Icy Sun-Catcher: Recycling CD's

Brrr. This week has been frigidly frozen, frighteningly frosty, and altogether glacial in the most foreboding fashion. It was a perfect week to spend some serious quality time indoors (again, don’t judge me!).  So, in response to my quality time watching ice accumulate on my car, I thought on the beauty of sun-catchers.

Stained glass, the rich and/or religious man’s sun-catcher, is old enough to have lost its origin in time. Theophilus, a monk from around 1100 A.D. described the process of stained glass construction in written form. However, the technique for glass inlays has been proven to have been present at least since Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III. His three foreign wives were buried with numerous glass-encrusted items. It wasn't until their later relations, the Romans, managed to discover silica that the world saw the first clear glass sheets.

Moving forward in time, the Gothic age through to the Renaissance changed stained glass, craftsmen learning to paint on the glass instead of rely solely on the metal pieces to link details together. Towards the end of this period stained glass became fashionable in residences as well as Cathedrals. When the 18^th century arrived, the art form was considered passé and removed from many churches and homes. It wasn’t until the 19^th century when interest in the art medium returned when historians discovered caches of windows and books on the techniques in England.

John LaFarge and Louis Comfort Tiffany were two American artists who took to the medium, patenting various techniques for achieving detail work without painting the glass. Since this opulent era, tastes have changed. After the two World Wars the medium of stained glass again swung towards ambience and mood-setting instead of the highly detailed images of the last of the Gothic Era and the 19^th century.

Now, stained glass is rarely seen expect in churches, museums, and the occasional craft show. However, many children idle away summer hours at camp painting pre-fabricated plastic pieces various colors to bring home to dubiously delighted parents. These “Sun-Catchers” are popular amongst children, caretakers, and Sunday-School teachers alike. This week’s activity is inspired by the joys of childhood painting coupled with modern movements of abstractionism and recycling.

My melted-plastic sun-catcher is actually made of several shredded Compact Discs. We all get them, the useless “free trials” and various other gimmicky advertisements that arrive in the mail in alluring CD format. What does one do with the silly things? If we throw them out, they land in a landfill for the next several thousand years to be discovered by some future archeologist. (“Hmm, I think this must have been for some bizarre religious rite…”) Only one out of every five is recyclable, and they are really not something you want cluttering your coffee table. By shredding 10 of these gorgeous-reflective-rainbow-flattened-doughnuts, you can make a sheet of sun (and eye!) catching material. 

Materials:

Oven

Baking Sheet

Aluminum Foil

10 Shredded CD’s

Directions:

1.)                   Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Take out your baking sheet and cover it in tinfoil. Now take out your plastic shreds and start separating the clear part from the shiny reflective undercoat. The two coats double the amount of plastic you have to use on your craft. Gently bending the strip back and forth will loosen the two.

2.)                   Lay your plastic pieces (all separated) onto your baking tray in any order you want them to melt into. I deliberately mixed/jumbled mine together for the project I will be doing with my sun-catcher sheet (SPOILER). However, the theory is that if you took the time to lay out the plastic in a deliberate pattern, it would melt together in that way so long as there are overlapping pieces to hold it together.

3.)                   Place the tray into the oven and allow the plastic pieces to melt for roughly 13 minutes. OPEN A WINDOW. I know, it’s cold, but better an ever so slightly higher heating bill than a potentially fume-filled house. My plastic never heated high enough to smell, but if you overheated it, the scent would likely be unpleasant. You may want to check on the plastic a few minutes before the time limit. Less time will be needed for thinner plastic layers, and more time for thicker plastic layers.

4.)                   Remove the tray from the oven and allow to cool. Oooh and Aaah over your accomplishment. When the plastic is finished cooling (give it at least 15 minutes, you impatient people!) you can remove it from the foil by peeling the foil off the back.

5.)                   And Voila! One gorgeous ice-inspired Sun Catcher.

Click in next week for a project you can complete using a few sheets of your newly recycled plastic. Also, next week begins the two-week countdown to Valentine’s Day, so I have a few thematic surprises planned. Until then, stay crafty!

