Jewels on Crystal

 
You never know when you'll stumble across something that gives you a crafty idea.  I took my car for service yesterday and had to wait a while for everything to be finished.  The dealership is just down the road from a shopping plaza and it was a nice day so I took a walk and ended up at the Pier 1 Imports store.

Just inside the store there was a cart full of clearance items.  I had intended to just browse around and enjoy the colors and holiday decorations but then I noticed these glass tumblers.

The mouth of the glass seemed rather narrow for drinking but the quilted pattern of the design had spots that would be perfect to highlight with gems.  I thought that they would make very pretty votive or tealight holders and I bought all of the remaining glasses on the cart (remember, they were drastically marked down).

I counted the number of spots where the pattern intersected and made a flat place to add a gem.  There were nine repeats around the glass.  Since I had the gems out for another project, I sorted through to find the colors and sizes that would work.

I used mini glue dots to attach the gems to the tumbler.  It  worked best for me to put the gem on the glue dot while it was still on the roll and then pick up the gem and place it on the glass.

I used a darker green on the bottom row...

...red on the second row...

...and a lighter green on the top row.

Then I added slightly smaller gold gems to complete the pattern on the in-between rows.

Here is the fully sparkled tumbler.   I put a piece of black cardstock behind the tumbler to help show the pattern of the glass with contrast.  Then I set about trying to take photos of the tumbler with a light inside and I found out that the combination of crystal and candlelight is tricky to photograph. 

Here is my first shot using a battery operated tealight with the tumbler sitting in my usual photo taking set up for cards.

I decided that a real candle might be prettier so I brought the tumbler upstairs and tried taking photos in various spots in the living and dining rooms.

With the flash, the gems and details show up better but the candlelight effect is lost.

I think that these will make nice little gifts.  I have lots of different colors of gems that I can use.  The glue dots are holding the gems very firmly now but I am not sure if they will withstand anything but hand washing.  Of course, if any gems fall off it will be simple enough to stick them on again!

The gems are just inexpensive faceted plastic discs of color with a mirror back.  I got a large bag of assorted colors and sizes a few years ago and have found them useful for several projects lately.  I'll see if I can track down more specific details but you can probably find these in a large craft store.  They may be in a section with more general craft supplies.  If you usually stay in the papercrafting rows - explore a little!

I forgot to take a photo (I'll add it tomorrow) but today's addition to the box is a small bag of assorted gems (there may not be any blue ones since I am using nearly all of them on another project!).

in the box so far...

1.  2 sheets of the sticky paper I used for the glittered ornament card
2.  A new set of the same Inkadinkado Autumn Leaves stamps I used on the card
3.  An 18 inch piece of the brown leaf ribbon - enough for a few cards.
 4.  A small bag of plastic gems.

All comments on posts in the month of November will be eligible for a random draw at the end of the month.  One lucky reader will receive the small priority mail box full of bits and pieces.

You can leave a comment on every post to increase your chances but please just leave one per post and make sure that you give me enough information so I can contact you if your comment is drawn.

A little diversion from paper crafting today.  This weekend I'll be working to finish up a big project that I can tell you about next week.  There may be papier mache involved...

I hope you have a great weekend!

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Pumpkin Face Tealight Holder

Happy Wednesday!  Today I want to share another way you can use the glass holder with the pumpkin faces that I shared on Monday (click HERE to see if you missed that post).   If you finish all of the candy corn in the pumpkin face dish, you can turn it into a tealight holder (or if you have sworn off candy - start with the tealight holder!).

I used some orange glassine paper to line the dish.  I bought some rolls of glassine in different colors years ago when we lived in Germany.  It may be a little hard to find colored glassine but you can try a large art supply store.  I checked online and found a baking company called Fancy Flours that offers various colors of glassine sheets HERE.  You could also use vellum (once again, a little harder to find in colors).

I cut a strip of glassine about 2 inches by 12 inches (just measure the height and the circumference of your container and make it a bit longer).  I use a tape runner to add some small strips of tape to the inside of the glass, making sure that it would be hidden by the black vinyl.

After I had added the tiny strips of tape, I started on one side and simply stuck the glassine to the tape tabs.  I found that the glassine could be repositioned easily since it has a very smooth finish.

I worked my way around the container and then trimmed the overlap.  It doesn't matter if the paper crinkles a bit due to the slope of the sides - it will look fine from the outside.

This photo show the tabs of tape a little better.  I used a Creative Memories tape runner that is made of small segments so it was easy to place very small bits in strategic places.

I like the soft effect the glassine produces.

Of course, you must not use a real candle if you put the glassine liner inside the container.  These battery operated tea lights are perfectly safe and long lasting.  I usually can find big sets of these around this time of year at Costco for a very reasonable price (they often include extra batteries for the candles too).

