It’s so satisfying to be able to keep all your kitchen goodies super fresh and easily accessible. And, really, who doesn’t love an organized and stylish kitchen? As I’ve been working to make our simple townhouse a home, I decided that adding a little pizazz to the kitchen could do some good…. Entre cute labeled glass canisters!
This project is really straightforward to complete and doesn’t take too much time. So, go ahead and round up your plain kitchen jars and let’s spice ‘em up a bit! Those jars will be looking so fly no time 🙂
Materials:
- Kitchen Canisters
- Krylon Acrylic Spray
- Decal Paper
- Inkjet Printer
Step 1.
Go ahead and design a label that meets your needs and print it out onto the shiny side of your decal paper. Any standard inkjet printer will work perfectly. Print as many labels as possible onto one sheet of paper to get the most bang-for-your-buck.
Keep in mind that the colors will transfer onto the decal paper slightly lighter than they look on the computer. I learned this the hard way and it took me a couple tries to get the color I was going for. I would suggest going about 2 or 3 shades darker than you like on the computer.
Once your labels are printed, let them sit for a few minutes to make sure the ink is completely dry.
*Side note: be careful not to smear the ink when you first take the paper off the printer.
Step 2.
After the ink is completely dry, coat the decal paper generously with Krylon Acrylic spray. This will seal your labels to make them waterproof. Since these jars are going to be in your kitchen, this is fairly important…or at least it was for me…I’m not the smoothest of people and water always seems to be everywhere in my kitchen 😉
Following the directions on the Krylon, hold the can about 8-10 inches from your paper and apply an even coat across the whole surface. Let the paper dry about 5 minutes between each coat for the best seal. I used 3 coats total and that seems to have worked fine. The acrylic spray has a really strong stench, so I would suggest doing this part of the project outside. Once you have applied all the coats, let the paper sit until completely dry. I let it sit about 30-45 minutes. It dries pretty fast on that decal paper, but really just depends on how many coats you apply.
Step 3.
Cut out your labels. I drew faint boxes around my labels to help make the cuts nice and square. That said, I was cutting with a pair of scissors. If you have one of those nice big paper cutters, this step is way easy and you probably don’t need the guidelines if you don’t want them.
Make sure to cut about 1/8” from the edges of your label text. Even though the decal paper is clear, you will be able to see a faint outline of your label once you apply it. I used a rectangle to have a consistent, clean-cut shape on all the canisters.
Step 4.
This is the trickiest part of the whole project. It took me a couple tries to get all the bubbles out of the labels. You’ll have to do some experimenting to figure out what works best for you, but here’s what I found worked for me:
Soak the labels in a bowl of water for about 45 seconds, or until the label starts to peel off the decal paper backing.
Remove the label from the bowl of water and pull the label completely off the backing. Your label should have quite a bit of excess water on it.
Apply one side of your label to the jar and gently roll the rest of the label down. The excess water should help to sort of “suction” the label down. Watch for air bubbles as you roll the label out, though that’s what the “suction” effect should be mostly preventing.
Once you have your label on the canister, gently wipe away excess water from the edges of the label until it feels fairly adhered to your canister.
Step 5.
Seal the labels onto your canisters using a hair dryer or oven. The heat from the hair dryer or oven will melt the label onto your canister for more solid adhesion.
Hair Dryer: Dry labels with high heat for approximately 10 minutes
Oven: Preheat oven to 325°. Set jars with their new labels in the middle of the oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
Though the ink of the labels is waterproof thanks to the Krylon Acrylic Spray, the whole label-jar combo is not. I would not suggest running the canisters through the dishwasher since that will potentially take your new labels off.
There you have it! Spruce and tidy your kitchen one jar at a time 🙂
