Patriotic Mason Jar Candle Holders

Are you looking to dress up your 4th of July picnic with some fun decorations? These patriotic Mason jar candle holders are the perfect thing! With just a little paint plain jars are transformed into fun and festive flags!

 

 

Every year at our lake cabin we host a 4th of July get together with a bunch of our friends. It has become a super fun tradition that starts with a pot luck picnic and ends with fireworks.  There is usually a lot of laughs, delicious food and great memories made.

However, I’ve never done a lot of decorating. It seems like the holiday sneaks up on me and I don’t have things prepared. So this year I decided I’d make these cute little patriotic Mason jar candle holders, with their lovely flag theme, and have them ready to go!

They are pretty easy, and just require a few star stickers, a little paint, and you’re read to go! I’ve seen some like this where the stripes are made with masking tape and are straight across. I wanted to give these a wavy flag effect so I drew the stripes on. It takes a little more time, but I think the final look is worth it!

I brought them to the lake ahead of time and  have already had 2 friends request a set of their own! I’ll consider that a hit!

You could use them for vases too, they would look super cute with some red, white, and blue carnations or even daisies or wild flowers!

With candles they make a great addition to your evening or night time decor, the picture doesn’t do them justice, they look even better in person!

 

 

I used chalk paint for mine because it is my favorite. You could use acrylic paint, even spray paint for the base color. If you use chalk paint and wax they won’t be able to be left out in the elements. You can always coat them with a protective clear coat and then the weather won’t hurt them!

Here’s what you’ll need for these patriotic mason jar candle holders –

• Red, White, and Blue Paint- (your choice- I used waverly chalk paint)
• Paint brush
• pencil
• Sandpaper or an old emery board
• Chalk paint wax or other protective coating depending on your paint
• 3 Pint size Mason jars
• Star shaped stickers (I used these )
• A sharp knife or razor blade

 

The first thing you want to do is add a few stars all around your jar, these will be the ones that end up clear when you’re all finished painting.

 

Next you want to give the jars a nice base coat of white. I ended up doing two coats of my white chalk paint, letting it dry in between. Now let that base coat dry nice and thoroughly.

 

Now add on more star stickers. I put the majority at the top where I knew I’d be painting blue you can put them over the ridged part by carefully wrapping them so they stick well. I added some others all over the jar just to add a few stars here and there.

 

Now to get the wavy flag effect all you have to do is take your pencil and draw a nice curved line around your jar, about 1/3 of the way down.  It’s super easy to draw on the chalk paint. If you want to make sure the line curves continuously across all three you can line them up and draw the wavy line across all three then finish drawing the line around each jar.

 

You can draw the lines for your stripes now or paint your blue on first. I painted the blue so that the first coat could have time to dry while I painted the stripes, but you can do it either way.  For the stripes just follow the curve you made for the blue part evenly around your jar. If you are worried about them being even you can measure about 3/4 of an inch down and mark it in several places around your jar.

 

Now paint on your stripes! I needed to do two coats on my blue and the stripes so if you need to just let them dry in between coats!

Once your paint is nice an dry it’s time to peel off the stars and reveal how cute it looks!

With a couple of layers of paint on them they can be a little tricky to get off so using a sharp knife or a razor blade to get under them can be super helpful!

 

Once all the stars are off it’s time to distress them a little! Just lightly sand over the words, around the edges, where ever you want the other colors or glass to shine through. To be a little more precise an old emery board or nail file works really well!

When you’re all done distressing brush off any dust that has collected and then it’s time to either wax or spray coat your final product!

Once your final coat has dried they’re ready to go!

 

You can use them on your table as a center piece, or even to hold your utensils! There are so many ways to work them into your 4th of July decor that will be super cute! So make a few sets of these patriotic Mason jar candle holders and see how many ways you can use them!

What is your favorite way to decorate for the 4th? Do you keep it simple or go all out? 

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