DIY Wax Paper Luminarias

Want a fun decoration this Memorial Day weekend? Or maybe you're having a rustic wedding this summer and want to make an easy centerpiece? These wax paper lanterns are so ridiculously easy to make, you could whip together a few before any of your guests arrive! I took these instructions from APracticalWedding and added a few pointers! All you need to make these are:

* Wax paper

* Scotch tape or washi tape

* An x-acto knife or scissors

* Pressed flowers (sorry for my pathetic selection!)

* A ruler

* An iron

* A tea light candle

* (optional) Skewers to help support the lantern

Start by measuring out four 4 1/2" x 9" rectangular pieces of wax paper. Once they're all cut out, fold them in half so you have four squares.

On top of an ironing board or towel, lay out your rectangle with the pressed flowers on one side.

Fold over the wax paper so the flowers are now inside the square.

And using an iron on medium heat, gently go over the wax paper until it has melted together into one panel.

Once all four panels have been ironed, tape them together. Whatever you want to be on the front of the lanterns, have that side face you and not the table. I recommend taping the entire length of the panels, but you could use more if you want.

Once the four sides have been taped together, crease over the tape to form a nice cube shape. Stick your candle in the middle, and voila! Your wax paper luminaria is complete!

You really don't need the skewers, unless you want extra support and weight. If you don't use the skewers and plan to place these outside, be prepared for them to fly away because there's nothing holding them down! One tip? Keep the flowers away from the edges of the paper, otherwise the tape may cover them up!

TOTAL COST: Free!

Flowers from the overgrown abandoned bush down the street

Wax paper, tape, iron, ruler, scissors, and tea light candle from IKEA all on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 20 minutes

I'm sure the more you do it, the faster it'll be, especially if you could get an assembly line going (one person making the rectangles, one person ironing, and one person taping). Most of the time was spent cutting out the wax paper rectangles.

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5

This is very easy - I thought I was going to burn the paper or have it melt and make a mess. If you have a garden and want to display your flowers in a unique way, or just want some simple decoration for a dinner party, I highly recommend giving these a try!

April Fools' Day Portable Milk Spill

Happy April Fools' Day! I've never been one to do practical jokes but this one from Instructables seemed easy enough (and not life-threatening, like some "jokes" out there). It's easy enough for any kid or kid at heart to make, it's portable, and scary enough to look realistic but not so scary that you'll need a defibrillator on hand.


All you need are four things:

#1 - A piece of glass (which I took from a picture frame)
#2 - Elmer's glue
#3 - A bar of soap
#4 - A knife

First, coat one side of your glass with soap. The soap will act as a lubricant and will make it easier to remove the "spill" once it dries.

Next, draw out your "spill" with the glue. The thicker the spill, the easier it'll be to come off once it's dry. I tried not to make it too cartoony (which is hard because you don't want a blob but you want it to look realistic), however size and variance is completely up to you.

And then, the waiting game. I let mine dry overnight because after 7 hours, it was still sticky.

Once it's completely dry, use your knife to poke the sides and peel it off the glass.

If your spill is not completely dry, then it's going to stick to the glass and you'll end up having a big hole in the middle. Lesson learned: be patient!

However, if you did it correctly, you should be able to place it on top of anything valuable - keyboards, laptops, iPads, your kid's homework... whatever will look the most realistic! Have fun and be prepared to face the consequences... like payback!

TOTAL COSTS: $5
$2.99 for Elmer's glue from Michael's
$2 for IKEA picture frame glass
X-acto knife and hotel bar soap already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 5 minutes + overnight (and then some if need be!)

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
I've never been one to be a.) patient or b.) good at practical jokes so I'm not surprised with this outcome. However, if you're patient, you should be able to pull this off with flying colors!

Homemade Flower Pot Heater

Living in Los Angeles, I don't really have to worry about the "polar vortex" that is currently gripping the country. I mean, it has been in the 60s instead of the 70s so sometimes I have to wear a hoodie, but it's nothing compared to the negative wind chill temperatures other places are experiencing. So when I saw RealFarmacy's link going around Facebook about how you can make your own heater using flower pots and candles, I wanted to see how well it actually worked, since my well-being doesn't depend on it right now! Here's what you'll need:

2 terracotta flower pots that can fit inside one another
Tealight candles
1 metal 5x9 bread pan
1 lighter or matches
Tin foil or something to plug one of the holes in the flower pot


First, take four tea lights, put them in the middle of a metal bread pan, and light the candles.

Take your smaller of the two pots (my flower pots were 5 1/2" wide in diameter and 6 1/2" wide) and place it on top of the bread pan directly above the candles with the hole facing up. Plug the hole with something so air does not escape - here's where I used tin foil. Essentially, you want to trap the air so the pot gets hot.

Next, grab your bigger flower pot, place it on top of the smaller pot and voila! You have a... really... small... heat...er...

I may not have a convincing British accent like the original post or live in a cold part of the country, but it seems like you would get more heat by huddling around your toaster! Don't get me wrong, it does get warm (ish) but after 30 minutes of it next to me, I'm only feeling the heat if I put my hands on the bigger pot. Perhaps if your power goes out and:

a.) all you have are tealight candles and you live in a studio apartment or have a small bathroom OR
b.) if you have an infinite supply of tealight candles you want to get rid of

then this would be worth your while. But if you have relatively larger rooms or don't want to be stuck in your bathroom until your heat turns back on, you might want to find alternative heat solutions. Like a fireplace. Or a Starbucks.