It would be fun to make a group of these and display them with a different face showing on each one.  I like to line up candles on my kitchen windowsill.  They would also be cute as party favors.

another reminder about Blitsy...

Blitsy will be adding new items to their sales later this morning.  If you haven't shopped at Blitsy before, please use my referral LINK to join this free membership site.  They have all sorts of interesting craft items at good prices with new sales starting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and continuing for a week or until sold out (popular items can sell out very quickly).   Once you are a member, you can get your own referral link and earn credits for future purchases.

I appreciate it when you use my LINK and help me feed my craft shopping habits.  This week, you can earn $1 for each person who signs up using your link (up to 25).  If you haven't joined yet, please use my link and then start referring your friends and family.

In other news...
We had an earthquake right after dinner last night - the first one that I can ever remember feeling!  It was very unsettling even though it lasted only a short while.  It seemed like our house was surrounded by heavy equipment and low flying planes.  Nothing fell or was broken but the dishes rattled in the cupboards.  I know some of you live in places where this is fairly common but it was a first for me here in Massachusetts!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  For the rest of the month, everyone who leaves a comment on my blog will have a chance to win this Sizzix "Scrap Pink" set.  You can see more photos and details at THIS POST.  For more chances, you can leave a comment everyday for the rest of the month - but just one comment per day please.


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Spiderweb Tea Lights (with files)

Last week I posted some tealight holders for Halloween.  The bases are actually the lids from some Tropicana Orange Juice bottles - a great way to recycle.  If you missed this post you can find it HERE.

On the original tea lights, I used vellum rolled into a cylinder and embellished with punches and Creative Charms gems.  These are fast and easy to make.  I mentioned that you could design covers to cut on a machine and had several requests for files.  I decided to make a file for the Cricut and one for the Silhouette.

 For the Cricut file, I used a rectangle (from the George cartridge but you can substitute any rectangle) and the spiderweb from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge (this cartridge has lots of great extras on the feature keys).

I have used this spiderweb before for other projects and I set the size at 2 1/2 inches since this size had cut well in the past.  The overlaps for welding are very tiny but they cut neatly.  The base rectangle is 6 inches by 1 1/4 inches.

The overlap needed to make the six inch strip fit the juice lid holder is about 1/4 inch.  I added some strong adhesive along the edge and rolled up the base.

 Here is the spiderweb in the holder without a vellum liner.  I don't really like the look of the plastic flame from the battery operated tea light.  Of course it would be too dangerous to use an open flame candle, so I decided to use some vellum again to mask the plastic flame.

 The vellum softens the effect of the flame and gives more of a glow to the light.  I could have made the black collar a bit shorter but i wanted to be sure that there would be a good amount of overlap for the adhesive.  If you prefer to have the black band hidden,you could start with a shorter rectangle.

For the Silhouette version, I used the spiderweb that is one of the free designs included with the Silhouette Studio software.  I have cut incredibly tiny lines with my Silhouette SD so I tried a smaller size spiderweb for this design (about 1 1/2 inches tall).  This spiderweb is not slanted so I could make more of a grid pattern with the webs.

These very thin webs cut beautifully.  I used ordinary black cardstock that is usually sold quite inexpensively in packs of 25 or 50 at the big box craft stores.  I set the Silhouette at "Medium Cardstock" but I left on the pink cap that is used for heavier cardstock instead of changing the cap to yellow.

Once again, I didn't care for the exposed look of the plastic "flame" so I added a vellum liner.

The vellum gives a more finished look to the candle.  I found it easiest to simply roll the vellum a bit tighter than the spiderweb cut and slip it inside. 

When I added the adhesive to the edge of the vellum rectangle, I left a little bit exposed and then I could push the loose ends of the webs against the adhesive to keep everything in place.

Here are the two lights side by side - the different styles of spiderwebs create a different effect for each light.

The light in the center is the first one that I made with a spiderweb strip from a Martha Stewart border punch.  There are many more variations possible - so have fun experimenting with whatever tools and machines you have!

I have files to share for the two examples in this post.  I made the Cricut file in Design Studio but saved it as a .gypsy file so you can use it with Design Studio or the Gypsy.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment or send me an email.  If you download the files and use them, I'd love to see your web candles!

Spiderweb Tea Light  (Silhouette)

Spiderweb Tea Light (Gypsy)

It was another lovely day here and we saw lots of colorful foliage on our way to visit family.  When we got home, I made the Swedish Apple Pie (recipe was in the post HERE) and remembered to take a photo of the finished pie - so easy to make and super delicious!


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