Dazzling Decor- Hybrid Luminaries

Holy Cow!  It’s October!  Tgmousechick here, kicking off October with a hybrid project.  This month’s decor project is making paper luminaries for your home.  Don’t panic- these are EASY!

First things first, head off to the store and pick up your freebie overlay for this project:

Your download contains a single png file that will provide you with trim lines and faint fold lines- it has been designed for standard letter/A4-sized paper, so no specialty printer is necessary.

Moving on to building your project:

1) To start, just open a letter-sized project in landscape orientation.  Add the guide “overlay” in as a layer and design your canvas.  This was my “canvas” using Midnight Crow by Chelle’s Creations.  I am keeping all of my design work out of the lower flaps and the little side lip to hold the thing together.

When laying out your project, remember KISS- Keep It Simple, Scrapper!  The warm glow of a luminary is typically enjoyed from a distance, so images with a lot of fine detail may get lost when viewed from afar.  Your best results are going to be from easy-to-discern shapes.  For example, for the project above, I used the tree image, the pumpkins, and the moon- all images that will be easy to identify from a distance.

2) Once you have completed laying out your project, it’s time to print it.  This is another one of those great low-risk starter projects for hybrid, because you don’t need to invest in a lot of expensive supplies.  If you stick to printing simple black shapes, you don’t need a high-end photo printer, or a ton of experience with fine-tuning settings for an optimal print-out.  For these luminaries, I used vellum that I had in my stash, and plain ole’ standard copy paper.  Truth be told, the copy paper actually gave me better results, since my Epson R1800 wide format printer does not have a setting for printing transparencies, which is how I’ve printed on vellum in the past.  With no transparency setting, the printer uses a bit more ink than is really needed for the non-porous surface, and it results in some spider-y ink bleed.  Since I made samples for Halloween, the ink bleed works, but I think I would be disappointed if I wanted crisp and clean printing for another event, like wedding luminaries.  Long story even longer, the copy paper and a fairly low “Text” print quality provided lovely results.

3) Once you have printed, it’s time to trim.  The darker lines of the overlay are your cutting lines.  You’ll be cutting a small lip to create the block shape, and tabs that are folded up to form a base.  At the top, I left you a bit more height than you need.  You can make a tall luminary, by all means, but you can trim off a couple of inches of the top (my luminaries are about 5″ tall).  You can do a straight cut with a trimmer, use paper edgers, or you can simply tear an upper edge like I did in the sample below:

Score and fold along the provided guidelines, and use the tab to join the paper to form a square tube.  After you form the tube, you can fold up the flaps to form the base- a little adhesive on all but one flap with secure things a bit.

These are my finished luminaries, featuring a variety of digital kits from our ScrapMatters designers!  From left to right: All Hallow’s Eve by Trixie Scraps, Midnight Crow by Chelle’s Creations, A Halloween Nightmare by Britt-ish Designs, and Jeepers Creepers by Designs by Jeni Hopewell.  Sometimes, a little color can be added so that your scene can also be enjoyed by the light of day.

Did you know there are now LED votives available?  I picked up a few packages of them at Target this past weekend and I am so excited to have them.  Previously, although I love the soft flicker of a burning candle, I avoided them because I have a 2 year old and a cat in the house.  I can now enjoy candles again!!!!  What a wonderful safe alternative!!  I’ll still use votive candles in my little metal jack-o-lanterns outside, just becasue I’ll be too lazy to go outside at the end of the evening to flip the switches on these candles.

Here’s how those luminaries look when the lights are out!

Here’s another lovely example by Cristina.  Don’t you love the pink paper??  She used the Flora Brushes by Andilynn Designs:

I’m so excited with how these turned out!  Are you wondering how I got these great photos?  I was rather surprised myself!  There are three keys to keep in mind:

1) Use a fast film speed.  I set my camera’s ISO sensitivity to 1600, but I have seen recommendations to shoot at at least 400.  The higher the number, the more light sensitivity you will have.

2) Turn off your flash!!!  The flash completely kills the mood.  You want your light source to be the candle in the luminary (or your jack-o-lantern, for that matter), not your flash.

3) Use a tripod.  I was too lazy to drag out my tripod from the closet, so I steadied my camera on one of our kitchen chairs.  Regardless, even with a sensitive film setting, you’re still challenged by low light conditions, so when you take the actual photograph, the shutter will remain open longer to allow the light in.  Even slightly shaky hands will result in blurry photos.  Using a tripod allows you a steady base, and the shutter can remain open as long as necessary.

Please give this simple project a try!  It even counts for the Matter of Scrap point system!  To earn Matter of Scrap points, you need to post your completed project into the gallery and the respective forum thread (link is coming).  You have all month to do so- entries are due by October 31st.  Use a new release from the week that you post and earn a bonus point (and believe me, there are TONS of fabulous Halloween kits that you won’t want to miss).  Post as many projects as you like, but you only get points for the first one.  And finally, you can’t use this project to earn other Matter of Scrap points later in the month (the “No Double Dipping” rule).  I’m anxious to see what you come up with!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 6:47 am and is filed under Freebies, Hybrid Scrapping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.