glitter crafts

January 1, 2009 7:43 PM

I am looking for recommendations of art/craft projects that involve glitter.

I just went crazy and bought a bunch of that really beautiful, colorful, tiny Martha Stewart glitter from Michael's. I want to make beautiful things with it, but I need some new original ideas.

I have a lot of stamps and have been using them with glue and the glitter, but I am bored with that, and I think everything I make is pretty unoriginal because really, someone else designed the stamps.

Anyway, I am pretty crafty (I was a bookbinder in a past life and I sew and do origami fairly well), and I have a lot of patience, so don't be afraid to give me "difficult" ideas. I just want to make some bad-ass shiny things, but I don't know what those things are!

posted by foxinthesnow to Home & Garden (17 answers total)

This is an easy idea. I made a tooth fairy box for my son with glitter on the inside. I painted just the sides of the interior of a craft box with glue and then put the glitter in and shook it around. I like that it adds some pizazz, but since it's contained in the box I don't have to worry about the glitter flaking off.
posted by saffry at 8:01 PM on January 1, 2009

Make bottle cap magnets.
posted by lannanh at 8:05 PM on January 1, 2009

My brother and his wide made these insanely beautiful glitter birds for Christmas. They bought those small fake birds with real feathers at Michael's, coated sections of the birds in glue one section at a time, and covered them with different color Martha Stewart glitters. They're gorgeous.
posted by Miko at 8:09 PM on January 1, 2009

I have the Martha Stewart set!! Best ever!! I looove glitter. Posting from my phone, so I can't link you to my photostream, but there are some examples there of the glitter painting I like to do. I take a three dimensional object, like a frame or a sconce, and paint it a couple different colors according to its form, and glitter over each color, one at a time, and finish over the whole thing with lacquer.

I also like using acrylic paint and spray adhesive on silk flowers and then covering them with glitter, for barrettes.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 8:15 PM on January 1, 2009

what about making your own snowglobes? you could expand on that and end up with snowglobe ornaments for next christmas, earrings, magnets, and by using personal objects like a plastic dog that resembles a childhood pet, you could make some great gifts.

man, now i wish i had glitter...
posted by big open mouth at 8:27 PM on January 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I saw Martha make spiderweb designs on hurricane candle holders during Hallowe'en using glue and glitter -- it was super-cool (and should be on her website). If spiders aren't your thing though, I'm sure you could use other design motifs.
posted by pised at 8:36 PM on January 1, 2009

here's a how-to for glitter birds.
posted by Miko at 8:52 PM on January 1, 2009

Easter Egg Tree you could make some beautiful glittered eggs.
posted by JujuB at 8:53 PM on January 1, 2009

A week or so before Christmas, Martha's show had a segment about making ornaments with animal-shaped plywood cutouts coated with glitter. It's a bit late for ornaments now, but there are plenty more ideas in her website's glitter crafts section. The hurricane lanterns would be pretty shiny, and you could make your own non-seasonal templates.
posted by casarkos at 9:52 PM on January 1, 2009

You can make glittered ornaments of polymer clay [self-link]. It was painted with matte seal and rolled in the glitter which was then tamped gently into the seal-coat to affix. Hang until dry and you're done.

This is nowhere near as interesting as what Ambrosia Voyeur describes, but you can see how the super fancy glitter holds its own even after a coat of bronze acrylic paint and gloss seal.

Frames for younger or glitter-minded people where particular accents in a wooden frame or a larger portion of those papercraft frame blanks are outlined, filled, or otherwise glorified by glitter (instructions for simplest kind). If you combined your origami and binding skills with something involving a frame, I can only imagine an outcome of pure awesome.

...I have to admit the question is mind-blowing in its inclusiveness, something glitter doesn't enjoy often, these days.
posted by batmonkey at 10:23 PM on January 1, 2009

Isn't glitter something that you can add to pretty much everything?
posted by Jacqueline at 11:45 PM on January 1, 2009

As a technician, I'm on my knees and begging you here: whatever you make with the stuff, please keep it away from your computers.

PC innards + conductive dust = bad bad things.
posted by flabdablet at 11:50 PM on January 1, 2009

Carve grooves in wood (eg a swirly design made out of grooves, on a wood jewellery box), then set glue into the grooves and add glitter. Then use a pour-on decoupage finish or a polyurethane coat or some other means of getting that thick glossy lacquered look, and the resulting surface will be smooth, but with your own design, made of glittery goodness embedded inside it.

If putting groove in fancy shapes into wood seems like too much work (it's pretty easy with a dremel though), then you could just use a knife to cut shapes out of cardboard, then glue that layer of cardboard to the box (or whatever), thus the cut-out becomes a groove, then do the same process.

Lastly... Do you have a laptop?
Cut a glitter design into the lid (but by adding a layer as with the cardboard method), perhaps your name, then proceed as before, and make flabdablet very nervous. :-)
(Seal the laptop in a bad with masking tape so that only the work-surface is exposed. Like how surgeons operate)
posted by -harlequin- at 4:38 AM on January 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

bad=bag
posted by -harlequin- at 4:38 AM on January 2, 2009

I ain't fixin' that.
posted by flabdablet at 4:59 AM on January 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

resin jewelry!
posted by dithmer at 3:07 PM on January 2, 2009

http://www.craftychica.com/index2.php.

She is the glitter QUEEN.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:21 PM on January 2, 2009 [1 favorite]