Upcycle a Bottle Top with Creative Charms

Upcycling combines crafting and recycling to create new, interesting and useful things from ordinary objects that might otherwise be thrown away.  Today is my day to post on the Creative Charms blog and I shared these tea light holders made from a very ordinary object.

Our family likes Tropicana orange juice.  It used to come in cartons, but just recently it started to appear in these bottles.

The only identifying mark on the lid is on the top.  This will not be seen since the top becomes the bottom for this project.

As soon as I saw these new lids an idea popped into my head - the pointed pattern on the outsidemade me think of Halloween...

...and the center circle was just the right size to hold a battery operated tealight!  There is a slight gap between the inner screw top and the outer lid - perfect to hold a piece of vellum upright.

I measured carefully and determined that a piece of vellum cut at six inches and overlapped by about 1/4 inch to form a tube would fit neatly in the gap.  For the first light, I cut the vellum at 6 inches by 4 inches.

I punched a spiderweb strip with the Martha Stewart Deep Edger Spiderweb punch.  I used some Creative Memories Precision Point Adhesive along the center line to adhere the strip to the vellum.

I placed the trim on the vellum at about an inch from the top and 1/4 inch from the side edge.  Then I used my adhesive tape gun to place adhesive along the short edge.

I rolled the vellum into a cylinder and stuck the edges together.  Then I trimmed off the excess spiderweb border.

I added some large gradient gem stickers to the triangle sections of the lid.

Then I added some tiny gem stickers to the tips of the triangles. 

I used the punched trim to keep this project very simple.

 

You could easily design a shade similar to the one I did several years ago with various Halloween images (you can read more about this lantern HERE).

For the second light, I used a piece of vellum six by three inches and punched the top with a Martha Stewart border punch of spiders.  I added little black gem stickers to the spider bodies.

For the third light, I cut the vellum at two by six inches and added some leaf shaped gems and sequins from the  Fall Medley.  I attached these to the vellum with glue dots and left a short gap for the 1/4 inch seam.

I added an extra sequin leaf over the seam so the pattern would be consistent.

You could make these without the orange juice lids but they add color and a firm base to each tea light.  If you wanted to make these for another holiday, you could spray paint the lids to make the bases in your chosen color.  I think they would look nice in gold for Christmas.

I used different colors and varied the placement and sizes of the gems on each holder.

The battery operated tea lights stay cool and there is little danger of the light touching the vellum since it sits in a separate channel.

The other project I posted for Creative Charms is this Autumn card.  I have always liked the word art on this Cuttlebug folder.

I started with some ordinary kraft cardstock cut at 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches and folded in half for an A2 card.  I placed the front of the card in the Cuttlebug folder and embossed the design.

Next I colored the words "Autumn" and "Blessings" with my ProMarkers so they would stand out on the card front.

I used Cinnamon for "Autumn" and Walnut for "Blessings." It is fairly easy to stay on the embossed area and slight wobbles won't matter in the end.

The next step was to spray the entire card front with Glimmer Mist.  I used my favorite color, "Sun Sisters," which gives a lovely sparkle and glow.

I used my embossing heat gun to speed up the drying of the glimmer mist.

The inside of the card is not very attractive after coloring and the spraying warped the cardstock just a bit so I added a liner to the card.

I cut a piece of ivory cardstock at 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches and folded it in half.  I added adhesive all over the top and centered the liner in the card.  Then I closed the embossed card top over the adhesive and fixed the liner in position.

The back part of the liner stays free and allows space for an extra message.  Since it is not attached to the back the card will open and close easily.

It is very hard to capture the sparkle of the Glimmer Mist in a photo but the effect is very pretty and it totally changes the look of the raw kraft cardstock.

The  Knitter's Garden - Orange Flowers looked too much like Spring for this card so I added  Amber Vintage Brads and an Amber Vintage Marble Brad to the centers.

The flowers take on a more elegant look with the brads added.

I filled in with some leaf sequins from the Fall Medley .  Everything is attached with glue dots - first the gold leaves and then the flowers.

Creative Charms Mini-Giveaway winner...

The winner from the comments on my last Creative Charms posts chosen by random.org was Yelowflower

Could you please contact me with your mailing information as soon as possible?  I'll be sending you...

...an assortment of leaf gems and sequins to use for your own cards.

Please stop over to the Creative Charms blog HERE to see all of the Design Team projects.  Be sure to leave a comment on my post with these projects. Once again, I'll  have little giveaway for someone who comments here or on the Creative Charms blog (leave a comment in both places to double your chances).

