Jessica's Musings

I found a picture for a really cool chandelier that I wanted to make:

COOL, right?! The effect is to look like “capiz shells”, which are round seashells that are iridescent. This is created by ironing sheets of wax paper together… GENIUS!

I searched and searched for a hanging flower pot that was the right shape and big enough- but the lack of stores in this town took me to walmart, since they were cheapest. Price is directly proportional to size, by the way, but I wanted a big one- So I brought it home, took out the inside part, and spray painted it white.

I’ll start by listing the supplies, since this one is pretty extensive and took me several weeks to complete.

SUPPLIES:

Hanging flower basket

Spray paint, color of your choice

2-3 rolls of ribbon, color of your choice (I made a white one and a blue one, so I used the color of ribbon to match the “shells”.)

Wax paper (LOTS of it, you’ll use close to a whole roll)

Either a cricut or some type of paper cutter to cut wax paper into circles

An iron to iron the wax paper together

Hot glue gun, scissors, and other assorted accessories like beads or gems to add around the top.

Then I went out and bought a paper cutter. You’ll need to rip three long pieces of wax paper and iron them all together. You don’t need the iron to be to hot or use it too long, because wax paper can burn easily. After I had glued 9 pieces together to make 3 large sheets, I stacked them on top of each other and used my paper cutter to make 2” diameter circles. I made a LOT! I felt like I cut out circles forever!

I taped down the edges, as my wax paper tended to move when I pushed down on the paper cutter. After I had several circles, I figured I would get started on gluing them.

(Just for the record, in case my mother sees this, I did NOT use the rotary cutter on the wax paper! But really though, sometimes my cutter didn’t get all the way through and I had to cut a few out.)

Next, I cut my ribbon strips- length is up to you, but I think mine were between 6-8”.

I hung up the wire frame on a hook in the ceiling above the sink in the kitchen. I then began hot gluing the ribbon to the frame on the very bottom rung. I then glued a circle at the top of the ribbon, and continued hot gluing circles below the one above. I offset them so they wouldn’t be so crowded:

I continued up to the top until I was almost done with the last row:

(I had to stop several times to cut out more circles, I severely underestimated my need!)

This is the final ring of circles after they were staggered:

I thought it looked a little bare, and since I had some ribbon left over, I decided to add ribbon to the wire up to the hook, and around the top ring. Then I got some beads and added a little color!

And there it is, all finished!! It looks really awesome when it’s lit. For the light part, I bought the light kits that IKEA has- a plug in and a lightbulb end that I threaded up through the hook. I think it was about $6. I also made a blue version, where I ironed the wax paper on either side of a sheet of blue tissue paper, but it didn’t stick very well and I ended up having to use spray-on aerosol glue, and that was very sticky. Here’s what that one looks like:

I like the white one better, but it was an experiment, and not all experiments go smoothly! I also used less ribbon on this one and just glued the circles to themselves instead of the ribbon. Not sure which way I like it better!

This post is a two-for-one! Hooray! Since I have made many different things out of these cheap IKEA lamps, I figured I’d lump them all together in one post. Anytime I go to a city with an IKEA, I have to buy some of these lamps. Cheap and perfect for crafts.

My two favorite things: Scrapbook paper and mod podge! Anything I can find to glue paper to will soon have paper glued to it. Originally, my dad turned me onto these lamps and this idea. It was to mod podge film strips to the lamps. What a wonderful idea! I have tons of film, as my prior major was photography.

So I decided that I wanted the big lamp for this project (The pack comes with the bigger one and a smaller one). I dug out my old film and started organizing. I decided that I wanted the film to go horizontally instead of vertically. Then I started gluing! This was my first mod podge project, so I didn’t quite know how it worked. I experimented a little and ended up having to use more glue than I expected, because the film wasnt sticking around the edges. But after awhile, it looked like this:

(Notice, some of the edges are sticking up- I used rubber bands to secure the film to the lamp until the glue dried.) Once everything was dry, I took off the rubber bands and everything stuck!

