Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Rock Salt

I had a few pintrest craft ideas rolling around in my head, one of them involved covering simple glass vases with epsom salt. I forgot how good the epsom salt looked, so I bought rock salt instead. I think a box was under $2. I was going to use it in a $1 Tree vase. Last year, I had a T-shaped stand to hold a couple of prized ornaments. It was also from the $1 Tree, and it looked cheap. So I wanted something a bit better this year. Luckily, we'd just cut down a huge bush, so I snagged some twigs. I cut them down, cleaned them up and arranged them in the vase. Then I glued pieces of rock salt onto them. It looks like ice.
And there you have it. Though before putting it onto my mantel, I rearranged a bit and decided that the bow just wasn't cutting it. So I took that off too. I'm pretty pleased with the result. It'll be staying up through out winter.
Next I poured some into empty glass ornaments.
And the biggest most annoying rock salt project I have for you today: a Christmas present. The decorative presents were also from pintrest. But their third one involved flower petals. I didn't want another red one, and the flowers would have cost more than I wanted to invest in this project. So I copied the first two presents with peppermints and garland. But for the third one, I wanted to cover it in rock salt. Talk about TEDIOUS! I started by spraying the box with spray adhesive and wrapping it really tightly with white wrapping paper. I hot glued the ends closed. You need a tight wrap, nothing hanging or loose.
Then, one square inch at a time, I hot glued, smashed the rocks into the glue, then flipped the box over and wiped off the extra. Those things bounced all over the room and made a huge mess. And the box will forever continue to shed. To help alleviate some of that, I sprayed each side, as it was finished, with a coat of spray polyacrylic.
Though, I have to admit, I decided not to cover one of the sides because it would always face a wall anyway. I debated it, thinking it would bug me. But it was such an awful project that I don't regret it one bit.
While I find the result quite beautiful, I don't recommend doing this project. But if you are a glutton for punishment like me, here are some suggestions: test drive a slower drying glue, like maybe elmer's, paint it on an entire side and mash piles of EPSON salt into it. I do love the look of the rock salt, but it is just too dang big and irregular. I had to glue many pieces on individually, and still they are likely to come off at any moment. Then spray with the polyacrylic. If anyone tries it, I'd love to hear how it goes since I may have to re-do this one next year because all of my rock salt has fallen off in storage.
I do love how they all look together. I just don't love that sheer gold ribbon. I'll be changing that to a more vibrant gold. I still have about 1/4 of the box of rock salt left. So, all of these projects, including the peppermint and garland boxes was about $15. And most of that cost went to peppermints. It took 4 1 pound bags, so that was about $8 right there. Oh, and if you don't have the vase, there's another $1, and about 50 hot glue sticks.