Painting a tea light

For my mum's birthday I wanted to make something for her- rather than buy something- as a homemade present is so much more meaningful. I decided that I would make her a little tea light as I already had spare glass jars. Here is my step by step guide on how to make your own!

What you will need:

- A masking tape roll

- Craft knife / scissors

- Acrylic paint

- Paint brush (not necessary)

- Sponge

- Acetone nail varnish remover (not necessary)

I decided I wanted a pattern which looked like the gradient of a sunsetting sky with bird shapes cut out from the paint so they would light up with the candle light.

I started out by drawing the outline of birds on masking tape. Make the wings touch the edge of the tape so they are easy to peel off later. I tried to make them look slightly different from one another for variety. They don't need to look perfect as all you need is the outline.

Next I got my craft knife and started to cut around the outline of the birds while they were still on the roll. Warning: this will destroy your masking tape so be prepared to sacrifice a few layers! It is also quite hard to not cut yourself with the knife. I held the blade so that it was facing away from my hand.You could use scissors if you do not have a knife but it would be a lot harder to be accurate.

How I hold the craft knife

One of the birds cut out

Do this for all of the birds. The line does not have to be exact as you can tidy it up a little with scissors once you have peeled it off the roll (although I would try to avoid this). Once you have cut all the birds out, start to peel them off. Do this by getting your nail under the wing on the edge and slowly lifting it up. It doesn't matter if several layers of masking tape have been cut into shape and peel off with the top layer as you can just use it like that.

Peel them all off and stick them all over the glass in the positions you want them.

Next, it is time to mix your colours, I wanted to do a sunset design so I used blue, white and red to create a purple colour (although it went a bit grey because my paint is cheap has colour bias). I also mixed a light blue (white and blue), light peachy red (red and white) and a pink (red and a lot of white). I then practiced how I wanted the gradient to look on a spare piece of paper.

My work space! Not sure why the purple looks so grey on here, it is a lot more purple in real life.

I then painted on the colours in stripes onto the jar with a paintbrush. I knew from painting my other jar that I would not be able to achieve the gradient I want with my rubbish brushes alone so that is why I left it as stripes of paint.You may want to paint the jar white first as a background if you do not want light to be seen through the paint but I chose not to as I think it looks nice seeing light through the paint.

As you can see, I painted straight over the birds so that the paint will be as tight as possible to their outline. Before this dried I got a sponge and dabbed over the whole thing being careful not to mix paints too much which would ruin the gradient.

The jar post sponge. You can see the sponge I used in the background. I decided I wanted less blue than I originally thought which is why there is not as much blue as before. Wait for this to dry for maybe 20- 30 minutes and then it is time to peel the birds off!

After you peel the birds off, there may be parts where the paint has seeped into the bird. Now you need to either use a fingernail or a knife to scrape it off. I would also recommend using acetone nail polish remover and a cotton bud to wipe over the bird to make sure there are no smudges in it; but be careful as acetone removes acrylic paint.

That is your jar! You may want to tidy up the top with acetone too but I have not bothered as I like the look! The paint looks different depending on whether there is light shining through it or on it and that is what I like so much about sponge painting it.

A quick picture with a fake tea light. I reckon it will look a lot better with the real thing. It does look really cool when I put a torch in it and the shadows of the birds go all over the desk. What I like about this design is that it could be adapted for many other patterns- there could be flowers or clouds or even a halloween twist with bats!