but these coasters needed something else; they lacked personality and charm. I turned my room upside down and tried all kinds of things, and here is what I finally came up with:

All it took was some lace and tiny, satin roses to take these coasters from “bland to grand”, and now they have the personality and charm that they were lacking. I used the fine-tip glue pen pictured above to attach the lace to the lids.

I finally have coasters for our outdoor seating area, and they couldn’t be more sweet and charming! They are ready for some sittin’ and sippin’, and I can’t wait to use them.

This has been a fun experiment and project to work on, and I’m glad you could join me to see how these coasters turned out. Have a great couple of weeks, and I will see you back here after vacation. Take care, and, as always, remember:

“May the waves kiss your feet; the sand be your seat; and your friends out-number the stars”.

-C-