"O, Christmas Tree" Glitter Ball Ornaments

Merry Christmas, everybody!  Since Thanksgiving is over and it's "legal" to get into the Christmas spirit, I helped Jill and her family put up their Christmas decorations on Saturday.  I've given Jill a Christmas tree ornament (or sometimes a set) every year since she got married.  Last year, I made her a glitter ball ornament.  Boo obviously liked it, because later Saturday, she informed me that she was going to use my glitter and ball ornaments to make an ornament for her baby sister.  After getting her to ask me, rather than tell me, I agreed to help her and let her use my stuff. 

When I made these the first time, I got the inspiration from the blog The Greenbean's Crafterole.  You can find the post here.

This tutorial said to use Pledge furniture polish, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy a big bottle of something I would only use once.  I used homemade Mod Podge (aka, watered down Elmer's glue) instead.  A year later, the glue's still holding.  I don't remember what ratio of water to glue I used—just mix in water until it looks good.  (Don't you love instructions like that?)  Just remember that it needs to make a nice, thin, non-gloppy film.

What you need:
-Clear glass ball (or other shape) ornaments
-Adhesive of choice.  I used watered down Elmer's glue.
-Glitter
-A funnel.  I made my own with a sheet of paper.

(Isn't my niece cute?  She was cold, so she grabbed the nearest coat—mine.)

Pour glue into the ball.  Use more that you think you'll need.  You'll pour the extra out anyway. Carefully swirl it all around.  As the original blogger said, shaking the ball would made froth, which is bad.  Hence the careful swirling.  Now, dump out the extra.  Make sure it drains well, but don't leave it so long that it dries.  Last year, I had to rinse out my glitter and start a ball over again because too much glue puddled on the bottom of the ball and didn't let the glitter coat the ornament evenly.

Dump in the glitter.  Use the funnel, if needed.  Again, don't be afraid to use more than you think you'll need.  You will dump out the extra.  Just make sure you don't have big glue puddles in the ornament.  This time, you can shake the ball to get it covered.  Let it dry before you pour the extra glitter back into the bottles. You wouldn't want to get wet glue in your unused glitter.

And that's it!  After they're dry and free of extra glitter, put the tops back on and hang your beautiful, glittery ornaments on your tree.

Be sure to check out the other posts in our Sew a Song of Christmas series!

"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" Tulle Wreath

And check back on Friday for the next bit of musical Christmas fun!

Quilting Pictures

A while ago, Jill found this book about quilting pictures.  You're basically making a fabric collage, except it looks nicer than the paper collages you (or at least, I) made way back when.  Originally, Jill, my mom, and I were all going to work on it together.  Jill made this cool beta fish design, the three of us shopped for the fabric, we got started, and somehow it ended up being my project alone.  

My goodness, it took forever.  Part of the problem was that I had decided to do a design with loads of skinny sections.  Don't these look fun to cut out at each step? Time consuming, but worth it.  

My two biggest problems are ones that I'd have no matter what I was working on.  I like quilting, but I usually only sew when the once-a-month quilt group meets.  I also seem to have some curse that causes my sewing machine to have tension issues or otherwise hate me.  I might spend so much time fixing tension issues and taking out unstable seams that when it's time to go home from my quilt group, I'm just a few stitches past where I started.

But now the fish done, and it looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself.  The back looks almost as good as the front.  It looks like a whole cloth quilt.  If you’re unfamiliar with that, it’s exactly what it sounds like.  You take your fabric, don’t cut it up, lay it on your batting and backing, and quilt a design on it.  Bind and done.  

Even though this was a lot of work, it was fun to make, and I love the end result.  It’s nice that it’s not as precise as most sewing is.  Wobbly stitching?  Do it a few more times, and people will think you meant to make it wobble.  Or ignore it, and no one will care, even if they look up close.  My mom and sister and I bought new fabric for this, but it would be a great way to use up scraps, maybe even funky patterns that you hope were in style when you bought them but now would make a fashionista faint with fright.  In short, it’s fun, forgiving, and you should give it a try.  You just might want to pick a simpler design than my beta fish.

Would you like a tutorial about how to quilt your own pictures? 

Pendant Power: Sea Glass Pendant Tutorial

Last time, I showed you how to make sea glass.  As promised, I’ll now show you something you can do with all your lovely glass. 

Ta da!  Pendants!  I’m sure you’re so surprised, considering the title of the post.

It’s always nice to have a quick, done-in-one-sitting project, isn’t it?  Wrapping glass to make pendants is so easy, you don’t really need a tutorial, but I’ll give you some tips.

1) The most important thing: remember you’re working with glass.  There’s nothing more frustrating than being almost done with a project, then breaking it. 

2) Make sure you wrap the piece so it’s secure from all angles.  If the glass can fall out if the pendant’s tipped upside down, it will tip upside down at the most inconvenient time.  The picture above shows three different ways to wrap: 1-near the edges, rather than going across the glass, 2-wrapping with fairly even loops and ending with a spiral, with another wire wrapping across the top and side so it won't fall out, and 3-having the wire radiate from (mostly) one point.   

3) Spirals are good for making the end of your wire decorative (as you can see from the middle pendant).

4) If you use found, rather than purchased glass, you’ll probably end up with more clear than colored glass.  Unfortunately, since you can see through the resulting sea glass, it can hide more than you’d want a pendant to.  Solution: before you wrap the glass, paint the back of it.  I used fingernail polish.  You probably have some handy, and it comes in every color you can think of.  I haven’t tried glitter ones yet, but I expect they’d be great. If you want to keep the glass colorless, but don't want it to hide, try using white fingernail polish. I think this blue one turned out nicely, don't you?

5) For a different look, you can hammer some wire flat, and wrap it around the edge of the pendant, like I did with this one.  

Unless you use some kind of adhesive, you’ll still need to wrap on the front and back, but doesn’t that look spiffy?  Too bad I forgot rule #1 and broke the glass.  See the crack on the top right side?  (Cry!) 

6) Try different kinds of wire.  I used square wire for one pendant.  See how the wire of the spiral is twisted?  The easiest way to get a nice twist would probably be to clamp one end of the wire in a vice and twist the other end with pliers.  I don’t have a vice, so I made do with a pair of pliers at each end.  You can hold one end stationary and twist the other end, or you can twist a small section at a time.  If you use the second method, you may want to use nylon-jawed pliers so you don’t mark up the wire.  Keep an eye on the twist to make sure it’s doing what you want it to.

And voila!  String your pendants on a chain or cord, and you have a brand new necklace.  I went pretty simple with these, but you don’t have to.  Add beads.  Make the wire the focus and the glass the accent.  Combine multiple pieces into one pendant.  Try anything!  That crazy idea might become your favorite necklace.

If you don't want to wrap the pendants, you can also drill a hole in the glass and hang it.  But that's a post for another day!

What pendants have you made?  What would you like to see us do with sea glass?

If you like our Summer Swimming series, share it with your friends!  We'll see you back here on Wednesday for our next fun project!

