Repurposed Vintage Jello Mold Flowers

It’s my favourite time of the month again… time for the Thrifty Chicks challenge.

On the second Wednesday of each month I join some very talented blogging friends for a challenge, and with a different theme each time it’s really a lot of fun.

If you missed any of the past projects/challenges you can find them here.

I’m so excited to see what my blogging friends have come up with for this Something We Love challenge, which means it could be pretty much anything.

How exciting!

You’ll find links to their posts at the end of this post so be sure to visit and check out the fabulousness.

But first I’ll share my project with you.

I’ll be honest and admit that at first I had trouble deciding what to do for this challenge because it wasn’t very specific.

And you know that I love so many things. Probably too many things. lol.

So how on earth was I going to narrow it down and choose one thing?

Then last Friday I had a classic rock night in my craft studio. Usually in the winter I do this every Friday night, but for many reasons I hadn’t had one so far this winter at all.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy it. It’s so much fun to just mess around with all my stashes while rockin’ out.

I love classic rock, and it rarely fails to creatively inspire me.

And when I really thought about what I love, flowers were right at the top of my list.

I love them in our gardens in the spring, summer, and fall. But even more than that, if that’s even possible, I love creating flowers by repurposing things.

 

For today’s project I’m repurposing some vintage aluminum jello molds and some vintage brass candle snuffers.

You’ll see why I needed a hammer and nail in a sec.

 

How to Assemble Repurposed Jello Mold Flowers

To create these flowers the first thing you need to do is make a hole in each jello mold with a nail.

Thankfully, aluminum is so easy to hammer into.

 

It’s important to not make the holes too big. They should be just big enough for the candle snuffer stems to fit through.

 

Here are the fabulous vintage brass candle snuffers that I’m repurposing.

I don’t think these are used very much for their intended purpose these days because I find them at thrift stores for 25-50 cents each.

The cool thing about these particular candle snuffers is that the heads unscrew from the stems.

 

This isn’t the first time I’ve repurposed candle snuffers in a project. They worked perfectly in my repurposed spoon flowers.

 

Once you have your hole in the jello mold it’s time to insert the threaded end of the stem.

 

Then you just screw on the snuffer part.

I love mixing metals so the au natural brass and aluminum combo really works for me, but these could be painted or decorated any way you like.

I’m not putting anything in the centers of the snuffers because I don’t want to weigh them down. They’re already quite heavy.

 

Once I had all my repurposed jello mold flowers put together I needed a way to hold the jello molds in place so they didn’t move around.

I tried E6000 glue, Marine GOOP glue, and my hot glue gun and none of them worked. Some of the bottoms of the snuffer parts are very narrow so not much for the glue to hang onto.

 

How to Attach Jello Molds and Candle Snuffers

So I looked thought my stash of tapes and found this roll of metallic duct tape. This is not the duct tape that we usually use to fix pretty much anything.

This is the silver metallic duct tape that’s used on heating ducts. It’s like a stronger version of aluminum foil, and I love this stuff.

I used it when I created my repurposed baking pan gift box.

 

I cut small circles out of the metallic duct tape to fit around the snuffer stems.

 

This duct tape has a wax-paper-like backing on it, which is easily removed.

You just need to be careful so you don’t tear the duct tape while removing the paper.

 

Then, while holding the stem in place where you want it, you sort of stick down the duct tape as you wind it around.

Make sure to have good contact with both the bottom of the jello mold and the stem.

 

I did this three times, and here’s what the back looks like when it’s done. These aluminum jello molds are so light that the tape is able to hold them in place.

I think regular duct tape might work too, but I don’t think it would look as nice on the back of the jello mold. The metallic tape almost looks like part of the flower.

TIP: When handling the flowers it’s best to handle the candle snuffer stems and not the jello mold flowers. This is to protect the seal of the metallic duct tape. Over handling could loosen that tape, but if that happens over time it’s easy to just remove the tape and redo it.

Once I had my flowers all done I needed something to put them into.

For this I went to my collection of vintage mason jars and this lovely blue Crown jar was the perfect size, but anything that you have could be used.

 

Decorating a Mason Jar to hold  my Repurposed Flowers

I filled the jar with strands of faux pearl garlands, several different ones. I’m all about just using what I have and not sweating it too much.

I even put a faux pearl necklace in there because my garland didn’t quite fill the jar enough.

 

Once I added my flowers to the jar I topped it up with clear glass beads to keep the stems in place.

 

Here you can see the glass beads at the top of the jar, but I didn’t want them to be seen.

 

So I found a solution for this by using three of my favorite things… lace for pretty, hot pink for color, and some bling for, well, bling.

Because a little bling is always a good thing.

The lace was taped on with clear tape, the hot pink ribbon was hot-glued on the lace, and the faux rhinestone stretch bracelet was simple wrapped around.

 

And here’s my finished bouquet of repurposed jello mold flowers.

I designed the bouquet so I can display it on a shelf with one view only, or on the dining table where it’ll be seen from all sides.

 

Here’s another view of the bouquet.

 

 

After I placed my flowers in the mason jar I still had some room so I added one more for a total of ten.

 

Flowers are definitely ‘Something I Love’ and this jello mold flower bouquet was so much fun to create.

I’m thinkin’  there’s going to be more Friday classic rock nights in my immediate future. 🙂

 

Now be sure to check out what my friends did for our Something We Love challenge.

Just click on the links below to check them out.

Please pin to your favorite board and share with your friends!

 

Thanks so much for reading, and until next time…

keep on keepin’ on!

XOX