Tag: dictionary

Craft Projects

Mod Podged Candle Holders

Jessica Smith

Today I’m sharing another project I made for the upcoming Trash to Treasure Fair in November. Using pages from an old book and the remainder of my burlap fabric scraps, I turned two shot glasses that my mother-in-law’s work was going to throw away (not sure why they have shot glasses…) into adorable candle holders.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Pages of a book (or any paper) cut into little pieces
  • Mod Podge
  • Fabric
  • Hot Glue
  • Needle and Thread
  • Buttons
  • Ribbon
  • Glass

To start this project, I cut up three or four pages from an old dictionary into little pieces of paper. I had no rhyme or reason for the shape of the paper, just random shapes.

Once my paper was small enough, I started to Mod Podge it to the glass. I put a thick layer of the podge down, then placed strips of paper on top. I smoothed out the paper as I went along to remove any bubbles between the paper and the glass. Once each glass was covered, I placed a layer of podge on top.

I let the candle holders dry for a bit before adding embellishments. They weren’t dry completely, but I didn’t mind since I wanted the stuff I was adding to stick right on top.

At this point, I flipped each glass upside down and added a slim, pink ribbon around the bottom with small dabs of hot glue.

With the pink ribbon added to each glass, I set both candle holders aside to create two oversized flowers. I cut out five petals for each flower, using scraps from an earlier project.

To connect the petals, I folded each petal at the flat edge in an accordion-style fold: down, up, down, up, down.

Then, I sewed through each of the folds. Once I had stitched my way through one petal, I went on to the next, adding petals until I was out.

When all five petals were connected, I looped the needle and thread back through the first petal to finish off the flower.

With the flower complete, I selected a flashy button to add to the middle. I added it to the flower with hot glue, then hot glued each flower to a candle holder.

OHMYGOSHSOCUTE. If these don’t get snatched up at the fair, I might not be so upset.

I like how large the flowers are on the glass, the pink ribbon “leaves,” and the randomness of the dictionary scraps. These might be my favorite candle yet. Now I just need to remake them with aqua ribbon instead of pink ;p

Craft Projects

Mason Jar Candle Holders

Jessica Smith

My friend Amanda made the hubby and me homemade jam for our housewarming party last month. We’ve devoured two of the three jams, so two mini mason jars have been floating around our kitchen for a while. Brian thinks the same jar keeps ending up in our dishwasher (which is hopefully getting fixed today after being broken for a week and a half *groans*), but then he realized we have two of them. So then he wanted to throw both away *gasp*. Crazy  husband, we can craft those!

So, that’s what I set out to do. I still have a ton of pages left from the dictionary I tore apart, so I decided to Mod Podge paper onto each jar and make them into candle holders. I combined several ideas I’d seen on Pinterest (cutting our a heart in the paper, covering vases with twine, Mod Podging ribbon) to make a cute set of tea light holders.

First, I cut out a strip of paper to wrap around my jars. Once it was cut to size, I folded it in half and cut a big heart out of the center.

Then, I slathered some Mod Podge on the jar and carefully placed the strip of paper on top of it. It was a little tricky to get it to lay flat, but after smoothing it out and moving it around a bit, it worked out.

I covered the whole jar again with Mod Podge, even the cutout portion of the heart. I chose to do this so the glass would have an etched effect. Plus, I bought battery operated tea lights from the dollar story so I didn’t want them to be so obviously fake.

I let this dry for a while, but not completely, before moving on to my next step. For the next part of my project, I cut out teal ribbon to strip the candle holder. To secure it to the jar, I simply painted a thicker layer of Mod Podge onto the spot I wanted the ribbon to stick. I smoothed the ribbon stripes out and let that dry, too.

To finish this project (and cover a few imperfections) I wrapped the bottom of the jars in twine and tied an accent piece of twine around the top of the jar. To secure the twine to the jar, I powered up my hot glue gun and placed little dabs of glue here and there. I wrapped the top with one single strand of twine, and the bottom with several layers of twine.

To top it off, I made a twine bow for each jar.

With one last dab of hot glue for the bow, my candle holders were left to dry overnight. The next day I placed a tea light in each one to see how they looked.

I think they turned out pretty darn cute. I’m not sure what the hubby will think when he finally notices them (he’s not a big fan of twine), but I think this was a fun way to reuse Amanda’s jam jars!

 

Did I mention Remmy stole a candle during my photo shoot? Darn dog…

Happy Tuesday!

Craft Projects

Mod Podge Jewelry Box

Jessica Smith

I picked up this mini chest of drawers months ago when I went to the local art store closing. Originally $9, I paid $2.25 because the whole store was 75 percent off.

It’s been sitting in my craft room for months. MONTHS. And I’ve been so good at getting rid of things and tidying up my space down there — I’m so close — that each time I looked at it I wondered why I bought it in the first place and if I should just donate it to Good Will.

Well, I’m glad I kept it around because I was finally inspired to tackle this project and I love how it turned out.

1. Buy a little wooden chest of drawers at any craft store.

2. Remove the drawers and paint the outer structure of your box. I painted mine with chalk board paint.

3. Remove the little wooden knobs to prep the surface for Mod Podge.

4. Mod Podge paper or fabric onto each drawer face. I used sheets from a dictionary, making sure to choose pages with illustrations on each one. Place a layer of Mod Podge (I used glossy) on each drawer, then the dictionary page (already cut to size), and then one last layer of Mod Podge. Smooth out the bubbles (I used my fingers) and let dry. Then do one last coat of Mod Podge to give each drawer face a nice seal.

5. If you’d like to, paint the rest of your box. This probably should have gone with step 2, but whatever. For my box, I lightly brushed on my black paint so you could still see the wood grain through it. I also painted the edges of each drawer face so the black carried through and it looked a bit distressed. Paint your knobs as well, then re-attach with wood glue and a small hammer. They should fit right back into place.

6. Let everything dry overnight, then put your chest of drawers back together!

{A Smith of All Trades} Dictionary Page Jewelry Box