Bling Bouquet

By: Cindy Shepard (Rowdy Grandma), Guest Contributor

Time to have some fun, go through all of your old earrings with the grandkids and select some fun colors and funky shapes. You may want to use the earring colors to decide on the colors for you mini-vase, or let the kids imaginations run wild and just paint their favorite colors. I have a Rowdy Grandma rule, when crafting with the kids, don’t aim for perfection - it’s more important to let their imaginations soar and give them the freedom of choice.

Materials:

Small glass or plastic jar
Costume earrings
White primer paint or gesso
Various colors of acrylic paint
Small sea sponge
Small paint brush
Wooden skewers
E6000 glue
Clear acrylic spray paint
Wire cutters
Raw rice or sand
Gift stuffing material

Steps:

Select three to five single earrings and remove the clip or post with wire cutters. Wire cutters may not be necessary, many clips and posts will simply twist or bend off.
The wooden skewers are your stems, just as you would assemble regular flowers in a vase, test the lengths of the skewers by placing them in your mini-vase.
Cut the skewers to desired length and paint them with the acrylic paint colors you have chosen.
Once the stems have dried place a big glob of E6000 glue on the back of the earring and attach the skewer. These will need to set for a few hours, be sure to prop up the skewer while drying so the stem will be straight.

Instructions for mini-vase:

Clean off all labels on jar, apply one or two coats of white primer or gesso with a paintbrush.
When primer is dry use a sea sponge to apply the first acrylic paint color, (the first coat we applied was turquoise).
When dry lightly sponge on a second color, (we used bright pink). After the second color dried we added a touch of gold with our sponge.
Once mini-vase is completely dry spray with an acrylic sealer, (without a sealer the paint will begin to peel off).
Once everything has dried put some sand or raw rice in the mini-vase to weigh it down and prevent the bouquet from being wobbly. Add the gift stuffing material to the top for extra bling.

Optional: Add a ribbon around the top of the vase or glue a picture to the vase.