Crochet Succulents in Painted Mason Jars

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I keep seeing crafts and decor using succulents everywhere, on Pinterest, Instagram, other blogs, they seem to be all over the place and they have been for a while. I have had the idea of trying to make a crocheted version quite some time but I was really stuck on what to put them in. I thought about trying to crochet the whole thing, pot and plant, or maybe buying some little terra cotta type pots and painting them. I wasn't sure I liked either of those ideas so the idea remained a scribble in my notebook and nothing came of it for a long time. Every once in awhile I would see something and think, I really should try out that idea that I had, but the same problem was always there.

Then, about a week ago my son had to do a science fair project. We knew about it for a long time and had an idea planned but then sickness hit our house and nothing was done on the project. Suddenly we had only a few days to get it done so I frantically texted my husband asking him to pick some things up at the store on the way home from work so we could get to work growing some crystals. One thing that we needed was some jars to grow the crystals in. I told my husband just to pick up some pint size jars, the cheapest thing that he could find, and we needed 5 or 6. In my mind I was picturing a normal pint size jar, just a smaller version of a quart jar, proportionately kind of tall and skinny. He ended up coming home with some pint size jars that were kind of short and fat instead. He bought them at Walmart but they were like these jars on Amazon. They worked just fine for the crystals so we got those done but then there were 3 jars left over. I kept looking at the jars thinking that I really like the shape and there had to be something interesting I could make with them. Then I remembered my succulent idea. I thought the jars would be perfect. They were shorter than a normal canning jar, but with a wider mouth. I knew that I wanted to paint them so that you wouldn't be able to see inside but once they were painted I thought they would work great.

I sketched out some ideas, painted my jars, dug through my stash for some green yarns, and got to work crocheting. I came up with 3 different plants, each one made very differently. The base for each one is made exactly the same (the brown dirt part), but the plants themselves are all different. I just used regular acrylic craft paint for the gray and white jars and the yellow one was painted with a little sample jar of paint that I happened to have in my box of paints. I looked online to see if there were any tricks to make painting the glass jars easier and everything that I read just said that it is very important to let the paint dry completely between coats which I would definitely agree with. It seems like a lot of people suggested doing 2 coats, I had to do more like 3 or 4 to get the color and opaqueness that I wanted. The crocheted plants are sewn to a crocheted base that fits inside the top of the jar. The jar is filled with stuffing to take up the rest of the space and hold up the base.

How to Make Crocheted Succulents in Painted Mason Jars

You will need:

• 3 wide mouth pint size jars (the opening should be about 3" in diameter)
• acrylic craft paint in desired colors
• foam paintbrush
• fine grit sandpaper
• worsted weight yarn in shades of green (I used Red Heart With Love in Lettuce, Loops and Threads Impeccable in Soft Fern, and a darker blueish green yarn that I believe is Red Heart Super Saver but I'm not sure)
• worsted weight brown yarn (I used Big Twist Yarn from JoAnn in Chocolate)
• G crochet hook
• stuffing
• yarn needle 
• scissors

Instructions:

Prepare your jars

Paint the jars with a foam brush and acrylic paint. I only painted the outside of the jar and I did not paint the bottom, just the parts that would be seen. Let it dry completely between coats. I found that I needed 3-4 coats, but you can do as many as you feel is necessary for the look you want. Let the paint dry completely a final time and then using the fine grit sandpaper gently distress the paint. I just sanded a little along the letters on the front of the jar, the top screw portion, and the "corners" of the jar. Just a little bit to give it a distressed look, you don't want to take off a ton of paint. Set the jars aside.

