Help Request - How to Make this Luminary
 

I absolutely love this set of three luminaries from the gallery:

Stamped, pierced and cut luminaries (lit with battery operated tea lights) by cbuswell - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers

I'd like to try something similar and have sent a question to the poster but in the meantime, can anyone suggest a way to make the cube so it doesn't have seams, or at least not two sets of seams? I tried this with scrap paper and while it is thinner than cardstock will be, I can see my seams when the luminary is lit.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions :-) I'm sure my end result won't do the original justice!

Hi Leslie,

I think your cube will have a couple of glue tabs/seams unless you make it 2 3/4" squares. Then you can use a 12" strip of cardstock, score at 2 3/4", 5 1/2", 8 1/4" and 11". The last inch will be the glue tab on the side.

Make the strip 3 1/4" x 11. Score the top at 1/2". That will give you the opening Claire seems to have on her top.

Thanks for pointing out this gorgeous project.

Hugs and smiles

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give that a try :-)

Hi thanks for your lovely comments. I used a long piece of card 14 1/2" x 4 1/2". There is just one tab (which was at the back when lit) joining the long section. Each side is 3 1/2" square. Both the top and bottom are open and just have a little lip just 1/2" deep. I'll do a little diagram of the template with the measurements this evening and attach it here and post it in the Patterns, Templates and How To's section. I hope that helps.

Thank you, Clare :-)

Here's the diagram.

Attachment 234070

Not sure if that worked. Here it is again! It's not actual size, just a diagram.

Attachment 234071

Thanks again, Clare,

Was this a standard weight cardstock? That will be the next hard part for me to find cardstock weight that is bigger than the standard 12X12. I'll come up wit something though :-)

Try an art supplies store Leslie. I just looked online at Blicks to confirm my suspicion that it's not just a UK thing and sure enough they have Canford cardstock in sheets that are 20.5" x 30.5" (it's 140lb weight). It's here if you want to see the range but my guess is it might be one of those things it's better to source locally if you can because of shipping, especially as you're in Canada. Other brands may well be available in your local art supplies place, too.

The luminaries look great, Clare!

It's slightly lighter cardstock than what I use for my cards. Not sure exactly what weight, it was just a multi pack of A3(420mmx297mm) white card I bought in the art supplies store, nothing fancy.

Thanks Joanne.

I'll see what we have local. Thanks for the tips :-)

Ah, now this is where the North Americans fail to be on speaking terms with the rest of the world - they don't use the ISO paper sizes so "A3" means very little to your average American or Canadian and certainly doesn't mean "twice the size of A4" ;). Causes problems the other way round too - I remember the first time I saw a card described as "A2" and had to rethink completely what that might mean since it was obviously not a HUGE card!

Hope you find something suitable Leslie!

And the metric screws up most of us North American's even though technically Canada is metric. Give me inches any day and cups of flour when I'm baking LOL! I checked our local art store's website with no luck (used to be Loomis & Toles but is now DeSerres). I see the Dick Blick site ships to Canada but it doesn't guarantee they will ship USPS. I'll keep looking ... there must be something out there.

OK, I just had a look there and I would think this would do the job, Leslie: Bristol Fabriano Cardboard. It's 220grm weight (lighter than I'd use for a card base but still reasonably sturdy) and the sheets are 20x28". If you have a local DeSerres you could just pop in and see how it feels and maybe ask the staff if there's anything else if it's not quite what you want.

Cups of flour for baking is just asking too much of us Europeans, though ;)

At the Dollar Tree here where I live had poster board they had pastel 11X14. Might that work?.. not sure if all the $ Trees carry the same,. HTH

Thank you :-) I missed that one.

Back to the baking, I was of an age when they were transferring to metric so I didn't know enough of either system when it came time to do conversions. I still buy my meats and other foods based on pounds not kilograms, even though they advertise both rates. Now,my kids are solely metric ... except they had to adapt to all my baking supplies and recipes being in imperial measurements. I could have adjusted solely to metric if they had made a full switch but the flipflopping confused me

I found something similar at DeSerres and have cut them out. It was not fun trying to cut this out without using my paper cutter - the paper was too large to fit in it. I don't know how I ever managed to cut things prior to owning a cutter LOL!

Wish me luck as I try this out tomorrow :-)

Glad you found something suitable, Leslie! Let us know how you get on.

I have a metre long metal ruler for just such situations as this!

Yes, I need to get a long ruler or maybe one of those really long ones with a handle for quilting that is used a a guide for cutting fabric.

Here are the links to my attempt. While they don't do justice to the originals, I plan to make improvements on my next attempt. I decided they needed a top but the result is less light comes out and they really need two of the battery operated tea lights inside, or I'm going to have to do some slicing like in the originals. Thanks for looking, but please don't look too close as this was my first time paper piercing and my outlines aren't perfect:

Unlit group of three (has a snowman on two sides and a snowflake on the opposite two sides).

Luminary CASE-Group Unlit by lharnish - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers

Close-up of the snowflake side unlit:

Luminary CASE-Snowflake side by lharnish - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers

Close-up of the snowman side unlit:

Luminary CASE-Snowman Side by lharnish - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers

Close-up of the luminary lit, showing both sides at once:

Luminary CASE-Lit 2 Sides by lharnish - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers

Closeup of the luminary lit, showing the snowflake side:

Luminary CASE-Snowflake Lit by lharnish - Cards and Paper Crafts at Splitcoaststampers

It is really driving me crazy that my snowflake isn't centered perfectly in the square ... maybe I can hide that with a bow LOL!

Those look really sweet Leslie and the slight parchment effect of the cardstock is pretty when they're lit!

You could try lining the lid with something that will reflect the light to see if that makes enough difference to use just one tealight - kitchen foil is worth a go.

Great job on the luminaries, they turned out great, I love the pierced snowman!

Thanks for the kind words, Clare. I really wanted to try some distressing inks like on your version but I haven't tried this technique yet and I was afraid :-)

I started another set in blue last evening and added snowflakes to the corners of all four sides. This dressed it up a bit more and will allow for more pinholes for the piercing. Hubby liked the originals and asked me to make some for him to give to his coworkers.

Thanks again for posting your project!