Happiness Tracker

A while back I bought this case of Mason Jars from the Commissary. And I've hardly used them. It was a deal, and they had so many, and I couldn't resist. Mainly because I will use them. I promise.

Well, in my life I feel like I have a lot of negativity. Being in the Marine Corps can often make you feel that way. And I feel as if every year all I can focus on is the negative things, it becomes more difficult to remember the good times that happened throughout the year, because the bad days stick with me more vividly.

I saw a post on Pinterest (my #1 way of wasting time) about a Happiness Jar. Essentially when something good happens, or something that brightens you, whether it be an event, moment or conversation, you simply write it down and put it in the jar. At the end of the year you now have a whole jar full of all the good things that happened to you.
I saw this as a great opportunity to focus on the positive things that occur around me. So I set aside a jar, wrote down some positive things that already happened this year.
And....decided I wanted to decorate my jar.
I'm by no means any sort of decorating expert, but do have an abundance of random craft materials I've slowly collected throughout my time in the military. So I figured I could for sure find some stuff to glue onto this jar. 

 And I did.
This is fabric I found a while back at Tokai Heart, the cute ribbon is from the Daiso. I ironed the fabric, and hot glued it on. For the seams I just folded them under and ironed them.
The Ribbon is crocheted, but I don't know what else to call it than "Ribbon". I just glued a piece of it around the jar, and then glued a bow together and stuck it on.

I decided this was cute.

But I wanted to do more.

I have seen a lot of posts about putting glitter inside or on the outside of mason jars, and I agree, they look fabulous. However, all these DIY's call for mod podge, or something similar that I do not own, and I wasn't going to make a special trip to see if maybe I could find it somewhere near where I live.

Sooo....I used clear fingernail polish. (I'm not joking)
I just dumped enough to almost cover the bottom of the jar, and then I indiscriminately dumped a bunch of brown glitter, and some gold glitter in it. I sacrificed a sponge that I had so I could mix it and smear it around the bottom of the jar and up the sides below the cloth.
I also smeared some around the top of the jar above the cloth, but not nearly as much.

 So I sat that under a fan and decided to paint the lid. I just wiped down the outside to remove any dust of dirt, and took some brown acrylic paint, mixed it with a random amount of silver and painted the lid.


So I wanted to add some bling onto my jar, instead of keeping it just the simple design.




 This is a necklace I've had for around 5 years, maybe. I don't wear it anymore because it's reached the point in its lifespan where it turns my skin green if I sweat while wearing it (I also think the toddler who slobbered on it multiple times while babysitting didn't help either. XD). 
So I glued the bling portion just under the bow, and the rest of the chain I decided to glue around the lid, and leave the excess hanging down.
THAT WAS SUCH A PAIN!
Hot glue is not meant for everything, and honestly I forgot I had super glue (which I don't think would have worked well either) and rubber cement (not sure how that would have went)
But I managed to finally glue it on in a way that it stays, and it won't fall off every time I open the jar. Definitely a trail and error process.

Lastly, I wanted to add something to the top of the lid. I was at the point where if I saw something I wanted to glue on, I was considering just sticking it on. I mean, it's a happiness jar, it should contribute to my happiness, right? XD
So I have a ton of colored glass pebbles, (I use them to play a really nerdy game called Three Dragon Ante) and I have a TON of them. So I selected some and just arranged them in a way where the lid was mostly covered, and then I glued them on.

My jar is complete!! (For now~ >:D)