Hey party people! Labor day is this weekend and even if you don’t have a barbecue to host or attend, it’s a nice, long weekend that is meant for chillaxin’ and treatin’ yourself.  (Did you know chillax was added to the dictionary? My high school self is punching the air with excitement right now)  If you are hosting a party, you should think about making these spectacular little upcycled hanging glow vases to add to your decor. While you are crafting aforementioned vases, you should sip on these fruity mocktails and decide which one you’ll be concocting this weekend!

My sister Kristin and I sprinkled them about our land to decorate for a camping festival that we hosted this past weekend (more on that to come).  They looked adorable during the day and mesmerizing at night!  These vases were one of the few decorations that really worked well both day and night.  Our enormous dreamcatchers were completely lost at night (they had no light-up features) and our sweet dance floor was plain ol’ grass and sky during the daytime, but these tiny vases looked great at all hours!

If you have some spare time, string and a few small vessels, then this craft is for you.  There is no glue or taped involved, so whatever you choose to use as a vase can be reused again in the future.  We had a large quantity of salt and pepper shakers left over from Katie’s wedding, which is why Kristin (our middle sister) thought up this project.  We saved the tops so that we can easily dismantle and sterilize these shakers if we ever need to use them in the future.

Supplies:

• String, hemp or embroidery thread
• small vessels (we used salt and pepper shakers)
• scissors
• glow sticks (optional)
• flowers (optional)

The How:

• Cut off a length of string at least 2 feet long.  (The length really depends on where you want to hang the vases. Overestimate if you aren’t sure-I didn’t measure any of my strings) Wrap the string around the top of the vessel and leave a quarter inch tail.

• Hold the tail vertically across the rim so that you can wrap more string around the bottle and over the tail, which will secure the tail and string in place.
• Continue wrapping the string around the rim of the vessel until you’re satisfied with how it looks.

• Place your pointer finger over the wrapped rim and wrap the string over your finger and then loop the string through to create a knot. Repeat two more times.  You should have a long tail leftover so that you can hang your vase.
• After you hang your vases you can fill them with water and a tiny bloom.  Before dusk, cut a glow stick in half and empty the liquid into the vessels to create tiny glowing orbs. (Be extra careful when cutting open glow sticks.  They contain chemicals, not deadly dangerous chemicals, but chemicals nonetheless. If youngsters are going to be around, please skip the glow stick vases.  They look so super cool that kids will not be able to resist them and we wouldn’t want anyone to ingest the hydrogen peroxide or phenyl oxalate este).
• Rinse and repeat as often as you’d like.  To be honest, empty vases look pretty as well!

Since I’m being honest, (does it irk you when people say that? shouldn’t you always be honest? I catch myself saying it quite often..) I have to admit this is my favorite craft of the summer.  I can’t take credit for it though, it was all Kristin, our middle sister and {hopefully} future-blog-contributor.  The tiny vases are just *so* cute and the way they glow is really magical.  Party guests were complimenting them all weekend!  It’s pretty neat how something so ordinary becomes so extraordinary when it’s swiped from the table and hung from a branch.  If you don’t feel like crafting these little glow vases, why not bake these galactic brownies?

*Glow vase photo by theflyry and empty vase photo by saleem.