Let's get started!

Make sure your jars are squeaky clean. Any oily residue from foods can cause the paint to pull away from the glass.

Put on your gloves and make sure you have some newsprint or paper towels down on your work area.

Pour about a teaspoon of the Pinata paint into a jar. (We carry this paint because it works great as a transparent paint on leather, but it also works fantastic on glass and other slick surfaces!) Tip the jar so the paint runs up/down the inside of the jar, and start turning the jar.

As you turn the jar the paint will coat the inside. Tilt and turn so the paint coats the entire inside of the jar. Add paint if necessary, and use the foam brush to help get the paint around the lip.

Keep turning! Grab your heat tool or hair dryer, and using the low setting, blow into the jar to help dry the paint.

Pro-Tip: Don't blow right into the jar. A hard stream of air can mess up your smooth coat. Tilting the jar with the mouth side down (over your paper towels) helps to keep streaks from forming while the Pinata colors dry, and also allows excess paint to drop onto your covered surface.

We applied two coats of paint to each jar. With the heat tool the first coat of paint will dry quickly.

Time to decorate the outside of our lanterns! We browsed around and found different motifs to decorate the outside of the jars. 2014 is the Year of the Horse so we found a simple, traditional horse as well as Chinese character banners for Happy New Year.

Gold is the color of choice for lettering on New Year banners, so we used the #204 Warm Gold as our main color in the Lumiere 3D paints. These paints are glue based, very metallic looking, and stick to almost any clean surface!

Pro-Tip: Print or draw out your design on paper and put it inside the jar so you can trace it from the outside.

We wanted a fine line, so we used a #5 tip on the Lumiere 3D bottle. The tip just snaps on.

Carefully draw your design. When applying the paint you do not want to push hard against the glass. The smooth glass will cause the tip to slip; instead, you want to let the paint fall onto the glass or just barely touch the tip to the glass.

Pro-Tip: Do part of a jar at a time, letting it dry in between. This way, you are less likely to smear it (ask us how we know!). While that dries, paint another section or another jar.

Let it all set up for a few hours or overnight. Once your paint is dry, add an LED tea light for a warm glow.

Happy New Year!

Some Other Techniques to use with Pinata paints