This week I thought I’d do a bit of recycling/upcycling. I love candles, and can never quite convince myself that the glass jars they come in should be destined for the recycling plant. I much prefer to repurpose them myself. So what better than to turn it into.......... a (battery operated) tea light holder.

I started by stamping the star from ATCoins stamp set 1 onto a tissue , 3 times, then added the word ‘SHINE’ from ATCoin stamp set 11. 

After separating the tissue to a single ply I very carefully painted the back of the stars with Yellow Pearl ink.

Once the ink was thoroughly dry I gently wet around each star with water and tore them out.

I stuck the stars to the jar using 3D Gloss Gel Medium, firstly painting the medium onto the jar, then sticking the stars to it. After smoothing the stars carefully to make sure of having no air bubbles, I gave them 2 coats of the gel medium to fully seal them and turn the tissue translucent.

Next it was time to spray the inside of the jar with some mirror spray. I wasn’t too careful about getting an even coverage as I wanted it to be patchy. I wiped away a bit of the spray to leave clear patches, then sealed it with spray varnish.

Finally, I made a hanging handle out of string, and attached it by winding string around the lip of the jar, catching in the ends of the handle. All purpose craft glue made sure that the string stayed put.

The only thing left to do was to put a battery operated tealight in - not a real candle due to fire hazard - and let the stars twinkle.

Products I used: