I've been wanting to add some glass floats to my guest bath counter, but they are a bit pricey. So why not try making my own? Inspiration came dorm this post for painting glass with colored glue. Note: I tried linking to this tutorial, but the tutorial is no longer there - my apologies.
What you need:
Clear glass ornaments (I bought large 4" ones at hobby lobby)
Craft glue
Food coloring
Paintbrush
Hemp cording
Instructions:
1.Take the end off the ornament
2.I wanted to trim the "mouth" off so it would truly bea globe, but my glass cutter wasn't deep enough to reach the neck.
3.Pour some craft glue into a plastic cup and mix in food coloring to get the shade of your choice. A little food color goes a long way, so use sparingly.
4.With your paintbrush carefully apply the glue to the outside of the ornament, covering it completely.
5.Carefully set the ornaments on newspaper to dry completely. This is where a round object might not work as well as a flat one. The glue dripped slightly as it dried.
6.It's pretty cool to watchtower the glass turn from opaque to a softly hued translucent.
7.Once the glue had completely dried it was time to add the netting.
8.Start by making a loop of hemp about the size of a quarter. Just take about a six inch length, loop right over left, and keep tucking the edges. Wow, hopefully the picture makes more sense than that description!
9.Cut eight lengths of hemp that are 50" long. Attach them to the loop by folding each piece in half, laying the over the loop and pulling the ends through the "fold".
10.Tape the loop with the 16 (8 folded in half) lengths of cording to the top of the ornament.
11.Starting one inch from the top take the left side of one of the pairs of cording and the right side of the pair next to it and tie a square knot. Work your way around. Tape these knots to the ornament to hold them in place and repeat. Tape as you finish each row.
12.I found it took me about four rows to get to the neck of the ornament.
Here's a link to an illustration that shows how to do the knots.
13.I wanted to hide the neck as much as possible so it truly looked like a fishing float so I braided the hemp cording and formed a loop. Then I wrapped the cording tightly around the neck and tucked the ends in.
Voila! My own sea glass fishing float for little more than a dollar each. This is one of those crafts that looks great on a shelf, but don't put it where people will want to hold and inspect them it's like that hgtv design show "the high low project" where it all looks great when you walk in the room, but up close you can tell its not quite quality. But hey, for $1 vs. $20 I'm pretty happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment