Perhaps we should have paid more attention in science class back in the day. Perhaps we should have — what a concept — read the instructions on the glitter glue bottle. Or perhaps, had we used good old common sense, this week’s project would not have been such a long, strange odyssey.
It seemed like a great idea: making sparkling, jewel-like ornaments using tuna can lids and glitter glue; but had we kept a daily journal of our progress with the project, it would have gone something like this:
Day 1: These ornaments are going to be gorgeous. Just look at the way the glitter glue blends and takes on the look of stained glass!
Day 2: Hmmm. The glue hasn’t dried at all. Maybe we should move the ornaments to a warmer, dryer part of the house.
Day 5: Ok, is this stuff ever going to start drying? And what’s going on with the green glitter showing up in the middle of the red?
Day 10: Finally, there’s only a small spot in the center of each ornament that needs to dry, but what are all those little holes in the dried part?
Day 12: The blasted things are dry at last, but they’re full of those little holes and now the edges are starting to pucker!
Day 14: What the h-e-double hockey sticks? The dried glue has popped away from the lids in some cases, and the unstuck parts are all wavy. Maybe we can salvage them by removing them from the lids and gluing them onto another surface. Oops, bad idea, the glitter breaks apart if you try to remove the disk from the lid, unless it’s already popped completely away, in which case it then cracks and breaks if you try to smooth it out.
Days 15 through 20: The loathsome disks sit in a pile just daring us to pack them off to the nearest landfill.
Day 21: We hate the sight of the stupid glitter disks, but we should probably try to resurrect them somehow. We’ll try gluing them back onto the tuna can lid with hot glue and disguising the ugly, puckered edges with yarn or ribbon. The hot glue makes the disks a bit more pliable so we may be able to make it work — but we still hate them!
As you can see by our photo, we managed to pull off a save of sorts, but it’s safe to assume that you won’t be seeing these ornaments in Martha Stewart’s magazine any time soon.
The problem, obviously, is that glitter glue doesn’t interact well with tin. There may be ways around this should you want to give it a try — painting the lids first, a primer of some kind — but, stick a fork in us, we are so done with the tuna can lid idea.
That said, we were still intrigued with the way the glitter glue had looked when we first applied it to the tuna can lids. The colors flowed together nicely and created a jeweled effect. We decided to use the same idea on a different base material, and this time applied the glue to wooden Christmas tree shapes.
Hooray! It worked.
To make our jeweled Christmas trees, apply glitter glue to the surface in random patterns. Begin with dots of glue for the ornaments, then fill in the tree color in between the dots. Your hand may be tired from squeezing the bottle, but the glue will blend together to create a kind of inlaid look.
We tried the same technique with stripes and other designs, all of which turned out well.
When applying the glue, leave a tiny bit of raw edge around the outside as the glue will spread out a bit as it dries.
You’ll still need to allow a couple of days for the glue to dry completely, but it definitely won’t take weeks. Also, the dried glue won’t look as glassy as when it’s first applied, but if you like the shiny look (as we do) you can use a glossy sealer to recreate the sheen.
Finish the raw wooden edges (before applying a sealer) by coloring with a felt-tipped marker, or you can paint the wooden base before applying the glitter if desired.
We haven’t decided what to do with our trees yet, but we’re thinking of making a holiday welcome sign by gluing several finished trees to wooden plaque and sealing it with outdoor varnish.
We may also use them as package decorations but, of course, you can make them into ornaments by adding a ribbon or heavy thread hanger.
Contact Jonetta Coffin at jrocoffin@aol.com.
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