Base

The base for all three is made exactly the same way

With brown yarn and G hook begin with a magic ring

Round 1: in mr, ch1, 6 sc (6 sc)

Round 2: 2 sc in each stitch (12 sc)

Round 3: [2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in next] repeat around (18 sc)

Round 4: [2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in next 2 stitches] repeat around (24 sc)

Round 5: [2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in next 3 stitches] repeat around (30 sc)

Round 6: [2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in next 4 stitches] repeat around (36 sc)

Round 7: 1 sc in blo of each stitch (36 sc)

Round 8: 1 sc in each stitch (36 sc)

Round 9: 1 sc in each stitch (36 sc)

Finish off, I didn't worry about weaving in ends, I just made sure the ends were secure and then tucked it inside

Plant #1 (Yellow Jar)

with green yarn and G hook

ch 14

Row 1: sc in 2nd ch from hook and each ch to the end (13 sc)

Row 2: ch 1, turn, sc in blo of each stitch (13 sc)

Repeat row 2 20 more times for a total of 22 rows of sc

You should now have a ribbed rectangle

Fold in half so the short ends match up, sc working through one loop from each side joining the sides together 

You should now have a tube shape

Finish off and cut your yarn leaving a long end

Weave around one end of the tube then pull the yarn to tighten, stitch a few times to secure

Stuff the piece that you just finished and then sew it to the top, flat side of the base.

Plant #2 (White Jar)

This is made in 2 pieces that are sewn together at the end

Top section:

with green yarn (darker green in mine) and G hook start with magic ring

Round 1: in mr, ch 1, 4 sc, slip stitch to join (4 sc)

Round 2: ch 2, in first sc [dc, ch 2, dc, hdc], slip stitch in next sc, ch 2, in same sc [dc, ch 2, dc, hdc], repeat in the next 2 sc so that you have a total of 4 leaves, finish off

Bottom section:

with same green yarn and G hook, this time you will make a ring of ch and work into that

ch 5, join in ring

Round 1: in ring, [1 sc, ch 3] 6 times

Round 2: working in first ch loop, [ch 2, 2 dc, ch 3, slip stitch to first ch, 2 dc, hdc] slip stitch to next loop and repeat in each ch loop for a total of 6 leaves

Round 3: working in the starting ring and behind the leaves just worked, [sc, ch 5] in between each of the sc worked in round 1 (6 chain loops)

Round 4: in each loop, [ch 2, 3 dc, ch 4, slip stitch in first ch, 3 dc, hdc] slip stitch to next ch loop and repeat in each loop for a total of 6 leaves, finish off leaving long end for sewing

Layer the top section on top of the center of the bottom section and sew to the flat top of the base

Plant # 3 (Gray Jar)

This one is worked in the round with leaves worked every other row

The leaves are made by varying the number of chains so that they are all different lengths and then working down the ch, to make it less confusing in the pattern I will just tell the number of chains to work, then say make the leaf following the instructions below.

To make the leaves: ch between 8-12, slip stitch in first ch, sc in next, hdc in next, dc in each of the remaining chains

With green yarn (I used a light yellowish green for this one) and G hook, begin with magic ring

Round 1: in mr, ch1, 6 sc, join with sl st to first sc (6 sc)

Round 2: ch 8, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 10, make leaf, skip 1, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 9, make leaf, skip 1, slip stitch to beginning stitch (3 leaves)

Round 3: working in skipped stitches and blo of other stitches, 2 sc in each stitch, slip stitch to join (12 sc)

Round 4: ch 9, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 11, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 9, make leaf, skip 1, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 10, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 8, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 11, make leaf, skip 1, slip stitch to beginning stitch (6 leaves)

Round 5: [2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in next] repeat around (18 sc)

Round 6:  ch 10, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 12, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 9, make leaf, skip 1, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 11, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 10, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 8, make leaf, skip 1, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 12, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 11, make leaf, skip 1 sc, slip stitch in tlo of next stitch, ch 9, make leaf, skip 1, slip stitch to beginning stitch (9 leaves)

Finish off, leave long end for sewing, sew to the top of base

The leaves naturally curl in but you can play with them a little to get them to go where you want them to

Assembly

Fill the jar with stuffing about to the point where it starts to curve in for the part the lid screws onto. Add a little bit of stuffing inside of the base just so it doesn't collapse on you as you try to stick it in the jar. Push the base into the jar, I thought it looked best when the base was level with or just inside to top of the jar. If it sticks out more than you want you may want to take out some of the stuffing until it is sitting at the right level. That is all I did for mine, they can easily be taken out but they stay in nicely. If you want it more permanent you could glue it inside the jar, I just chose not to do that.