Matt and I made some suncatchers!
I was inspired from a craft on pinterest that used cake pans and melted beads. But I had an idea to make mine a little differently…
Before I started on this craft, I talked with Matt because I was freaked out about melting plastic in our oven. He had the brilliant idea to get a used toaster over and melt the beads in the garage. I found one at Goodwill for $8.99! Sweet. Now we have a craft oven for all of our crafty needs. Matt says he’ll even use it too with his electronics…
Supplies:
- Cheap plastic beads – I found that pony beads worked best. I tried some others, but they didn’t melt as well as the pony beads.
- Muffin pan (I also used a mini muffin pan!) – I bought these at Goodwill because I didn’t want to hurt my good ones.
- Fishing line (or other string)
- Drill (and I also needed my handy husband to operate the drill because it’s unsafe for me to use power tools…)
Instructions:
- Arrange your beads in your pan. All it takes is a single layer, but don’t skimp – I had a few that I didn’t fill quite enough. They turned out ok, but they aren’t quite as round as the others.
- Melt them for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees F. Make sure they are good and melted before you take them out.
I took one tray out a little early and those discs are a little lumpy. They will probably smell funny while they bake. We melted them in the garage in the craft oven for a few reasons… - Let them cool. They cooled pretty fast for me.
- Pop them out of the muffin tins. It also works to just turn the tin upside down – they all fall out.
- Drill two small holes in each disc for the string.
- String them together! I laid them out on the floor before we strung them so I could decide how I wanted them organized. Matt tied them together for me. He’s better with knots than I am! I tied a few, but then let Matt take over again.
- Hang them up! We hung ours on the fence by my roses… maybe not the best place to catch the sun, but they do ok and they are really pretty! Matt made the little bracket things to hang them, and then I painted them black.
Note: The white spots are from glow in the dark beads – I thought they might be cool at night… turns out they don’t glow that well or for very long. But it was worth a try!