Sweetie Stained Glass Sun Catchers

I am very lucky that my super-talented mum made me some beautiful leaded stained glass sun catchers for Christmas. Once the risk of frost has well and truly gone, these will be hung proudly from the pear tree in the back garden, or I may keep them hung in the window.

Inspired by these, and also I have to admit, by the tin of empty sweetie wrappers, we decided to get crafty and make some of our own.

You will need:

• Coloured cellophane sweet/chocolate wrappers
• Piece of clear cellophane (this can be recycled packaging - the 'windows' from boxes are good for this)
• Black paper or card
• PVA glue
• Scissors
• A small piece of ribbon (recycled from Xmas wrapping), or cotton, string etc

1.  Gather your coloured sweetie wrappers and cut or tear some into smaller pieces or different shapes.

2. Take your piece of clear cellophane and paint with a thin layer of glue.  This is tricky with a toddler who tends to slap it on like there's no tomorrow, but try not to use too much glue or it will dry cloudy.  We found it easier to tape the background piece of clear to the table to keep it still and also to see where it was!

3. Start assembling your 'stained glass' by sticking your wrappers on. Make sure you have lots of overlaps to create different coloured effects (you may need to paint on a little extra glue to the overlapped bits.)  Ruby really enjoyed this part, and learnt about mixing colours to make new ones - a concept she is vaguely aware of from paint and play-doh, but all too quickly we usually end up with the ubiquitous sludgy brown! 

4. Once all the clear plastic is covered, leave to dry.  You might want to place a book or other flat weight on top to keep it all nice and flat.

5. Whilst it is drying, make the 'frame'.  I used black paper, but I think thin card would be better as it holds it's shape.  You will need 2 identical frame shapes, so fold the paper/card in half and draw your template.  I'm rubbish at free-hand drawing so I used graduated cookie cutters. You can make them any shape you want, we chose hearts to match the ones that Nana made, but Christmas shapes would be great for next year's decorations.

6. Carefully cut out both the inner and outer lines, keeping the two sections of folded card firmly together, to create a pair of frames.

7. Once the cellophane wrappers have dried, trim to size and sandwich between your 2 frames. Glue or staple together, adding a little hanging loop from ribbon or string.

8. Hang in the window to admire, and wait for the sunshine!

Cass and her daughter over at Frugal Family have made some great bookmarks with sweetie wrappers too. head over there to find out how.