Our dining room is a luscious brown, but not well lit enough. So in a dark corner I had made up my mind to have a few lanterns shining a light on things. I wanted them to have a Moroccan twist of some sort. You know how I am :)
This is what I started out with.
* Two (only one pictured) large recycled glass jars
* Two (only one pictured) wooden craft finials from Lowe's
* One decorative perforated scrapbook paper from Joann's (bought last year. They didn't have this specific kind when I checked the other day, but they had a few other perforated designs).
* White spray paint
* White lace trim (not pictured)
* Wire and wire hangers for hanging (not pictured)
I had everything but the finials on hand and I bought them at Lowe's for about $3 for the pair.
The first thing I did was figure out how much paper I wanted on each lantern. I only had one 12x12 inch decorative paper and there wasn't enough to fully cover both jars. With a little trial and error I came up with a design that worked for me. The paper wasn't long enough to wrap around the jar in one piece so I had to piece things together a bit. Above is one of those places where I had to join two pieces.
Next I glued the paper to the jar with Mod Podge and covered the paper with a generous coat of podge as well. The glass will be coated with podge too and will give a frosted effect when dry. You can certainly use a spray adhesive instead if you don't want the frosted look but I wanted my paper to be as protected as possible. As you can see above the join in the paper isn't that visible.
I have no idea what the official name is for this device but I call it a candle elevator. I made it from a piece of wire hanger and looped the bottom around a baby jar lid. You stick your tea light on here, light it, and then you can safely lower your light into your lantern. Make sure the lid fits through your jar opening before going through the trouble of making one :) I only have one of these because I made it last year when I started this project and I only had one jar at the time.
If you like this version well enough you can stop here and save yourself some time and money. This could probably work really well for a budget wedding center piece. Or just another wintry lantern.
Since I had planned on having my lanterns hang from the ceiling I wanted to add finials on the bottom to hopefully look more exotic. The finials were spray painted white and glued to the bottom of each jar with E6000.
I messed things up a bit by putting them in what I thought was a safe place to dry. On a shelf above the stove where the kids can't get to them and my husband would be unlikely to knock them over. But the husband was cooking himself a pizza in the oven and when I came to check on the lanterns after a while I noticed to my horror that the finials had developed warts all over from the heat of the oven. I guess some chemical thing from the sap or moisture in the wood and not yet dry paint? I don't know but I flattened the warts as best I could. If you look closely in the after pics you can see them. They're not that noticeable in person so I think I'll leave them as is.
This is what they looked like after drying overnight. One has less "clothes" on than the other as you can see. I also made some hangers from wire wrapped around the neck of the jar and hung them on wire hanger s-hooks from a chain from the ceiling.
I kept staring at them and could not bring myself to liking what I saw. They didn't look Moroccan and it was clearly visible that they were jars with a finial glued to them. I remembered that I had some lace trim in my stash that might work.
Some snipping and E6000 glue later.
Aaah, much better! So they may still not look Moroccan, more like something Granny would have. In a pinch maybe the granny would be a Moroccan granny :) But they strike me as kind of vintage looking and certainly unusual enough. And at first glance you may not notice that they're made out of jars.
The idea is for these to be wired (when I can get to it) and cast swirly patterns on the wall and lots of light up towards the ceiling. For now they're powered by one lonely tea candle.
A variation on these lanterns could be using lace fabric instead of paper and I personally think several rows of lace trim or eyelet trim would be adorable and yield a more froufrou and feminine end result. I'm happy with my only slightly feminine granny style, though :) (Pretty please, make it a Moroccan granny :)).
Details of the two lanterns.
See the warts above? Mmm, not pretty. But a lot less visible in person, thankfully.
And some afters.
Now I just have to wire them and cover said wire with lush cream colored cord covers. Why do I have a feeling it's going to be a while before I can get to it?
That's the one major drawback to decorating on a shoestring - it takes for.ev.er... Grr. In the mean time I'll be over here perfecting my patience :) As granny-like as I can be. Minus the knitting. I don't knit.
Happy weekend everyone!
Ps. Linking up with
C.R.A.F.T.
Blue Cricket Design
Domestically Speaking
Etcetorize
Someday Crafts
