Glittery Ornaments using Mop N Glo

Alright now we're talking.. my Mod Podge ornaments obviously didn't turn out too well. So, I went and bought the Mop N Glo to experiment with its quality. Boy --- talk about an improvement!

Here is where I orignally saw the ornaments being made with Mop N Glo:

Source: amandasarver.blogspot.com via Samantha on Pinterest

My Version

What you'll need:

• Mop N Glo
• Clear glass ornaments
• Glitter
• Measuring cup
• Ribbon (optional)

At first I tried tipping the Mop N Glo into the ornament and after a big mess decided that it would be easier to pour the Mop N Glo into a measuring cup THEN pour from the measuring cup into the ornament :)

Then you can easily pour it back into the measuring cup and reuse what is left in the measuring cup for your next ornament!

**NOW this is where the going got a little tough and I almost lost hope. You have to quickly dump the left over Mop N Glo out and pour in and shake your glitter. We waited a few seconds too long on the first ornament and the glitter doesn't stick around as well as if you did it more quickly. It just dries too quickly on the inside after being poured out. So this part is a quick process. On the last ornament most of the glitter stuck to the bottom of the ornament. (That is because I insisted on taking a super quick picture. Oops!)

If you want to add a little extra sparkle, you can tie on ribbons to hang on your tree. Meme is good at the ribbon tying so I let her do this part.

^^^These are my Mod Podge balls next to my Mop N Glo balls. I'll let you decide which ones look better. ^^^

Now they are beautifully hung on the tree by Meme!

This one is DEFINITELY a pin!

Glittery Ornaments using Mod Podge

While browsing Pinterest.. I noticed beautiful glass ornaments people had made mixing Mop N Glo and glitter, mixed together on the INSIDE. How perfect I thought.. the glitter won't be falling off all over the place plus it'll last through the attic during the off season. So that was what I was going to present to y'all tonight. Well, after going to Hobby Lobby and Kroger, I had forgotten my Mop N Glo. I didn't want to disappoint so I thought I would sub out the Mop N Glo for Mod Podge. Here is what I got.

What you need:

• Glass ornaments (They are currently half off at Hobby Lobby!)
• Baggie (cut the end and poor your glitter through there. I didn't need to but just in case!)
• Glitter
• Mod Podge (maybe..)

So I took the top off my ornament and poured in my mod podge. (Actually my mom poured it in and I took a picture :) )

Then we shook it all around until the inside of the ball was evenly covered.

If there is a little excess mod podge inside, you can pour it back into the bottle. That was what was recommended with the Mop N Glo version too.

Now time to pour the glitter in!

Shake it all about until all that glitter is evenly coated inside your ball!

Annnnnd this is what it'll look like:

It's safe to say these did not turn out as beautiful as the Mop N Glo version. So, tomorrow I am going to retry this but with the Mop N Glo. I don't like this verison at all, the mod podge is all chunky on the inside, it took forever to evenly coat the inside with both the mod podge and glitter. I'm giving this a thumbs down.

This made me CRINGE!!

Crayons and a Hair Dryer

Here are the supplies you'll need:

• Hot glue gun & glue
• Crayola Crayons (you'll see why in a little bit)
• Canvas
• Hair Dryer
• Towel/Paper towls

The reason why I am specifing crayola crayons is because I used a cheap off brand from a local grocery store and they didn't really melt so well. I have seen other people use the Crayola Crayons and they seem to melt better. PLUS, the off brand do not have the color names on them. I originally wanted to do a R.O.Y.G.B.I.V. pattern, but since I couldnt see the color names I didn't know which ones were red and which ones were orange and I didn't have the time (or patience) to test out every color on a piece of paper.

Once you decide on what colors you want to use, line them up on the canvas to make sure you know length wise how many will fit on your canvas.

Then whip out that hot glue gun and start gluing them down. I glued on the same spot each time so that it said "Crayons" on the outside. You don't have to it's just the OCD in me!

Once they are all glued on find a way to prop your canvas up, I used a heavy box. Lay a towel or paper towels under your canvas just in case some melted crayons come off the canvas.

Now it's time to get melting! I noticed that using the hair dryer on full blast made a mess and the crayons were melting unevenly, it's best to use it at it's lowest setting.