It’s not perfect, and some of the film overlaps, but as it was my first project of this type I was still pretty proud. Here it is in it’s final resting place.

(You may notice the keys in the frame next to it- that was a simple project I can describe quickly. While I was in Europe, I went to an antique store and bought a handful of keys for a few euros. When I brought them home, I knew I wanted to do something with them, but wasn’t sure what. I had this frame that the glass had broken, so I decided that was what I would use. I took a piece of printer paper, used acrylic paint and painted it gold, then used hot glue and glued the keys to the paper. then I glued the paper to the back of the frame, and there you have it! The frame is actually hanging on its own on a wall now, keys still inside, although it fell once and all the keys came off- so maybe try some stickier glue!)

The next time I got these lamps, I decided to put scrapbook paper on them. (With one of the smaller ones, I used tissue paper.)

Here is the one with tissue paper:

I tried to cut it so the seams would match and not overlap, as you would see this when the lamp is on. Be careful with tissue paper, because it’s very thin and when wet with glue can tear very easily. It also gets bubbles and warps, so if you’re a perfectionist, I would avoid this type of craft. :P

Here is one I made for my best friend’s daughter’s bedroom. After it was finished I decided to add a white ribbon around it, about an inch from the top.

These aren’t perfect either, but as far as I am concerned, home-made crafts are supposed to have a little personality!

This next one is my favorite. I found this paper and LOVED it, and had it for awhile before I found a project for it.

As this is the bigger lamp, my one block of scrapbook paper didn’t reach top to bottom, so I used a ribbon to cover up the seam. I used an extra layer of mod podge over the top of all of these to keep everything down and make sure the paper wouldn’t tear.

I have one more lamp that I need to cover, but I think I might wait until I know the perfect way to do it!

I love end tables. I have about 12 end tables and not enough space for them! But I found a pair of decent (kind-of) end tables for about $15 at a hospice (salvation army-type store). And they had lamps attached! What more could a college kid ask for? They were perfect. But they were boring. Brown and with that weird flaky covering, they weren’t the most attractive tables out there. So at first, I just hot-glued a string of beads to the lampshade and called it good. But that wouldn’t cut it for my crafty soul.

So, I bought some scrapbook paper that I thought would be just perfect. I couldn’t decide just how I wanted the table top to look, and when I found this, I knew it was what I wanted. I decided on a script paper for the middle and a scroll type for the edges. I used mod podge to glue the handwriting paper to the table top. I didnt bother cutting this paper, since I would fashion the edges of the other paper to cover it evenly. I folded the border paper over the sides and glued that as well.

For the top piece, I had to cut it a little differently, because the lamp came up out of this space. But that was simple enough.

Then I decided that the brown base would not match the black top at all- So, I used some of the black spray paint I had and painted the bottom of the table. I put a few layers of mod podge over the top of the table to make sure everything was secured. It is recommended to add a layer of clear sealant over that so it isn’t sticky later (Not anything I’ve really had a problem with, but its a good idea if it’ll be used frequently in a living room- and probably still use a coaster). The finished product looked like this:

And that’s how this table looked for a few years, until I was bored with the lampshade again. I thought I would buy a new one, but I found some silk fabric laying around the house and I was being lazy and didn’t want to sew it, so I took a hot glue gun, bunched it all up and glued it to the shade.

Then I saw a flower pattern on pinterest and searched the fabric cupboard until I found some black fabric. Then I searched my mom’s button drawer for three buttons to be the center.

So there you have it! I didn’t take pictures of the progress of this one for some reason, but i basically cut a circle of fabric in a scalloped pattern and then cut several smaller pieces in the same pattern. I layered them all together and hot glued them. Then hot glued them to the lampshade. Viola!

I love old windows. Any kind of craft that involves an old window, I’m in! Last summer, we were cleaning out my grandmother’s old garage when I found this old window, and she said I could have it:

It was quite a hassle to get this bad boy clean, but I finally did it with a little powerwashing and some good scrubbing. Then I took it home, taped it off, and spray painted it. It would have been just as easy to use a brush and some acrylic paint, but I had the spray paint available and I’m all for easy.

