DIY Egg Carton Lights

What cha need:

-strand of Christmas lights

-enough cardboard cartons for every light or every other light on your strand

-sharp scissors

-glitter

-glue

-paint or anything else you want to decorate with

-small pocket knife

Step one:

cut apart carton and individual cups. The cups naturally separate into four petals.. Don't do what I did and try to make them 5 or 6 petal flowers because it looks bad and it's unnecessarily hard. Get the four petal flower down and you'll be happy :)

EXTRA SHINE: I did another egg carton yesterday and I sprayed the inside and outside of the carton with silver spray paint just for more shine and sparkle. It looks more like metal than cardboard now and gives it a more girly vibe! Just an idea if you want some more color!

Step two:

Make a slice on the bottom of the cup for the light to come through; make sure the slit is no more than a cm across or it won't stay fastened to the light strand. 

Step three:

Paint glue inside flowers and add glitter. You can spray paint them as well, I just don't have access to spray paint right now so I was trying the glitter out! Decorating the outside of the cup is also a pretty idea! I want them to be low key looking bc red isn't a color in my room so I left the outside the cardboard color.

Step four:

Be patient and let everything dry! Then just pop the cups over the lights and ta daa! You have your snazzy little room decor for less than $10!

DIY Crackle Paint

How to make your own crackle paint at home! 

You need:

-a base color paint 

-a color to crackle with

-WOOD glue

-two sponges or brushes

 (it needs to be wood glue because it bonds to paint better than school glue but won't ruin your brush or hands like gorilla glue)

 I used Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint because I don't quite understand it yet so I was just playing around, but any regular paint you would use for walls or wood will work fine! 

First step: Prepare the surface for the first layer of paint: sand, clean, wipe off..whatever you need to do! Then paint the base color onto the surface and let dry. I do not have a picture of the all blue drawer..sorry!

Second step: Once base coat is dry (be patient if it's not, it will dry eventually, promise) paint a thick layer of WOOD glue onto the surface and spread around where you want the crackle to appear. Make sure you apply the glue quickly because the layer of paint needs to be added onto the glue while it's wet. After you've applied the glue, dab on plenty of paint with your second brush and smooth around; it will mix with the glue and turn into a thick sticky layer. If this happens, you did it correctly! 

 

Notice how shiny and thick it appears, it will do that because the paint and the glue have mixed somewhat. Also notice the small lines forming in the top layer instantly even though the white paint was sponged on evenly. This is the crackle starting!

 

After many painful hours of checking on my drawer, it finally dried! All pretty and crackled too! I kept it outside in the shed with a fan on it and it took about 6 hrs to completely dry. 

 

Step Three: I sanded it down quickly and not with too much pressure so the crackle look was preserved, just to smooth it out a bit. The Chalk Paint comes off in a thick powder as seen above because of the minerals that are in it...I'm still confused about this stuff.. 

 

Step four: Wipe it off with a damp cloth and you're ready to go!

Ta daa! (it looks a bit odd with my already distressed nightstand, so a new painted look for that is in the near future :) 

Thanks for reading!! Feel free to post and comments, questions, or advice below!