Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Twine Wrapped Lanterns

Hello Debdoozlers! Hope 2014 has been treating you well so far, if not, don't give up, the light always shines through! Unfortunately for these lanterns though, there won't be any more light shining through them :-P Don't worry, it's ok, because now they are brighter than ever :o) Today's project is twine wrapped lanterns! Yay! I love lanterns and I love twine and these two were a match made in heaven.

My last twine project was really fun and pretty unique considering twine has been kind of played out in my opinion. As a matter of fact, because bloggers have wrapped almost everything just short of their kids, in twine, I was discouraged to try another project with the natural fiber. After some thinking and wanting to salvage some lanterns I had that were falling apart, I went for the gold. I hadn't seen lanterns wrapped in twine before, and it was a perfect way to salvage mine.

Off I went. The supplies were simple-- hot glue, two small lanterns, thin hemp/twine rope. I got the twine from Walmart on my last trip to the states, but I've seen it out here in Dubai at Daiso, Carrefour, and Creative Minds (located in Barsha).

The lanterns were originally a weird dark brownish color. They looked like they were made of scrap metal, but were still cute. Many moons ago I decided to spray them gold and they turned out so beautiful.


They were super cute after I painted them, and I was really sad to cover up all that cute detail, but over time they fell apart. Plus, lanterns are a-dime-a-dozen out here so I can always get another set eventually.

Initially, I tried crazy glue, but they fell apart even more. It was like the glue corroded the metal. The only fix would be to solder them, but I didn't have a torch and it really wasn't worth buying one.  
Edges were too sharp to keep these around my kids. 

I didn't want to toss them, so I decided to wrap them before they reached the point of no repair. I started by hot-gluing the rope from the bottom of the lantern and working my way out from the crack and around the entire lantern. I wrapped tightly, but only glueing to the metal not the glass. If I glued to the glass I would have had an awkward shape because the glass was more inset than the metal frame. 
You can see in the pic below the gap between the twine and the glass, but there was no problem because it was securely glued to the metal frame. I also glued the twine to each other. You can see how I did that below as well. 


The top was removable so I wrapped it separately. I was able to achieve a cleaner look that way. Trying to wrap the two pieces together would have looked too bulky.



I tried to glue some arches on the surface of one, but they kind of looked like key holes lol. It still looks cute, but I couldn't decide If I liked the plain look or the one with arches. I kept one of each.



Even though I can't light these up now that they are covered, I love the fresh look with the twine. It's like beach meets Mid East. Have you ever seen hemp/twine covered lanterns? I can't remember that I did and despite really loving them after I sprayed them gold I am really enjoying these. What do you think? Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment below! 

-Debora


















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