DIY Sea Glass

Have you noticed the Summer Swimming button on my sidebar?  Well, it's not coming soon anymore--it's here!  I'm really excited to announce my new series, which will celebrate all things summery and wet!  There will be clothing, quilting, and crafting tutorials, guest posts from some of my favorite people, and twice weekly posts full of watery fun.  

 ~~~

Hi, I’m Kelli, Jill’s sister.  If you want to put a face to the name, I’m the one who modeled the clothes that Jill made for Project Sewn.  

Oh, look, there’s another picture of me.  Well then.

Twice a month, I will be doing a guest post.  I majored in Horticulture, with my emphasis in Floral Design, so I’ll do some posts about flower arranging.  You can also expect to see posts about making jewelry, and the occasional sewing post.  {Jill:  She’s the one who helped me with my table centerpiece that I showed you earlier.}

The first project I’m going to share with you is making sea glass. 

Imagine...

You’re vacationing at the beach, collecting seashells as a souvenir, and you find a bit of glass that has been frosted by the ocean.  You look around and find more, clear/white, green, brown, maybe red if you’re really lucky.  You snatch these prizes up and take them home to be used in jewelry, to put a finishing touch on that nautical-themed room, or to put with your other souvenirs.  

But what if you can’t just go to the beach and pick up some sea glass?  You can make your own!  

What you’ll need:
Safety glasses
Glass--empty bottles, stained glass, whatever
Hammer--if you want a more “natural” look, or
Glass cutter--if you want more control (It's the red tool that's not pliers.)
Rock tumbler and play sand

First, you need glass.  Any glass should work, as long as it's not too thin.  Rather than recycle that empty pickle jar, upcycle it!  Clear glass is easy to find, and keep an eye out for colored glass, like the green bottles sparkling cider comes in.  If you don’t want to wait to find colored glass, you can buy it.  If you do, make sure it’s actually colored all the way through.  If it’s just painted, the paint will be gone by the time you’re done. For my colored glass, I went to the stained glass section of Hobby Lobby.   

If you want your glass to look more like “natural” sea glass, you’ll want to break it.  Wear safety glasses and have some way to contain the glass.  I break mine in low box with a paper towel covering it.  Bust out your hammer and set to it.

I haven’t wanted to just break my pretty stained glass and see what shapes I happened to get, so I cut it.

Despite the name, you’re not actually “cutting” the glass.  You’re scoring it so it will break where you want it to.  I’d start with squares and rectangles, since they’re easiest.  Press the wheel of the cutter on the edge of the glass, and push it all the way across the glass.  With most glass, you will hear a soft crackling noise and end up with a fine line if you’re using the right pressure.  Too little pressure, and you don’t get the job  done.  Too  much, and you could fracture the glass so it breaks where you don’t want it to.  This hasn’t been a problem for me, so just be aware, and you should be fine.  Be sure to wear safely glasses!    

You want to make a score line all the way across the glass.  But if, like me, you have trouble actually starting your score line on the very edge of the glass, just start scoring as close to the edge as you can, make your score line go all the way across, then turn the glass around so the scored end is towards you.  

Place your hands on either side of the line, and flex the glass gently.  If one of the sides is small, it can be easier to hold that side with pliers.  A kind that meets at the tip but not the hinge would be best.  I don’t have a pair like that, so I use my flat nosed pliers with the tips wrapped in tape to protect both them and the glass. I haven’t been cut while “cutting” the glass, but if you have leather gloves, you might want to wear them, just in case.

Voila!  Isn’t that cool?

Now use the same method to cut that strip of glass into pieces the sizes you want.

Some people use the ball at the end of the glass cutter to tap the score line and break the glass, but for me, it usually didn’t break where I wanted it to.  

If you’d like to see a video of someone cutting glass, here’s the video that taught me how to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D0XLXVkJKE

Now you have the glass.  So how do you make it sea glass?  Sea glass is frosted and the sharp edges are rounded by tumbling in the ocean for who knows how long.  You can simulate this with a rock tumbler.  For my 3 pound capacity rock tumbler barrel, I fill it half to a bit over half full with glass, then add half a cup of play sand, then fill the barrel with water till the glass is nearly covered.  Read the instructions for your tumbler to see how yours should be filled.  The sharp edges should be worn down 8-12 hours later.  Point the lid away from you when you open it.  I’ve never had anything dangerous happen, but, you know--just in case.

Well, now that you know how to make sea glass, what should you do with it?  Find out next time, on.........JILL MADE IT!    

~~~

Thanks, Kelli!

For those of you who don’t have a rock tumbler, you can buy sea glass at a craft store.  I've found it at Jo-Ann.  Rock tumblers can be found at craft stores and Amazon.

Be sure to check back with us on Friday for our next Summer Swimming project!  If you miss any posts, I will have them all archived under my Series tab.