It didn’t bother me that there were a few spots here and there, because I planned on using some sandpaper to rough it up a little (It is an old window, after all). Once I sanded off just enough paint to make it look cool. :) Then, I decided I wanted some hooks on the bottom, so I ran to walmart and bought three silver hooks.

I measured the length, divided it by three, and screwed in my hooks.

After that was finished, I found a few pieces of scrapbook paper and taped them inside each pane. After awhile, I got bored with that, so I printed out some 8x10 photos that I took in Germany when I went for Christmas a few years ago, and put those in front of the scrapbook paper. This is the final product:

I would suggest finding some studs and using heavy duty wall hanging hardware, as windows are very heavy and I’ve had this thing come crashing down once. This thing is huge and takes up a big chunk of wall, but all-in-all I am very happy with it. If you have any questions or comments, be sure to click the comment link below and leave me some words!

So, in the pack of canvases I bought for the last craft, I used 4 of them for this project (again inspired from a post on pinterest).

Again, these are 16x20 canvases that I bought in a 5 pack for $20 at Michael’s. My leaves are a bit smaller than in the original picture I saw, but honestly I like it this way better.

First, you’ll start with some blank canvases. I took each section and drew the leaves and the trunk and each stem that was in that quadrant. Then I did the same for each of the other canvases.

The pencil is faint, but if you look hard enough, you can see it. Then either pick 2 different colors for two opposite corners or you could paint it all the same color- up to you. It is my advice to you to paint just outside the pencil so you can go back through and erase it, as some lighter paint colors won’t cover up the pencil marks. With the grey paint this was unnecessary, but you can see some of the pencil marks under the yellow paint. I also did two coats, because one isn’t quite enough. I used a small paint brush to paint around each leaf and stem so I wouldn’t accidentally paint over one!

It doesn’t matter if the lines aren’t perfect, because no one will ever know! I also painted the edges of these so that no white was showing except for the tree itself. I painted them outside, which was a plus because the sun dried them very quickly! It took a few hours (despite a few distractions), but it was very well worth it! The finished project looks like this:

So it turns out that people love my crafts! In turn, I thought I would blog a few posts about how to do them. They’ll be short and sweet, since most of the crafts I do are pretty easy. First things first, I’ll start from the most recent craft!

I saw this on pinterest, and thought it looked really awesome to try out. Above is the completely finished product. This canvas is 16x20, and I bought it in a pack of 5 for $20 at Michael’s. GREAT buy!

So anyway, you’ll start with a blank canvas. It is up to you what color to paint it, or if you want to paint it at all! I buy acrylic paint from walmart, because it’s cheap and easy, and they have a lot of colors. I obviously chose black here.

After you have your canvas, you’re going to want to pick out some fun colored scrapbook paper! You can get scrapbook paper darn near anywhere these days. I have some from Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, Walmart… For this project, I was already at walmart and walked by the packs of paper they had and found this! It was perfect and it was only $5 for 50 sheets. Quite the deal!

Now that you have your canvas, paint, and paper, you are set! (You will also need some elmer’s glue and mod podge to set your paper to the canvas)

Cut out the paper in the shapes of flower petals and lay them out on the canvas to get an idea of what you’d like it to look like.

This was my first go at it, and it seemed to work out all right. Now, you’ll want to paint your canvas and reapply the pieces of paper so that you are ready to glue!

The pieces along the edges I just folded over and glued to the side. You only need a dot of elmer’s glue on each petal, since you will use mod podge over the top to secure everything in place. You should wait until the elmer’s glue is dry before using the mod podge as it may move the pieces around if they aren’t quite dry.

This is what it will look like when it is wet- don’t worry, it will dry clear! I also used mod podge on the edges, since there were petals that folded over and I wanted everything to be uniform.

Then as soon as it is dry, it will look like this!