Yesterday's self-challenge was to open one of my emails from Pinterest, find an interesting project, and using only materials found in my stash, make the craft immediately . That's saying something for me, because I'm quite a planner. I usually don't start any project until I've thought about it a good long time.
The project that caught my eye in the very first email I opened was this: a plain glass Christmas ornament covered in a mosaic of pieces cut from a CD. The original post showed a glittery ribbon inside to add to the sparkle.
I rummaged through my CDs and found one with old photos on it that I didn't need any more. I know from experience how difficult it is to cut a CD with scissors. Often it will shatter. I wanted more uniform pieces.
So I used some tin snips to do the job. That worked fairly well, but was still pretty rough on my hands. Were I to try this again, I think I'd experiment with my paper shredder to cut the CD into uniform strips, then cut the strips into bits with the tin snips. To contain all the small pieces, I used the top of a plastic shoe box. The pieces did like to fly with each snip!
Deep in my stash I found this plastic cup left over from a package of cupcake papers. I decided to use it to hold the glass ornament steady while I used hot glue to attach the CD mosaic bits to the glass ornament.
I removed the top of the ornament before the next step. I first tried using some silver glitter hot glue sticks to attach the mosaic pieces, but that didn't work very well. So I switched back to clear hot glue. The sample ornament was covered with larger pieces of the CD in various shapes with wide-ish gaps between the pieces (see below). I decided to use small bits of rectangular CD mosaic pieces with small gaps between the pieces. Jodie and I chatted via Skype while I crafted, which made the time fly by rather than having this step feel tedious.
When all the pieces are glued in place, it might be wise to use some rubbing alcohol and a soft cloth to remove any hot glue "spiderwebs." I tried putting ribbon in the orb like the inspiration piece, but because my mosaic doesn't have a lot of space between the pieces, the ribbon didn't add extra sparkle. I decided to leave the ornament empty. I replaced the top of the ornament. Then, using some silver ribbon from my stash (re-used some of the ribbon from the 25th anniversary cake!), I formed a small loop so the ornament can hang from the tree. I also tied another length of ribbon around the ornament top to complete the piece.
I'm quite pleased with the result! I'm going to challenge myself to do more of these "spur-of-the-moment" projects using materials I already have in my stash. Fun!
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Inspiration Mosaic Ornament by Shelterness
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