Potions and Poison Halloween Collection - Part Three

When I started collecting the little jars for Princess Five, I didn't think it would turn into such a big project. However, it really has turned into something fun and cute. 
 
I still need to show a few things more that are cute ideas but today, I wanted to show you how to use old jewelry to decorate the jars. 


I have two bags of "recycle" jewelry that I have and every time I buy a "bag" of jewelry at the second hand store, I bag anything that isn't something we want but is in good condition or is new, and give it to charity in several ways. Click here for a post about that and it has other links explaining more as well.

Here is a link where I talk about giving the jewelry away at Christmas to the old folk center. 


I took the recycle jewelry bag and looked through them (one has gold items and the other silver) to see if there was anything I could use to decorate the jars and make them cute. 
 
The jewelry in them is maybe silver plate and has worn off so that the copper is showing through. No one would wear the jewelry but for a decoration on a jar used to decorate for one holiday, it would be perfect. 


I also found some cute cross buttons that were fifty cents at a second hand store that someone purchase on clearance from Hobby Lobby. I figured ten cents each for them is a good deal and they match the weapon hanging on the wall. 


I found this cute heart bracelet and was able to use the tin snips to cut links and measure it to fit around the neck of a bottle and then added the other charms to other chains to other jars. 


You can use almost anything including sparkly string and just glue it around the neck of the jar wrapping it around until it is as wide as you would like it to be. 


You can use the gold elastic that you get on gift boxes at Christmas and just tie a knot at the back of the jar and lace a charm or something through it.

Most of the jewelry was "free" since it was from bags that I bought to get other things out of. The jars were mostly about $1 and some dollar stores have cute jars. Antique stores have some great antique medicine jars that would be super cute. 


Right now, one second hand store in town has some great jars. Some still have powder residue in them.


You can put an add out on a local newspaper, internet site asking for old medicine jars or even cute little Tabasco jars etc. People love to recycle and hate to throw things like that out if someone can use them. Ebay or other sites sell them cheap but usually the shipping makes them more. 


Old town dumps or farm garbage pits have old jars that you can dig up or along old railway tracks, you can sometimes find old jars.

You can then make the little jars into whatever you want by adding tops, corks, jewelry, filling and labels. 

I found this rubber bat in my decorations and thought how much fun it would be to hang on the outside and make a label of "crystallized bats blood" for the red sand inside. 


I just used metal jump rings and didn't put them through the bat but just clamped them down on it firm enough for it to hold the bat up on the chain. 

On the "snake" jar, I just wrapped a gold chain around the top and Princess Five said that was her favorite. She liked that it was "gold" in color as I used silver on most of the others. I still have many jars that need decorating as I am making a set for Princess Five and myself. 

She has helped and I told her she could have her pick of whatever she wanted and I would keep the rest as I am getting rid of all the old stuff I have. 

To be continued....