Thursday, December 14, 2017

Galaxy Jar Craft!

A couple of months ago, I came across a blog post of something called a Galaxy Jar Art Craft (I have since lost the post).

Feel free to skip through my process and go straight to the pictures that hold the good stuff!

I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I had witnessed. Anyone who knows me knows I love anything outer space related. I have an inaccurate spray painted 3 part art piece of the solar system hanging over my dining room table.


The guy who spray painted them.


The finished product! Aint it glorious?

 Solar system cups (one of each planet, including Pluto, and one of the sun) gracing my TV stand with a little astronaut bank up high. Plus the countless other things. 




ANYWAYS. I wanted to do this glorious craft I had come across and decided that for December I would host an art program at work and it would feature this out of this world jar! I googled Galaxy Jar and stared at the work of others. I went on YouTube and scrolled through videos and got the basic idea of what I needed and how to make it.

(STEP 1)

Ingredients: 
1) Glass Jar 
2) Cotton Balls [lots of them]
3) Food Coloring [cheap brand will do]
4) Water [tap tap tap]
5) Paper Towels [to soak up escaped liquid]
5a) Old Sales Ad [to protect your work space]
6) Straw [or anything else to push the CB down]
7) Glitter [if you want to get a little bit extra]
8) Paper Cups [to mix those colors]

*Everything purchased from the Dollar Tree except the food coloring.


(STEP 2)

You can leave your cotton as balls but I preferred to stretch some out to stuff into the crevices.

(STEP 3)

If you look a little closer you will see I left some as balls and some are not.

(STEP 4)

The first color I made was purple. I mixed red and blue food coloring together for this. I also tossed in some white glitter in the hopes it would reflect in the jar. 

A little cheat sheet if you want to create more colors:
Red + Blue = Purple
Red + Yellow = Orange
Red + Blue + Green = Black

(STEP 5)

I poured the liquid over the cotton balls. As you can see the white glitter did NOT do what I was hoping it would. I didnt use it again.


Here is some excess liquid. Before getting started on your next color make sure to put more cotton balls in and push them down with your straw in order to soak up the excess liquid. If you don't the colors will run.

(STEP 6)

I ended up going online and looking at real Galaxy pictures at this point. To make things a little interesting, I then placed red only in two areas and waited to see what happened.

(STEP 7)

When the red didn't run, I added more cotton balls and dripped in yellow and green as well. Before pouring over my next big color, blue. I also tossed in some silver glitter and was happy to see that they shined through.

(STEP 8)

Make sure to continue to add in cotton balls to take up any excess liquid. My final color was Green.

(FINAL PRODUCT)

And here is my final product! I aimed to make all my colors dark but I didnt do so well with the purple. I believe that is due to the fact that I did not add enough food coloring. The more food coloring in your water, the darker your colors! But I LOVED how it came out in the end. I really enjoyed how some of the colors DID run together because they created a whole new color on their own. There was a whole lot of trial and error with this jar. But for my first jar, it came out great. Now go make your own and show me!

I will post pictures from my program later tonight/tomorrow. So excited to share their work with you!

For additional reference: 
The main one I watched YouTube Galaxy Jar 1  
I took a look at this one but decided to not go this route Youtube Galaxy Jar 2

EDIT: Here are some of jars attendees made!









Monday, December 11, 2017

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon December Book Group

I can't believe it is December already! And a third of the way through at that! This year flew by!

But back to more important matters. Our December book group met on December 7th. We read 'Where the Mountain Meets the Moon' by Grace Lin which is actually a juvenile (kids) book. The reason we did a juvenile book is because December is a very busy month for most people. Between the Holidays, exams in school, and traveling, there is not much time to read. A shorter book tends to mean that people will get through it faster, or at least attempt to give it a go.

Members really enjoyed the book. They thought it was very good and described it as a feel good sort of book. Something people want to feel when they are particularly busy. The images in the book were beautiful. We spoke about adventures, our own childhoods, friendships and family. We covered a wide range of topics as people shared more about themselves in relation to situations in the book. We ended the group early because people ran out of things to say which is usually the case when the group tends to agree as a whole that it was a good book.

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January Book: 'The Sinner' by Petra Hammesfahr