Shooting Stars and Glitter

This past Friday I was working on a big project and things were going okay for the most part. Actually, half of the project was going great and the other half...well, not so much. Friday night I posted this on our Facebook page:

"Welp...today's project turned out halfway a Pinstrosity and halfway a blast of a success. I'll give you a hint...it includes glitter, guns, stars, and glue. I've got pictures...but you'll have to wait until Tuesday to see! Why do you have to wait until then? The real test is to see if I can pull off the image in my head for the decorations at the actual dance. Stay tuned."

So Saturday was the big dance, and then Sunday and Monday we left town and spent 2 wonderful days with my family for my grandfather's funeral. While we wish the reason for getting together was different, it was so wonderful to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles (and there are a ton of us). It was fun to have some of them come up to me and ask what I was working on and wanting to know the scoop ahead of time. And...I'm slightly partial to my cousins, so I did give them the scoop. But now I get to share this with all of you. 

I work with the youth at our church and our group was assigned to be in charge of the dance for all the youth in the surrounding area. We talked to the kids and they wanted to have a nice dressy/formal dance and have the theme be "Under the Stars". So we set out to get that accomplished. I had the idea to cut out tons of stars, hang Christmas lights across the room, and then hang the stars from the lights. Luckily I have a friend with a Cricut and a Silhouette machine and we were able to pump out 250+ stars in only about 2-3 hours. 

Then came the Pinstrosity part. 

I decided that it would really dress things up if the stars were glittery and were able to reflect some of the light. This ended up taking multiple attempts. 

Attempt #1: 

I bought a can of diamond dust glitter spray paint and set to work spraying 5 stars at a time. But I wasn't liking the results too much. The glitter was working, but it just didn't stand out much. I didn't want to waste the can of glitter spray, so I decided to just keep going. I got 15 stars done and the can quit working. There was nothing coming out of that can...it just sat and mocked me. Having a nearly full can of glitter spray that I didn't want to waste, I sat thinking how I could make it work and dug deep into my roots and came up with a solution. I gathered up my stars, grabbed the can of glitter spray, pulled out our .22 rifle, and headed outside. 

Here's what I posted shortly after:

We live where what I did was perfectly legal and safe, don't worry. 

Disclaimer: I'm not saying this should be the new painting method. I'm not suggesting to go out and start shooting spray paint cans at every opportunity. If you do try this out, please use your head and stay safe. Painting anything isn't worth getting hurt or hurting someone else over. When in doubt, don't. 

And here's how it turned out:

I was feeling pretty good about my redneck ingenuity, and it worked for the most part, but the stars on the outer edge of my circle did not get much glitter on them. I decided to try something I'd seen a few different pins for...

Attempt #2:
I'd seen a number of pins about adding glitter to clear paint or to glue, and then painting it on your object. I hadn't pinned those pins because I just didn't ever see myself needing to paint on glitter...so of course when I went back to look for them I couldn't find the pins. So...I went off of memory. (I can almost feel everyone cringing at that phrase). I went in my craft supply and found my glitter and clear gel craft glue and figured that would work best. So I squeezed out a glop of glue onto the plate, added glitter and tried to mix. No bueno.

 It turned into this lump of unspreadable glittery snot. So I washed off the paintbrush and threw that plate away.

Attempt #3:
I then pulled out my Elmer's School Glue, but I couldn't get the cap open at all. That left me with mod podge. I have glossy mod podge and matte mod podge, and after a bit of thought I decided to use the glossy because I wasn't sure if the matte would lessen the glitter shine at all. I poured mod podge in a cup, slowly added glitter (so I didn't get too much all at once) and mixed it. But I think my mod podge was old or a little dry because it was really really thick. I added some water to thin it out, and that made it spreadable...but it definitely wasn't pretty:

It was drying in clumps and the stars were curling up from the moisture. It looked awful. So into the trash went the glittery cup of mod podge.

Attempt #4:
I finally just painted on thinned out mod podge and sprinkled glitter over the top. That worked...but I got 15 stars in and decided I was done. They didn't need glitter stars anyway...and the ones that were glittery would surely work out...right? That was the hope at least.


The Outcome:

Saturday comes around and I pack all the supplies into town for the dance and we get decorating. I was a little nervous that it wouldn't  pull together but it all worked out in the end. I did learn though that you can't string too many strands of lights together in one long chain because then it blows a fuse. But luckily we got that taken care of and all went well.

The glitter on the stars didn't end up showing up at all (not one bit), so that part remained a bit of a Pinstrosity, but it didn't end up mattering. I still am quite pleased with how the decorations turned out.