Here are some pictures taken in the process of the melting. Make sure as you are blow drying that you are moving the hair dryer back and forth and not just leaving it on a few crayons so they melt, this will also make it uneven. Just move your hair dryer back and forth and they'll all melt at a even pace!

Before:

After:    

This one is DEFINITELY a pin!

Gemstones on a bottle

Time to break out the hot glue gun and an (empty) bottle of wine!

Source: google.com via Samantha on Pinterest

Here are the supplies you'll need:

• Hot glue gun & glue
• Gems in any color you want (make sure they have the flat side)
• Paper bowl
• String of lights
• Empty bottle (I used a wine bottle)
• Towel

The first thing you'll probably need to do is get the label off your wine bottle, I just soaked mine in hot water for 5 minutes and it peeled right off.

Next, I poured all my gems into a bowl for easier accessibility. Place a folded towel down on the surface area, you will need to lay the bottle on it's side as you are working around. If you place the bottle on marble, like I did at first, it'll roll around AND the gemstones will fall off when they hit between the two hard surfaces. It happened to me several times but once I was laying the bottle down on its side on the towel this didn't occur any longer.

I tried on my first gem to put the hot glue on the bottle first and then put the gem on the bottle, but I put it down too far and it was hanging off the bottom of the bottle.

Instead, you need to put the hot glue on the GEM first and then place the gem onto the bottle.

Then you just keep gluing around in circles! When you put your gemstone down, apply a little pressure with your finger to make sure it gets down nice and snug!

Look I found a conjoined gemstone!

To stuff the lights into the bottle I used the handle of a wooden stick:

Now time to turn it on!!

This one is DEFINITELY a pin!

 

Mod podging wooden letters with tissue paper

Ok folks. I thought I would pick something easy to do today since I have to go to a kindergarten Christmas party at 2:30pm.

I saw this beautiful idea the other day:

Source: southernhospitalityblog.com via Samantha on Pinterest

So I went out and bought my letters and some light blue and gold tissue paper. I was ready to begin, I even thought I could hot glue some rhinestones on these babies and really make them shine. Here are the supplies I gathered at the beginning of my project:

• Mod Podge
• Brushes
• Wooden letters
• Light blue and gold tissue paper
• Hot glue gun & glue
• Rhinestones
• Glitter

Along my journey into this I realized I needed a X-Acto knife, so make sure you grab one of those before getting started.

First I measured how much tissue paper I would need. This all depends on the size of your wooden letter. For mine I was able to cut one sheet of tissue paper into fourths and each sheet perfectly covered one letter.

Then I painted the entire base of my letter with Mod Podge.

Then gently place your pre-cut piece on the wooden letter. You may have to smooth it out, to do this gently pat the tissue paper with the palm of your hand or finger tips. Pat lightly or the tissue paper may stick to you and come up off the letter.

After you've done all your letters let them dry for about 30 minutes.

Now using your X-Acto knife, use an up and down motion to remove the tissue paper from the letters. If you pull the knife it tends to rip the paper off the top.

Now you should have something like this. I put two layers of tissue paper over my letters to it showed up more but you can just do one layer if you feel like that is enough.

Now.. I had read that she Mod Podged the tissue paper along the sides. I was kind of hesitant about this because my letters have all the small nooks and crannies but I thought I'd give it a shot.

 It did not turned out as planned. Instead I ended up with a sticky mess and the sides of my first 'S' looking nasty. So I didn't continue this for the other two letters, instead if there was any blue hanging over on my sides I just painted over it with a small brush and white paint. Here's what my 'S' was looking like:

This was starting to take way longer than expected so I had to drop the idea of the rhinestones and hot glue ( :( ) instead.. I thought I'd just put glitter all over all the letters! Who doesn't love glitter?!

So I Mod Podged back over all the letters one at a time and sprinkled glitter until they were evenly coated.

My conclusion on this project is, I think instead of tissue paper it would be much easier to use scrapbook paper because if your hand is wet from the Mod Podge and you touch an area of the tissue paper it will come RIGHT up. It also rips very easily when you are trying to get the excess tissue off the sides.

So even though I did eventually finish this project, after almost 2 hours, I would recommend scrapbook paper instead of the tissue paper.

This one is cringe worthy, but can be fixed by changing the paper!

Tomorrow: Wine bottle with gemstones & twinkle lights!