These do-it-yourself ornaments are fun, simple and inexpensive to make and will give your tree a rustic touch. They also make great gifts, wintry tags, and name plates for a winter wedding.
Tools and Materials:
Wood slices (2 1/2" diameter)
Drill (to make the holes for the twine in the wood slices)
Bag of wooden snowflakes
Rubber Stampede Ink in Fresh Mint (any light bluish color will do)
Colorbox Ink in Frost White (to lightly sponge over the Fresh Mint color)
Glossy Accents (to cover the snowflake once it's colored)
Strong glue to attach the snowflake to the wood slice
Twine to hang the ornament
Directions:
Use a sponge to apply a coat of Fresh Mint colored ink to one side of your snowflake.
Sponge the white ink over the top of your Fresh Mint ink. Don't try to completely cover the bluish ink, you're just trying to give the snowflake an icy appearance.
Add a coat of Glossy Accents over the ink to give the snowflake a shine. You may notice the white ink begin to swirl which is just an added bonus. Allow to dry.
Place glue onto the unfinished back of your snowflake, center on your wood slice and adhere. Let dry overnight.
Use your twine to hang your ornament.
Note: If you don't have ink or want to make this a family project with smaller children you can easily substitute markers or acrylic paint to color your snowflakes. The ink just gives your snowflakes more depth in color and has a softer appearance.
I came across this video (link below) on YouTube while looking for a new craft to try. I did a couple of things a little different from the video. The first difference is that I used white card stock since it was what I had on hand. The second difference is that I did not have gold paste to bring out the texture so I used a gold mica powder. A shiny Dollar Tree eye shadow like L.A. Colors would give the same effect.
One problem I had was finding the right candle that was not burned down too far. If your candle is not brand new it is difficult to generate the heat to get the glue to burn. Possibly I'm just impatient, but I didn't have all day to sit and wait for the glue to heat up. I resorted to using a small lighter which worked since I could get the flame right on the glue, but I kept burning my fingers no matter how careful I was. The lighter also made it difficult to hold the butterfly glue-side down as I had to turn it on it's side to keep from burning my hand holding the lighter and to see what I was doing. Your best option would be a candle stick in a holder or possibly even a tea-light candle. Your next best option would be a long lighter if you don't have a candle (used for lighting your outdoor grill) or of course a new candle in a jar, but even my newer candles had the wick too low to get the glue to burn.
I consider the first butterfly I did (the one on the right) as a fail. I put too muchAleene's Original Tacky Glue on the paper thinking I would be able to get more texture from it. Instead, due to the extra glue, the glue was able to settle flat. No matter how many times I pinched and pushed it into the shape it would return to flat with no texture what-so-ever. Another problem I had was using too little glue. With too little glue you can not get any texture and just end up scorching the paper. The plus side of having too little glue is that you can always add a little more to that spot and that is exactly what I did.
I'm currently making a canister and decided to try the burned glue technique on the lid. I'm extremely happy with the result (above). I would recommend to people who love to craft to try this technique because it's an inexpensive way to get some beautiful texture.
Note: To get my butterfly shape I typed in Black and White Butterfly Templates in Google images, picked a shape I liked, copied and pasted the image into Word, made it the size I wanted and then printed it out. I then used the template to cut the shape out on card stock. Of course if you have a paper punch and it's the size you want then you're good to go.
Creating the Look of Metal using Aleene's Original Tacky Glue:
