How to Make Holiday Luminaries

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:53:00 +0000

Who would think that a paper bag with a candle inside would glow so beautifully, welcoming guests to your home during the holidays? For a recent eHow article, I showed how to make luminaries using image templates. The puzzle I was trying to solve was, once I cut out the outline of a shape, all the interior details would disappear. So how could I retain all the intricacies of the template? (There are a lot of rhetorical questions in this post, aren’t there?) The key was to insert a piece of clear plastic in the bag so that I could glue the interior pieces onto the plastic, like they’re floating. Of course, the over-achiever that I was (well, I was raised by a tiger mom), I traced the design with some glitter glue and added a feather boa to the rims of the bags. I’m also using LED candles here to avoid fire hazards. I think these would make really great gift bags too. For the complete step-by-step how-to article, click here.

How to make holiday luminaries

Lighting Your Christmas Tree in Style

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 10:03:49 +0000

Back in October, I was putting up my Christmas tree and lights two months early because I was doing a tutorial for eHow sponsored by Home Depot. We were in the middle of a heat wave, but getting out the tree and all the shiny ornaments put me in the holiday spirit. For this eHow Spark board, I showed how to add lights to a tree, and how to place the ornaments for maximum sparkle. For the first time, I used LED lights. The lights are bluer than incandescent lights so they’re not as warm, but they use up far less energy, and you can string a lot more sets together. See all the step-by-step photos here.

My Christmas tree

Stringing the lights vertically

Christmas lights – Jonathan Fong Style

How to Make Holiday Luminaries

Lighting Your Christmas Tree in Style