Liz Hicks Studios: Shining a little JOY on recycled crafting

I kind of have a thing for turning trash into treasure. I guess it comes from my environmentalist mom but every time I look at a jar, a lid or even a plastic yogurt container I often think of things I can reuse them for around the house...give them a second life.

Of course these ambitious ideas never really seem to fit time wise into my life so through the year I tend to grow a collection of items... well today I am putting them to work!

JOY Luminaire Home Decor

Step 1- Frost the Glass

To begin these re-purposed luminaire, grab 3 spaghetti sauce jars clean and label free.

Using vinyl, cut out your designs. I used my ScanNCut and some of the built in snowflake and letter designs for this project. My machine settings were blade depth 2, preasure 2 and cut speed 1. Place the designs onto your clean glass surface. Contact paper offers the cleanest application.

Add a generous layer of etching cream to your glass and allow to process according to directions. I let it process for 15 minutes and used Etch-All etching creme.

Step 2: Colorize your jars

I use a turquoise permanent ink from Clearsnap to add some texture and color to the frosted glass. This helps to make the frosted glass pop with color and you can vary the saturation of the color just by adding more ink.

Step 3: Decorate and Display!

Add a little garland or tinsle to the top of your jars to cover up the lip of the jar and then display your jars with white tulle in them for day display.

Or instead of tulle, add some tealights for the dark to use these jars as luminaires.

These little recycled beauties are great night or day and can be created to be used all year around. These have a holiday twist but you can easily change the designs and make these work for any season. Its a great way to repurpose those jars and add a little style to your yard or home.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you will continue on the hop and use the link below to check out some more fun ideas to get creative during the holiday season.