Monday, June 13, 2011

Colorful Solar Vases (And A Tute!)

The prettier solar lights are sooo expensive, aren't they?
I've seen the stained glass looking ones be as much as ten bucks a pop, and pretty as it is, it's still out of my budget. Last year I made etched jar solar lights, and I forgot them on the deck when winter hit, so I had to start from scratch this year.
I came up with this:
 So how do we get to this? ^^
First materials!
Glass vase (I got mine at the dollar tree)
Gems (In your choice of colors. I have a huge tote full, making bowling ball/gazing balls for years.)
Clear indoor/outdoor silicone
Solar light with wide top
Popcicle stick to spread the silicone
Materials ready!
Bead the silicone around the glass, you can start at the top or the bottom, two of these were started at the top, one at the bottom, and spread an even thinner coating around the vase, start sticking gems on. (I slip my hand into the vase to work around, but know the longer into the project you get, the heavier this becomes.)

Starting it off.
So now you have this very pretty, but kinda heavy vase. It's nice, but what next?
Have a snack! It's got to set up a little before you go any further. If you look at the first picture you'll notice a package of Nutty Bars, Snack!!
So now it's all set! You need to prepare your solar light.
Yep, this guy here. Untwist the top so you have the inside out.
And simply place on top of your vase....
And it looks like this at the top now.
Ta da!!
Now, not all solar lights are the same, though they should untwist at the top. Most have metal at the bottom, to reflect the light out. These don't. But the ones I had last year did. So to get the light to reflect, I'm going to make a small pyramid from foil and place at the bottom of the vase.
Another thing, these are not waterproof. If it's going to rain, I do bring them in. The silicone is good, but a driving rain is going to fill the vase up. Make sense?

I hope you enjoyed the tute, and make something pretty today!



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