My favourite colour is silver so the fact that canning jar lids come in two pieces is perfect for me, I can keep my beloved silver and still have colour co-ordinated tops for my button jars, here is what I started with...
The first step is to prepare the paper for pasting to the lid, it really is as simple as choosing your paper, making sure you have at least 1cm of paper bigger than the total size of the lid, you will see in my pictures that I have drawn two circles, the outer circle is the edge of the jar lid, the inner circle is where the ridge falls in the top of the lid.... to measure this I placed a piece of scrap paper on top of the lid and ran my fingernail in the groove. This is important because you want to take your cutting lines to the inner circle; cutting like this gives the paper room to mould through the groove and over the edge of the lid. So trace the circles, cut at random intervals to the inner circle, apply a generous amount of Triple Tac and then place the lid on top of the paper...
Gently press the paper to the lid, then flip it over and run your finger in the groove to move the paper into the groove space, then stretch each piece of spliced paper and tuck it behind the lid. Wait a minute or so, and then take a file to the edge of the lid to separate the excess paper, you could use your scissors to do this, but I like that filing takes off the paper right at the edge of the lid, and leaves a really smooth finish...
Once you have removed the excess paper, you can make a choice to leave your lids in two pieces or to join them together as I have done.... If you are gluing them together I would advise sitting the inner lid on top of the jar, then adding a run of Triple Tac right on the outer edge of the inner lid, I have used the red top to show you this step as the Triple Tac showed up better on this paper... Then screw the outer lid onto the jar to secure and, at the same time, align both lids so that they will always fit to the top of the jar. Only leave them screwed to the top of the jar for 30 seconds or so, just enough for the initial contact to start to dry.... then unscrew the lid and leave upside down to dry for a couple of minutes.... this just makes sure that any little bit of excess glue dries to the lid and not between the jar and the lid.
You can co-ordinate your papers like I have or just use papers that match whatever you plan to put inside the jars.... if canning jars are not your style, you can use this same technique on everyday jars, have a mish-mash set and cover them in co-ordinating paper and they will all of a sudden look like they belong together.... use the same jam every time.... cover the lids and you will have a little matching line-up of fancy jars.... enjoy!
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