Stephanie Siatta Designs: Boho Chic Upcycle Lantern

Hi again everyone. This month I am excited to be a part of the collaboration between the Altered Pages Design Team and Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko Design Team. Imagine Crafts was so kind to share some of their amazing inks, tools and sprays with us. We get to play with the fun and innovative products and you get to learn a new technique or two.

Today, I have for you a boho chic diy candle lantern made with products from both Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko and Altered Pages.

For this project I used my StazOn Midi ink pads to add color and dimension to various sizes of sheet metal. I also used charms, chain and hand dyed seam binding to create the look I was after.

A very important step in colorizing metal with StazOn is to always use GlazOn after each layer of StazOn ink. StazOn...GlazOn (like wax on...wax off...as John from Imagine Crafts would say.) They go together!

Apply your desired color of StazOn ink to the sheet metal remembering to cover the surface with GlazOn after and let each layer dry before moving on to the next.

If you so choose you can easily add your favorite collage images sprayed with Goosebumps to give that embossed and textural look.

Just hole punch and add a jump ring or three to create a unique charm or dangle out of your desired image or images. Goosebumps makes it so fast and easy. I ended up not using these this time around, but they turned out so cool and they on the workspace front and center just waiting for the perfect project

Once I had my sheet metal inked and dried I began wiring up the actual lantern. I started with a glass globe...the kind you can find at your local hardware store. I actually have a few on hand after replacing various light fixtures over the years. I knew these little gems could have a much more posh life than just hanging out with a dated fixture on the back porch. I used a nice chunky silver chain and wired it snug to the globe.

Next, I created the hanger that my lantern would suspend from using the same chunky chain.

I then created my charms that would dangle and catch the light from the candle inside.

This was for sure the most fun part of this project...wiring all kinds of goodies together creating color and movement. In the next few pictures below

you can see all the fun. You can find all the charmy goodness here.

Then, it was time to attach the charms. One by one I just kept adding.

This is where I added the hand dyed seam binding as well.

To create the hand dyed ribbon I spritzed the ribbon first with water and then with Dylusions Ink in Polished Jade. I love this combination. The seam binding takes the ink so nicely and the color options are endless.