My Martha Fail

So I decided to organize my pantry the other day- you know, January organization and all- and I found this on Martha Stewart:

Aren't those glass jars just adorable? I thought they were a little slice of perfection, so I decided to go ahead and make them. After reading through some of the comments, I learned I could get the jars at Target, so off I went.

Sure enough, Target had them in 3 different sizes so I literally bought every single one on the shelf. Then it was off to Michael's to get the stickers and etching cream.

Here is where things took a turn for the worse.

They were completely sold out of etching cream at Michael's, and I couldn't find any vinyl stickers. So I just bought some 'normal' stickers and decided to try JoAnne's for the etching cream.

Guess what? JoAnne's was also out of etching cream. So my mother mentioned SHE was going to the Michael's by her, and would look out for the cream. Sure enough, she found some. But it was the tiniest bottle you ever saw. However, I was on a mission and by goodness I was going to make those wonderful jars.

Now, as you may recall, I didn't have any vinyl stickers- just the regular ones. I thought the project would work with those. So I stuck them down and proceeded to glop the etching cream on top. Then, after waiting a minute or two, I washed it off. Here was the result:

Um, it doesn't exactly look like Martha's. But I figured it looked horrible because I didn't exactly follow the directions. So off I went to find vinyl stickers. Turns out they are also known as 'rub off' letters, so I went back to Michael's and sure enough- there they were! And on sale!

So I started again. I made sure each letter was on perfectly (took almost half of an hour) and then made sure the etching cream was laid on thick. Here is the result:

So not cute.

So I decided to scratch the entire plan and just use some stamps to create labels. And to be honest, I think they came out pretty good. Wanna see?

Isn't that cute?

Here is how I did it

First, I got out my materials:

letter stamps

stamp ink

tags

twine

scissors

Then I just picked a color (turquoise of course) and then stamped whatever was going into the jar onto the label:

Then I tied the tag onto the jar with some twine:

and voila! Adorableness!

Isn't that cute? And soooo easy. It isn't as sophisticated as Martha's, but it sure was easier.