Friday, July 20, 2012

Cloudy With A Chance of Neon?

Em here, vacation was fabulous! But I have to admit I missed the blogging world, and I am glad to be back! This little project was sent to us by Erin, a few simple things could make this flawed lantern fabulous!

The Original

The Pinstrosity


Now the green isn't the camera or the flashes fault, this is all the Pinstrosity. Erin said she followed the directions, and initially it looked great (below) but it kinda looks like a giant loofah (we will get to that). This project is made by putting a flame-less LED candle inside a hanging Chinese lantern, and then using hot glue to cover the lantern with crafter's "stuffing" (not batting, we will get to that also).


Here is the finished product, before it got all lit up, however when the lights went out, things got...scary. There a few differences here that are key.

The original pin says to use cotton batting, there are two different kinds of "batting" we see here, after a phone call to the quilting queen, A.K.A. My Lovely Mama, I found out that the one used in the Pinstrosity is actually is batting , while in the original they used stuffing (as in what you put in a stuffed animal). There is a difference here because the batting comes on a bolt, like fabric, it's flat (also like fabric) and hard to mold (hence the loofah look). Whereas the stuffing is loose and fluffy (like a cloud), making it SUPER easy to create just that, a cloud!
 Also another thing that is important to consider when gathering supplies is to buy the LED flame-less candles, make sure you get the kind that emit little to no heat, which if you don't, could be a safety issue.
The problem that Erin ran into was she bought super cheap lights from the dollar store that were blue, which mixed with the lantern which is yellow, making everything seem green.

How to resolve these issues lies all in the supplies:
  • Use crafters stuffing, you should be able to find this at any craft store (Hobby Lobby, Joanns, Hancocks, Michaels, etc)
  • Use LED flameless low/no heat candles that are white (Someone also suggested LED Christmas lights, I don't have a lot of experience with Christmas lights, so I am not sure how well that would work,  so again practice caution.)
  • White lanterns
  • *Using white materials ensures that the final product will not turn into a Halloween lantern spookfest, as seen above*
  • **On that note,Erin keep the lantern around, it would look wonderful on your front porch this coming Halloween**
  • Other than that the project is fairly easy, make sure you check the lights for low heat, and don't leave unattended if you are worried about them getting hot, safety first folks.
Super cute for a wedding decoration, kids themed room, (again safety first of course), or a party. Let us know if you tried this out and found some lights that rocked!

                                          -Emilee


5 comments:

  1. Ok, very few Pinstrosities make me bust out laughing, but this one did. I don't know why... it just did. BUT, I do like the pinstrosity and think that it needs eyes and claws for Halloween. Good luck, Erin. I'm sure your next one will look awesome!

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  2. I can't help but think that there is no way on earth that a flameless candle could put out light like what is pictured. Perhaps 2 or 3 together, or maybe a bunch of christmas lights, but personally I think there is a plain ole' lightbulb in there lying to us all. Not that I wouldn't enjoy being bathed in that delicious amber glow as a soft as cotton cloud floated above me, serene in my cordless nirvana, but alas, I am afraid that is one cloud that does not have a silver lining.

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  3. i backtracked this one to the original poster. she is a photographer and this project was so flammable it almost started a terrible fire. from all the posts i have have read since, it seems a really pretty picture but not a truly feasable project. Tiffany

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  4. I actually made two of these for my sons space themed room.. Worked great. I even found lanterns that already had little flameless candles in there :) Cost like two bucks from crazy clarks. I used animal stuffing and that cost about two bucks a packet and I used two packets. I didnt have a glue gun so I used pva and it worked fine :) My son uses them as nightlights, so far no drama and hes had them for nearly a year now :) The trick is to wait for it to dry completely and then lightly pull at random strands to make it a more natural "cloud" shape :)

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  5. I made this, but I used a pink lantern I had lying around and 3 dollar tree flameless, heatless candles per lantern. The pink lantern gave it a sunset-like effect, but there was still one major problem: it barely lit up. It was really really dim even with 3 lights in each lantern. Now they sit in my closet, useless.

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