Holiday Sun Catchers

Do you love when the sun shines in your face? I know I do. Although it is become bitterly cold outside and winter has arrived these quick and easy sun catchers work for anytime of the year, just make sure your picture reflects that time of year. This post shows how you can make a beautiful sun catcher for the holidays or any other time of the year. I have done this with little kids, they are easy to make and come out looking gorgeous, especially when you use vibrant colors, and not pale ones, those do not come out as nice. When I had made this sample, they seemed to be great colors, however when I separated the thin pieces of tissue paper, mainly the orange one, it was more of a peach color, than a orange. This is what I had, so I made it work. On my sample, I did not use a second piece of paper, but if you do, it will look like a suncatcher from whatever side you see it from and will have a much neater look to it.

Materials You Will Need:

Clear Contact Paper

Construction Paper-preferably black 2 pcs

Tissue Paper in many different colors

Scissors

Pencil

1. Draw a picture of your choice on the construction paper. In this case, it was a dreidel for the holiday of Hanukah. Repeat on second piece of paper, making sure it matches the first.

2. Cut out the picture leaving a frame of the picture. Repeat on the second picture. For example:

before cutting ------> ♥


after cutting, you should then be left with this -----> ♥ Keep this part.

3. Cut a piece of contact paper double the size of your construction paper.

4. Peel back paper from the contact paper placing it non sticky side down on the table.

5. Place cut-out on the contact paper.

6. Place tissue paper inside frame overlapping each other, so that no gaps remain.

7. Take second paper and place on top of the first picture.

8. Fold contact paper covering the entire picture and then trim sides.

Sequin Art

Ok, I promised you something sparkly a while ago and here it is. You're going to need:

 some styrofoam, a thin fabric or paper (I like black), sequin pins-I used head pins and don't really recommend them for this project, last but not least some nice SPARKLY SEQUINS. Optional Supplies include a strong magnet, ziploc bag, or container, and a safety pin (if you decide not to listen to me and use head pins).

Oh, that's right, you also need a sharpie, a template (in my case a fish), for kids I recommend you do a simple shape such as a star or a heart.

scrap of styrofoam

1. Take your piece of styrofoam

measuring how much I need, see my markings

and check how much you need for your picture, by laying out your template on top of the styrofoam

2. Next I measured how much fabric (can even use scrapbooking paper for covering) I needed to cover the styrofoam and made sure to leave enough to be able to glue it on the back.

Checking how much covering I need

3. Cut it and use a strong adhesive to glue it down, I used Elmer's Spray Glue Adhesive-only because I had it left over from a previous project.

bad pic of me gluing it up

better pic of me gluing it up

all done, looks nice

4. Now take your template, or freehand a drawing of your choice with your sharpie (mine ended up being a combination of freehand and template.

tracing

all done

all done, less light in this pic, because I wasn't sure which one would show up the sharpie better

5. Now, for the fun and tedious part, if you were stubborn and didn't listen to me and tried to use headpins, this is where the safety pin comes in. You will need to help the headpin by creating a hole using the safety pin for the headpin to go through. If you did listen to me, you should be able to skip this step.

safety-pinning the eye of the fish

holding the sequin in place, while I fish around for a headpin
(pun was unintended)

6. Using your sequin pins, put your pin through the hole in the sequin and push into the desired location in the styrofoam block.

I started with the eye of the fish and you can just do a bunch of these & have flowers

Here is it throughout it's creation and yep should have gone with something simple.

 REQUIRED SUPPLIES:
Styrofoam
thin fabric or paper
sequin pins
sparkly sequins
strong glue (NOT HOT GLUE-it will melt the styrofoam)
Sharpie

 What to do with those optional supplies:
What you never dropped a pin on the floor?

That's what strong magnets are for, they're for picking up pins that fall


Why do I need a ziploc bag or container?

Sequins as well as sequin pins have a tendency to escape, we'll try to contain them in the ziploc bag or container, especially as this project may take a few days to complete.

I've got tons of sequins left over, what can I do with them?

They have other fun styrofoam stuff, you can take one of those styrofoam balls and stick sequins in all over and you'll have a sparkly decoration. Or, (quick disclaimer: haven't tried this) you can carve out your own shape, 3d bear or something and stick in sequins all over, or repeat this project with your child's name or initial

Have Fun

 Linking Up At:

 http://www.iheartnaptime.net/