Tag: glass

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

Jewelry Holder: Glass knobs

Jessica Smith

Look what I brought home from work!?! We just had 42 boxes of our alumni magazine delivered a couple of weeks ago on this beauty of a pallet. I quickly called “dibs” on the pallet (no one else wanted it… can’t imagine why) after the delivery guy left and took it into my office, where it happily resided for a couple of weeks. I finally took it home last Friday, and was originally going to use it as nail gun practice. But, when I started to mess around with it, I changed my mind and quickly crafted a new plan.

I pulled out my jigsaw and started cutting off a few of the boards. I took them inside to sand them down a bit and decide exactly what I wanted to create.

Once my board was smooth, I cut it down the middle where the two screws held it to the middle support board of the pallet — right through the holes!

I sanded, sanded and sanded some more until my half boards were super smooth.

Next, I stained a piece of wood a light shade of gray before applying a coat of poly to the top. I let it dry overnight. Then, I screwed in three adorable glass knobs (four if you count the one I shattered by tightening the screw too much… oops) and attached a ribbon.

With that, I had a totally recycled jewelry holder — wood, knobs and all! I literally didn’t have to buy a single supply for this project — I had everything sitting around in my craft room, and, of course, my free pallet. Bahaha, that’s the best kind of craft! So excited.

I think I’ll have to make a few more of these for that Trash to Treasure fair, don’t you think?

Spoiler alert — I already made a second one, but the hangers are so much cooler. Check back later to see it!

One last thing… Here’s a fun fact, for all of you people who are on the lookout for pallets — they aren’t the nicest thing in creation. The wood is jagged and splintery, the screws are warped and they are often falling apart…. but man are they fun to work with if you get the chance! There are two sitting in our loading dock right now that I am oh so tempted to take, but I think I’ll finish tearing this one up first :p

Craft Projects

Beautified Bar Tray

Jessica Smith

Have you ever used EnviroTex Lite? I have, and it is awesome. A “pour on high gloss finish,” it makes objects it is poured on look like they covered in glass. Can you see where I’m going with this post? Good 🙂

I picked up an old silver tray at a thrift store (yes, me and my thrift stores… we are in love). Unlike most other trays I’ve seen at thrift stores, this one was long, skinny, rectangular and had wooden handles. I had to have it, especially for a mere $3.92, or something close to that. I thought I’d decoupage the tray, then I had a better idea — the tray would fit perfectly on our bar, so why not line it with bottle caps and pour the EnviroTex Lite on for a fun finish? Perfecto.

Before you ask any questions about the next part of my post, let me say that I don’t drink much beer at all (less than 10 a year, if I had to guess) and I am very sober writing this post. Glad we got that cleared up.

Next, I dug through my stash of bottle caps and picked out the ones I wanted to use in my tray. I have a lot of bottle caps. A lot. In fact, I have an entire fish bowl full of them. It’s impressive really, considering I hardly ever drink beer. But thanks to my kleptomania (yes, I steal bottle caps when I see people drinking a beer with a cool cap) and my friends and family who enjoy beer (that makes them sound like drunkards. They aren’t. No worries!), I had plenty to choose from. Even more impressive is that I was able to pick out 46 unique bottle caps from my collection. Holy cow, this tray was meant to be! Not to mention, the caps fit perfectly in the inset of the tray, leaving about 2 mm on top for the EnviroTex to dry and harden. Score!

Once I had my caps selected, I picked an order for the tray. I swapped things around a few times before I cam up with an arrangement I liked. I went with a color gradient, starting at white and ending with black.

With an arrangement I liked, I removed the caps and set them out in front of the tray, keeping everything in order.

Next, I had to remove the wood handles — those needed some black paint. I unscrewed them from the bottom of the tray.

After the handles were off, I cleaned the tray really well using silver polish. It was pretty grimy. Yuck-o.

Then it was time to secure my caps, which I am so glad I did (to most of them). I’ll skip ahead here for one sec — as I was pouring the EnviroTex onto my caps, the caps I didn’t secure well floated to the top. Whoops! I had to push them down to get out the air bubbles underneath so the EnviroTex could harden.

So secure my bottle caps I did two things: Hot glue and magnets. Some of the bottle caps I chose to use I’d already made into refrigerator magnets. I decided they’d look better in my tray than on my fridge, so I plopped them in and they clung tight to the metal tray. That was awesome because those suckers didn’t move later.

For the other caps with no magnets, I filled them with hot glue then stuck them onto the tray. If you are going to try this, definitely make sure they are stuck on really well or you’ll have some float-away caps, too.

Once all of my caps were secure, I mixed my EnviroTex together, following the directions on the box closely. When ready, I poured it over my caps.

Here’s the cruddy part about my project… each box of EnviroTex was 4 oz., which covers 1 square foot. I have no concept of 1 square foot, so I ordered two boxes thinking I’d only need one. I needed four.

To let the tray dry (for 72 hours… twice haha), I covered it so no dust would settle on top of the tray. My cupcake holder lid did the trick rather nicely.

Needless to say, this project took a little bit longer than I anticipated. It was also a lot more expensive than I ever dreamed it would be (I hate when that happens). But it turned out beautifully, and four layers of EnviroTex Lite and two freshly painted black handles later I had a beautiful tray.

 

 

It looks really nice on our bar, fitting perfectly on the top ledge. It’s a real statement piece and I am so pleased with how it turned out. The hubby loves it, too.

Next time around, I think I’ll use something that isn’t as deep as a bottle cap, that way I won’t need nearly as much EnviroTex as I did for this tray. I might preserve a coin collection!! How cool would that be?

Thanks for stopping by!