Painting jars for cat food

For various reasons I keep some of my cat food in two tubs and because I open them several times a day they mostly stay on the counter. Which this is a problem since it's just two old peanut butter tubs that I have written their names on and it's just not very pretty. Actually it's quite ugly and makes the counter looking cluttered. So something had to be done. The easiest option would be to move them into a cabinet, I have more space than I know what to do with but I know that it would only work for a few hours until I was going to to feed them again and then they would be right back where they started. So if I cant move them the next option is to at least make them nicer. I first looked into buy some aesthetic jars and though I did find some, there were none that I really liked. I also had the idea that they should be different (so I can tell them apart) but still matching and it was proving bit difficult. In the end I decided to make my own. 

I have a pair of pickle jars that are of a decent size and figured they should be fairly easy to paint.

Test one 

I decided to begin with a small scale test, mostly to check if acrylic paint even sticks to glass. I didn't put that much thought into the pattern and just free handed a night sky. It went on quite well specifically the black paint went on smooth and satisfying. Though some colors did need a second coat I'm quite satisfied with the visual result. As for the durability I have some concerns.

Even the next day it's...not sticky but something. Also I can scrape it of with my finger nails (I tried this on the bottom where it's uneven). I'll give it a week or two and see if it gets better. If not I'm considering covering it in lacquer. I do need to buy some anyway to fix a chair. 

Update one, a few days later

The lacquer did not work. Rather it dissolves the paint to the point that the brush I'm painting on the lacquer with rubs it of. 

Update two, There's been a slight delay to this. A bag if rice I opened was made of some kind of flimsy plastic that rips if you even looks at it. So now all of my previously empty jars are now filled with rice. It's not a major problem and does give me more time to consider the design and test things.

Test two

Can I paint metal lids with acrylic paint. A fair number of mason jars regularly pass through my kitchen but since most have ugly branded lids I don't keep that many. One of the jars I was considering using have lid like that and I would like to change it. 

All in all it worked fine. I have trouble coming up with a design so I just made it blue. With one coat I can still make out the label but a second coat did the trick. Though it's still uneven.

Test one part two

There is of course paint made for glass but they tend to be a bit transparent which I don't want since the whole plan is to hide the cat food.

 At this time I remember that there is a decent chance that my cats will realize there is food in the jars, knock them over and break them. I'm not willing to risk them eating food mixed with shards of glass and so I will find some other storage for my cat food and for now I'll leave this project. I'm considering getting some pretty metal tea containers.