You do not have to be a blog follower to win, however, if you like my blog and want to show your support for my work, please do follow or subscribe.  I also have a Capadia Designs Facebook page HERE and if you "like" that page you will see my daily posts in your news feed.

I wonder how many of you will start looking through your fridge for bottle caps to alter - do you like orange juice?  If you do some upcycling be sure to let me know and send a photo if you can.

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Another A2 Card Border - Fall Card

 A couple of years ago the Fiskars "Threading Water" border punch was extremely popular.  I remember working for hours to create a similar .cut file using circles and tiny circles and nudging them all into place.  There are many more cartridges available now and some of them have borders that can be used to quickly and easily make a "Threading Water" design.

I used this element from the Straight From the Nest cartridge.  (Remember, you can click on any of these screen shots to make them larger and read the notes).

I entered four of the strips in one group and nudged them together, then adjusted the size to fit an A2 card.

This is a punched strip centered on a 5 1/2 inch wide piece of cardstock.  As you can see, even though I took care to center the punch, it doesn't fit perfectly - there are tiny returns on both edges.

The first file I made had 11 "bumps" so it wasn't a perfect match - the scallops were slightly larger than the scallops formed by the punch.

I used a very heavy Martha Stewart cardstock and set the multi cut to 2 times.  This is usually enough for this cardstock but I had a bit of trouble.

There were two cards in my file and on one of them a couple of the tiny circles did not cut through. 

I checked my blade and discovered that the tip had lifted and carried another circle cutout and this kept the subsequent cuts from working properly.  I might have been able to "save" the cut by checking it before unloading the mat, removing the blade to find the problem and then re-cutting just the circles (by altering the file and using "hide selected contour") but I didn't notice until it was too late.  It is almost impossible to reload the mat and get the same alignment.

I went back and revised my file to make the border strip have 13 "bumps" and created two more card bases.  I used this square from Straight From the Next to form my card base.

I adjusted the size of the rectangle and then rotated my border strip to add to the right side.  All of the measurements are given on the image above.  In Design Studio it is very easy to adapt and fine tune a shape by using the handles - this is something I miss when I work on the Gypsy.  On the Gypsy, when you enter a new width the rectangle will recenter and you have to keep putting it back in place on the x axis as you try to guess at the final size you need.  The handles are much quicker for this function.

Here is the comparison of the punched edge and the second version of the card cut by the Cricut.  I was able to make the fit exact so the edges are smooth.  However, the smaller the size of the circle, the more likely you are to get some distortion.  These are acceptable but slightly oval when compared to the punched circles.  I have had two Expression machines and they do not cut perfect scallops and circles at small sizes.  I am eager to see how the Imagine does with these types of cuts.

I decided to go ahead and make a quick card with the "11 bump" version of the card.  I cut some patterned paper from the Making Memories "Autumn Splendor" 4 x 6 mat pack to fit.  The first layer is 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches and is placed at the top of the card along the fold.  The second layer is 5 x 3 1/4 inches and is centered on the yellow layer.  I inked all of the edges with brown ink.

The "Fall" chipboard embellishment is from the Creative Charms Thanksgiving Multi-Dimensional Chipboard Sticker set.  There are six substantial embellishments in the set.  (I used the Turkey on the card I posted a week or so ago - here is a LINK to that post if you missed it).

There is a lot of glitter detailing and even some twine bows on a couple of the items.

I wanted to make the border stand out more when the card is closed so I used the strip that I cut off to create the top layer, inked it and added it to the inside along the bottom.  I inked three sides and then adhered it to the card.  Then I could snip off the extra bit to have a perfect fit and ink the final edge.

Here you can see the card flat on the table - the contrasting strip shows through the holes. 

A2 Card with Threading Water Edge   The file in the download is the "13 bump" version.


Happy World Card Making Day!  Don't forget to visit Christina at Creations With Christina - she has a great day planned.  This is a busy weekend full of  blog hops and special events - I hope you have time to enjoy at least some of them!

I also want to let you know that the new Cricut Circle Blog is open to everyone for a limited time.  There are some fabulous projects posted by each of the Design Team members.  If you are not a Circle Member you can't enter the contests and giveaways but you might like to take a look to see a bit of what the Circle is all about.  If you are not a Circle member you do have lots of chances to win some great prizes by visiting the blogs of the Cricut Circle Blog Design Team members - and you won't want to miss the inspiration or the chance at amazing prizes!  The list of Design Team members is at the top of the Cricut Circle Blog home page (or you can try this LINK to see the list).


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