(Spoilers):

January, Janus, and Long Winter's Nap Pillow

January, the month of beginnings. The time when resolutions are made, television seasons renew, the year resets, and (yikes!) spring semester begins. Here in the Midwest, it also means the weather outside is still frightful, too cold for any but the hardiest of winter-sports fanatics—and the coupon-clipping after-Christmas sale-finders—to venture outside for long.  For all of my fellow indoor-dwellers January is often linked with the forbidden “S-word” (snow), coupled with the other “S-word” (sleet).

For all the reputations January is bestowed with, very few people know the origins of the month. Just as many of the Gregorian calendar months are named after Roman gods, January gets its namesake from the two-faced god Janus (Lendering). Janus wasn’t two-faced in the insulting sense; he didn’t spend his time betraying people or acting like the Roman version of a “Mean Girl.” Instead Janus had one youthful face that faced forwards, gazing into the future, and one mature face that looked backwards, reflecting on the past. In many ways, Janus is the embodiment of the ideals of January. As a new year begins, many people are as anticipatory and thoughtful as the month’s patron.

In the spirit of new beginnings I submit, for your decorating pleasure, a pillow. I find in that hazy-mixed-up-realm between the conscious and the unconscious is where my best ideas are born. That surreal land is where true creativity dwells. In the words of Robert Goddard (the Rocket Pioneer) “It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.” As any dreamer would tell you, a crucial component of discovering this realm is a comfortable pillow.

Now, some of the principles of pillows never change. They are usually soft, fluffy, and encased in a pillowcase. For my purposes a pillowcase is just the ticket. For the shopping-hearted, I know you will be able to find a cheap pillowcase that matches your décor. For the sewing-savvy, I could not come up with better directions than some of my amazingly gifted fellow bloggers. May I recommend: MormonChic’s “Holiday Pillowcases,” ConKerr Cancer’s “A Case for Smiles: Pillow Case Construction,” or Tipnut’s extensive catalog of 12 more challenging (but adorable) pillowcase patterns.

Now, the choice of floral embellishments is yours, but mine continued on the theme of slumber. I chose to employ a stylized version of the Agrimony flower. To the Ancient Greeks, the Agrimony flower was an emblem of deep sleep. Since my pillowcase was intended to sleep upon, and in honor of the Greco-Roman gods, I thought this flower was a perfect choice. The traditional Agrimony flower is yellow, but I took a bit of a creative license in recoloring it blue and gold. I have many favorite colors in this world, yellow not included. Plus, the blue and gold matched my fabric.

Other flowers traditionally used as symbols can be found online here. 

Onto the Main Event: Long Winter’s Nap Pillow

Materials:

1 Fully Constructed Pillowcase

Freezer Paper (plastic or wax coated on one side only)

Pencil

Flower Stencil

Exacto Blade

Ruler

Cutting Board

Iron

Iron-safe surface

Clean Dish-Towel

Paints (number of colors is your choice, and yes, you can use acrylic instead of fabric paints)

Paintbrush

Plastic Bag(s)

Pillow

Directions:

Step 1: Assemble materials. Draw a flower stencil of your botanical choice. I strongly recommend you simplify it as much as you can while remaining true to the flower. Think shapes, not lines. Lines you can add in later by hand; shapes are the point of this stencil. Plus, the easier you make the shape, the easier it will be for you to cut it out.

Step 2: Measure the area you want to print on of your pillowcase and cut a sheet of freezer paper to match for every layer of the flower. Next, make yourself some grids for your design to fit into. I did 2” and 4” rows. Sketch, evenly spaced or asymmetric, one of your flower templates onto a freezer paper sheet. On the other sheets, sketch other templates. Cut out.

 

Step 3: Heat iron on wool setting and, shiny side down, press the template onto the pillowcase. Make sure to get a good seal on the fabric to prevent the paint from leaking.

Step 4: Lay plastic bags inside the pillowcase. Paint. You may need to coat the fabric multiple times to get the color coverage you want. One coat will give you an aged and faded flower pattern; three coats will guarantee vibrancy. If you do not wait for the paint to dry completely to peel off the stencil, it will leak and it will ruin your project. Now that you have waited, peel off the stencil.

Step 5: Remove the plastic bags. Repeat with other flower layers but with one refinement. Instead of ironing the stencil onto the fabric directly with the iron, lay a clean dishtowel on top to protect your coat of paint. Make sure you replace the plastic bags before painting!

Step 6: Enjoy your pillow! I recommend sleeping on the reverse side of the pillow to guarantee comfort. Now you are ready to take a long winter’s nap ;).