Beach-themed Mason Jar Candle

I found an adorable beach-themed mason jar candle on Pinterest, and since I'll probably never achieve my dream of actually living at the beach, I decided the next-best thing was a candle reminiscent of a sandy beach covered in seashells.

Okay, that isn't quite true.  This project will never replace the soothing sounds of ocean waves, or the peaceful, shoreline view of water meeting sky.  But it will have to suffice for now.  And it is cute if I do say so myself.

The original design can be found here.

Even though the project was titled "Mason Jar Candle Holder for a Beach Wedding", I have neither a wedding nor beach trip planned any time soon, so I'll call my project "Beach-themed Candle to Soothe the Soul and Guilty Conscience of a Stressed-out Grand/mother Who Needs to Use Some of Her Massive Craft Hoard".

On second thought, I'll just call it "Beach-themed Mason Jar Candle".

I started by using blue craft paint to color the outside of a clean, empty spaghetti jar.  After the paint had dried, I made a candle inside the jar (as you can see, I clearly needed more wax to actually fill the jar). While I waited for the candle to harden, I colored some Diamond Dust with Adirondack Alcohol Ink to give it the appearance of sand.  When the candle was ready, I brushed a coat of Mod Podge around the bottom couple of inches of the jar, then coated it with the Diamond Dust.  After everything had dried, I sprayed a few coats of clear sealant over the entire jar.  While waiting for the sealant to dry, I used my glue gun, clear glue sticks, and silicone molds to create the shells, sand dollar and starfish, which I painted with a variety of acrylic craft paints for a more natural appearance. The final steps were to tie jute rope around the top of the jar and attach the shells to the jar using my glue gun.

Have you been "Pin"spired lately? What did you make?  And how did we survive before Pinterest???

Tile Photo Coasters

For the past few years I've given my adult children gift baskets for Christmas.  It's hard to know what to buy them, and I can't afford lavish gifts they can't buy for themselves, so making gift baskets just seems to be a nice way to give them gift cards or cash without it seeming so impersonal.

Mostly I've been filling the baskets with homemade candy or cookies.  But after a while it just gets stale (literally and figuratively.)  This year I decided to take a stab at making candles for my daughters in addition to the usual junk food.  I tried making small candles for my granddaughters last year, but it didn't end well.  For some reason I thought I could make even bigger candles for my daughters without having practiced once in the past 365 days.  Yes, I did the same thing over again expecting different results.

Insanity.

But those candles made it into the gift baskets anyway.  (Maybe I'll post about that another day, just for kicks.)

Since I couldn't imagine my son-in-law lounging in the tub with a scented candle, and he would be sharing the gift basket with his wife, I decided I should make something a little more manly that he could appreciate.  Or at least something he could use.  Tile coasters with pictures of their children seemed like the perfect handmade gift.  Yes, chunks of stone sitting on the coffee table in a brand-spanking-new home with two children under the age of two is the perfect gift.

The tutorial I used can be found at leelala.net.  Here's my take on the project:

I purchased 4 x 4 inch tumbled stone tiles at Home Depot in a package of nine for just under $5.  I liked the rustic look of these.  They looked like they would hide mistakes imperfections well.

After editing my photos to the color and size I wanted, I taped tissue paper to cardstock and printed them. (This can be tricky with some printers, so be prepared to make multiple attempts.)  I then trimmed off the excess tissue paper.  Using a foam brush, I coated each tile with Mod Podge and gently applied a photo.

As you can see, bubbles and wrinkles will happen.  I gently pressed the wet photos to smooth them.

I allowed each tile to dry completely, then applied the first coat of Mod Podge over each photo.  I applied a total of three coats of Mod Podge, allowing each coat to dry completely before applying the next.

Due to the irregular shapes of the tiles, there were a few photo edges that had to be either trimmed down or glued and pressed down against the sides.  I waited until after the initial coat had dried to do this.  I also brushed a couple of coats of Mod Podge around the sides to help seal everything.

After my final coat of Mod Podge had dried, I sprayed a couple of coats of clear acrylic sealer over each photo to further protect the coasters, allowing the first coat to dry complete before applying the next. 

When the sealer was completely dry, I cut four pieces of felt to apply to the undersides of the coasters.  A standard sheet of felt I purchased at Michaels was large enough for all four coasters.  I used Scotch Quick-Dry Adhesive to glue the felt to the tiles, but I'm sure many other brands of glue would work just as well.

Who wouldn't love to see these adorable faces peeking out from under their coffee cup?

In hindsight, being that it's 20-20 and all, here's what I learned:

Don't attempt to work with tissue paper and Mod Podge with too little sleep and too much coffee.  Shaky hands, glue and tissue paper aren't a good combination.  Especially when you've run out of time to try printing the photos again and the home improvement store has closed for the holidays.

Which brings me to number 2:  Don't wait until Christmas Eve to get started.

Be gentle with the tissue paper when placing it onto the Mod Podged-tiles.  Now is the time to kick your perfectionism to the curb.  If your photo isn't perfectly centered, just go with it.  Trying to move it could cause you to utter foul words you didn't even know you knew.

And again, perfection isn't your goal.  When you get bubbles in your tissue paper photo, and you will, just gently work them out as best you can.  And the crinkles that will appear out of nowhere?  Those just give it character.  Keep repeating that until you believe it.

Altered Boot Box

While cleaning out my closet (or more accurately, while reinstalling my closet rods after they fell under the weight of my clothing hoard) I found a pair of boots I purchased years ago, still unworn and in their box.  The boots themselves didn't excite me; if they did, they would probably have been worn by now.  But the box?  That's a different story.

The box was fairly sturdy and looked like a matchbox on steroids.  At first I couldn't think of a specific use for it, but I just thought it was too darned cool to throw away.  Stuck at home and bored to tears, I decided to turn the box into something pretty and useful.  Or at least useful.

The box was slightly larger than 12x12 so I wanted to find paper that would coordinate with the blue border on the box, thereby allowing me to use less paper and expend less energy.  I was able to use just three pieces of 12x12 paper--one covered most of the top, another was cut into three 4x12 pieces to cover the sides and back, and the third was used to cover the front and to fill in a few gaps.

I used Mod Podge to glue the paper to the box.  To make it look a little fancier (I didn't say fancy, just fancier) I brushed a small amount of gold Martha Stewart Craft Paint along the edges.  After allowing the paint and glue to dry throughly, I brushed Mod Podge over everything to seal it.  As a final touch I attached a metal label holder to the drawer front using my Crop-A-Dile. 

Because it is large enough to hold a 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper, I decided it would be perfect to store my unfinished paper projects.  I can also set my current project on top of the box if I need to temporarily free up table space, and because it opens like a drawer I can still access the contents inside if necessary. 

I got to play and ended up with something useful.  And I reduced my paper stash by three sheets.  It was a very good day.