Tag: modge podge

Craft Projects

Burlap Rosette Candles

Jessica Smith

I am excited to share that I’m participating in a craft fair in a little more than a month! On Nov. 10, I will be at the Watkins Nature Center partaking in their Fourth Annual Trash to Treasure Green Craft Fair! I’ve done this fair two times in the past, but missed it last year. I’m excited to go again — it’s the coolest fair I’ve ever been to and I am really looking forward to it.

Anyway, my new few weeks will be spent making crafts out of recycled goods, scraps, trash, etc. The goal is to repurpose things you might otherwise throw away into something neat and useful again.

For my first project, I made a set of candles using fabric scraps or burlap that were barely big enough for the task at hand. I also used old buttons and thrift store glasses. The only “new” supply I used was some pink ribbon.

My piece of fabric was about 9 inches by 7 inches, so just long enough to wrap around my candle. I cut out a strip and placed a dab of hot glue midway down the glass to secure one end of the fabric to the candle holder. Then, I placed Mod Podge beneath the fabric as I wrapped it around the glass. Once it was in place, I slathered on another layer of Mod Podge on top of the fabric.

I let this dry, then added a skinny pink ribbon through the middle of the fabric. For the ribbon, I secured it to the glass only with a few dabs or hot glue.

After the ribbon was on, I started to make a few rosettes out of the burlap fabric. (Note: It’s not actually burlap, but it looks close enough so that’s what I’m gonna call it.) To make the rosettes, I used skinny strips of fabric and Mod Podge.

To make the rosette, I twisted on end of the fabric in my fingers and added some Mod Podge. This is the center of the rosette.

I kept twisting the fabric, winding it around itself as I twisted and all the while adding Mod Podge. Once the fabric ran out, I was left with a cute rosette that I set aside to dry.

Fast forward: The glass is dry, the rosettes are dry — time to combine!

I pulled out my hot glue gun to add the rosettes to my candle holders, along with some buttons.

I glued two rosettes to one glass and on onto the other. Then, I added buttons in the center of each rose, and a few alongside each.

Ta daaaaa! Two candle holders made out of fabric scraps and buttons 🙂

What a cute pair!

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

Feather candle

Jessica Smith

I can’t decide if this project is a craft fail or not. Remember the feather tray from last week? Well, I love that paper and thought it would be cool to make some candle holders for our family room that matched our tray.

So, I cut out two feathers and grabbed a small glass I bought at the thrift store and set out to make a candle holder.

To start this project, I mixed some Mod Podge with blue paint to give my candle a tint. I spread it all around the inside of the glass with a sponge brush.

Once the inside was coated with my Podge/Paint mixture, I placed two cutout feathers inside. I smoothed out any bubbles, then applied another layer of my Podge/Paint on top.

Using the sponge brush, I made lots of swooshes (that’s a technical term you know) in the mixture to give it extra texture. I also added in the slightest bit of black paint to pick up the black in the feathers.

Then, I let everything dry.

Once it was finished, I popped a candle in to check it out.

I like the texture and color of the candle, but I’m not 100 percent sure if this is going to be going in our family room (which means it’s not). For now, I’ll stick with my tray.

What do you think? Craft fail or craft success? What would you have done differently? I think next time I might try using a real feather and no paint. I have several more little glasses, so I’ll definitely be trying this one again.

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!