Sharpie pens, lights and a quick craft

January 13th 

A quick make for a Monday morning, tea light covers

Mondays are usually my stay at home day with a little work in the late afternoon.  Not so yesterday as I had to work most of the day.  And so you should I hear you cry, but Mondays mean #makeitsewcial days and yesterday was the first one of the year.  I really did not want to miss out and felt like a teenager deprived of her first big 'going out' session.  Never fear though, I managed to sneak in some very quick crafting time  BEFORE I set off to work!  For those of you oblivious to #makeitsewcial follow my previous post all about it HERE

With little more than half an hour what did I do on a dark dull Monday morning?  Well, my attention turned to the darkness of the morning and I realised I needed more light, that then set the old brain cells whirling and I decided to use some of the copious amounts of mismatched glasses cluttering up the cupboard and give them a Sharpie pen make over.  Have you heard of Sharpies, have you used them?  We love them in our house hold but I have had to squirrel mine away and hide them from the teenagers, I AM NOT SHARING MY SHARPIES.  I even made them their own little pouch last year! 

Last years crochet pouch, used daily

All I needed for this project was:  

Brightening up a dull morning,
decorated greaseproof paper tea light covers

old drinking glasses
greaseproof paper
Sharpie pens
blutack
tea lights


As I was crafting straight after breakfast and before work, I had little time to indulge in procrastination as to designs for my tea lights.  In the kitchen on the window sill at the moment I have a little piece of early spring in the guise of potted narcissi which are already flowering and cheering up my days.  Looking at the flowers I began to draw and colour in on the greaseproof paper.  I deliberately did not block colour and so allowed some of the greaseproof paper to show through my colouring, I thought and hoped this would be effective with the tea light shining through.

Let's not look in detail at the drawing as we all know
from previous posts I cannot draw or paint, but I still have a play

Those of  you silly enough to indulge me and who read the blog will know I love boats, so a tea light set would not have been complete without a boat too.  Sorry to any sailors out there, this is sooooo not an accurate drawing, but hey, I had very little time, who am I kidding, it would not have been any better had I had hours!

Basic basic drawing, but effective with
a light source from behind nonetheless

Then to complete the quartet, I very quickly doodled some hearts on one and hash tagged the other with #makeitsewcial and added in some crafting silhouettes of a paint brush, sewing machine and scissors.  Google images is great for line drawing and silhouette inspiration, goggle something like 'sewing machine silhouettes'  on images and you will see what I mean.

Note the paintbrush is raised past the rim
of the glass to add more interest

So in a rush to get out of the door and not be late, I blue tacked the drawn on greaseproof paper to the glasses, lit the tea lights for a quick photo, published one of them on IG (Instagram, should you wish to follow me, I can be found there as selmaeclectichomelife) so I could be a part of the fist Monday #makeitsewcial, blew out the candles and hopped into my car, making it just in time for work. 

Thank goodness there were no traffic hold ups on the way...

All four tea light covers completed in just over 30 minutes

Notice I left some of the flower
raised over the edge of the glass

I think this would be a great craft to do with children too, I can just picture children's colourful quirky pictures, they could use crayons if you are too precious with your Sharpie pens as I am!

♥  I hope Monday was good to you and you have a 'crafty' week  ♥