TOTAL COSTS: $14
$4 for two terracotta pots at local flower shop

$5 for 100 tealight candles at IKEA

$5 for bread pan at Target

Lighter and tin foil already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: Less than 5 minutes

Note that times will vary depending on the size of the room and how long it will take to warm it up

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5

This isn't difficult to make at all - the difficult part is being patient enough to get any sort of heat from it!

Chalkboard Coffee Mugs

I kept running across creative DIY project on Pinterest involving chalkboard paint and thought it would be a nice, creative, and hopefully easy project to take on. Kids, if you do nothing else, learn from Mama Kat's mistakes... today's post comes from Wit & Whistle's Chalkboard Mug post.

Here's everything you will need: a mug, a paintbrush, chalkboard paint for porcelain, painters tape (not masking tape - more on that later), rubber gloves (optional - I didn't and still have black on my nails) and eventually, chalk.

Rule #1 - Cover your workspace, so you have a safe place to put down the paintbrush and mug.

Rule #2 - Do not use chalkboard spray paint like this one. I know, it's more convenient and often times cheaper, but if you want to work with a coffee mug, bowl, etc., you really should get Pebeo Porcelaine 150 Chalkboard Paint. This is specifically made for going into the oven and those other kinds are not.

Rule #3 - Do not use masking tape. Why? Well, if you want half the mug to be chalkboard and half not, you'll end up going from this:

Top half taped, bottom half painted = good

To this:

No straight line = bad

Chalkboard paint seems to laugh at masking tape, as if to say, "You think you can stop me from where I want to go? Ha!" I made sure the tape was pressed down tight against the mug but that didn't matter. So what do you do if your straight line has gone haywire? Get a damp paper towel and wipe away the mistakes. Now I removed the tape as soon as I was done painting, per the original post, so the paint was still wet enough to wipe away. Even if you decide to wait til the paint has dried, the paint can be chipped off up until you put it in the oven. 

Rule #4: Try to paint as evenly as possibly. Meaning, if you have drips down the sides, they will dry that way. If you have brush strokes on the mug, they'll dry that way. Just something to keep in mind.

Rule #5: Practice, practice, practice. Yes, the original blog's mug looks perfect and maybe yours doesn't. That's ok! Try again, learn from your mistakes, and make another! 

After waiting 24 hours for the mug to dry, I cranked up the oven to 300 degrees and set the mug on the wire racks for 35min, per the instructions on the paint bottle. It didn't say how long to let it cool so after the 35 minutes of baking, I waited an hour before removing it from the oven so it could be completely cool.

Don't forget to chalk the mug completely before putting it to good use! Now that you've baked it, it's microwave and dishwasher safe!

Just a little chemistry joke for you

TOTAL COSTS: About $9
$5.39 for Pebeo Porcelaine 150 Chalkboard Paint from Dick Blick (almost twice that on Amazon!)

$.80 for a box of chalk from Dick Blick

$2.99 mug from IKEA

Paintbrush and tape already on hand - remember, use painters tape!

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 26 hours
7 minutes to tape mug (I was spending a lot of time trying to get my line straight)

15 minutes to paint and fix my mistakes

24 hours to dry

35 minutes to bake

1 hour to cool down

EASY-PEASY SCALE: 3 out of 5
Now this is one of those projects that won't be perfect at first but you'll get better the more you do it so don't get discouraged. Besides, the more mistakes you make, the more "homemade" it looks! Have patience and have fun!

Sheet Music Candles

As a musician, I thought this was a clever post by Can't Stop Making Things, as it combined two of my favorite things: candles and sheet music. Now, before anyone says anything... yes, the sheet music on the smallest candle is backwards. I even highlighted it in the photos below so that is an example of what not to do. So it was really on purpose. Yeah. That's it. Ahem.

Sheet music candles

The directions are pretty self-explanatory in the post so here's the shorthand: take an 8 1/2x11 piece of white tissue paper, tape it to a piece of cardstock, print off sheet music (pdfs are provided in original post), take said tissue paper off cardstock, cut tissue paper to the size of the candle and glue in place, and adhere via heat until tissue paper has melted.

Here are some things the original post fails to mention:

1. When you are cutting the tissue paper to size, leave 1/4 of an inch off the top of the candle (like the smallest candle). I found when you cut it exactly to the size of the candle, it's harder to melt the very top of the tissue paper to the candle, so leave yourself some breathing room.

Example of what not to do: put sheet music on backwards

2. If you don't have a heat gun, use a blow dryer. I used mine on "High" for 5 minutes for the tall candle, 3 minutes for the medium size candle, and 2 minutes for the small candle.

3. When you're using the heat gun or blow dryer, you'll start to notice the color of the tissue paper fades and the color of the candle come through. That's when you know you're done. If you still see white tissue paper, it hasn't completely melted yet. You've heated it for too long when wax starts to drop down the sides of the candle.

4. Don't touch the candle while you're adhering the tissue paper to it. Instead, put the candle on the cardstock you used and spin the cardstock on the table so you don't have to touch the candle.

TOTAL COSTS: Anywhere between $3-$12
$1.99 for white tissue paper from Vons
$9.99 for a pack of 5 candles (different sizes) at IKEA, though you could find plain white candles anywhere for cheap (probably around $2/candle)
Sheet music was free
Already had glue
TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 45 minutes, almost to the second
EASY-PEASY SCALE: 3 out of 5. Not too difficult but not a cakewalk. Be careful with any heat gun/blow dryer so you don't burn yourself. Also try not to have any wrinkles in the tissue paper or they'll adhere to the candle.