Best DIY Projects for Fantasy Nerds – Part 2
Welcome, Fantasy Nerds! We had so much fun doing our last post on fantasy DIY projects, so we’ve decided to do another! It has been almost 2 years since the original post, and we have made some more magical things since then. Here’s a look at how you can DIY your own fantastical crafts.
Fairy Lantern
Fairy lanterns are an adorable craft that you can use as a functional light in your home or on your porch. It is a great project for fantasy nerds to add a little magic to your surroundings!
My husband purchased a kit as a gift for me to make this craft, but you could also gather your own supplies. You would need a mason jar, string lights, glitter, glue, a foam brush, dark-colored paper or a printed picture of a fairy silhouette, and any other items you would like to decorate with, such as ribbons or flowers.
You start by using the foam brush to coat the entire inside of the jar with glue. You then pour in the glitter and roll it around until it covers all the glue. Let it dry and pour out the excess glitter. As you can see in the photo, my kit came with vellum fairies, but you can either print one or cut it out of dark paper and place it inside against the edge of the jar. My kit came with lights that were built into the lid, but if you get your own lights you will want to adhere the battery pack to the inside of the lid. Arrange the lights inside the jar behind your fairy, so they illuminate the fairy silhouette. Lastly, decorate the lid of the jar with ribbons and/or flowers, or whatever else you like!
Tips: I would recommend buying the kit, as it simplifies the process greatly. You can find the one I used on Amazon here. What I love about the kit is that it has color-changing lights built into the lid, with a button on top for you to turn the lantern on and off without having to remove the lid. The vellum silhouettes were also beautiful and made it so I didn’t have to try to print or cut my own fairies. The only downside is that the jar in the kit is plastic, so if you want a glass lantern you will want to purchase your own mason jar.
Hot Glue Gems
You can make your own gems easily with hot glue, a powder pigment of your choice, and a spoon! You may also want to have a toothpick or something similar. These little handmade gems take minutes to make, and you can use them for all kinds of other crafts! I also used an exacto knife to cut the gem to my desired shape, but you can just as easily use scissors. The shape of the spoon also creates a nice round-shaped gem so that may not even be necessary depending on what you’re going for.
These are the materials I used for the blue gem photoed above, these are simple and most people already have these at home! You can use these gems to make your own pendants, to adorn anything you want, or even as a button! All you have to do is squirt a good amount of hot glue into the spoon, then quickly mix in the pigment using a toothpick. Hot glue dries pretty fast, so you have a good five to ten seconds to mix! Then you just let it cool, remove the hot glue from the spoon (it’s very easy to do), and then cut it to your desired shape!
This is an example of a hot glue gem I used for a cosplay! I made this armor using Worbla, paint, craft foam, real moss and featured is a purple hot glue gem I made and cut to fit. This is just one example of how you can use hot glue gems!
Wax Seals
Every fantasy nerd loves to see wax seals on a letter. There is just something that elevates it and makes it feel like it’s from another world. Maybe it reminds us of waiting for our Hogwarts letter. That’s why Clever decided to make these pre-made wax seals that you can stick on your letters!
For supplies, you will need: a wax seal stamp, wax, wax paper or a silicone mat, double-sided tape, and a way to melt the wax. Melting the wax can be as simple as using a lighter to ignite the wick, using a low-temp glue gun if you have the right wax sticks, or using a wax melting pot like the one I have in the photo.
You start by melting the wax onto the wax paper or silicone mat into a pool about the size of a nickel. Then, you press your stamp into the wax, leaving the stamp in the wax for 20-30 seconds. Once you pull the stamp free, you can continue filling up your mat with wax seals, changing out for different stamps and/or wax colors if you would like some variety. Once you are done and the wax is fully cooled, you can easily pull the seals off the paper or mat. Lastly, just add a piece of double-sided tape to the back of each seal, so they are ready to adhere to letters whenever you like!
Tips: If you don’t like how a seal turned out, you can always remelt the wax in your wax pot, if you used this method. Also, make sure to store the seals carefully, so they do not break.
Hand-Drawn Maps
Now this may seem like it requires the skill to draw, and if you want an intricately detailed map that may be the case, but it’s pretty easy if you give it a shot!
This is a hand-drawn map I have been working on for my novel, and I started it in my bullet journal (featured in our first DIY Crafts post) because the dots really help to scale the map how you want. Honestly, all I did was go in and start drawing random shapes for each mass of land, and then keep building upon that until you have a layout you like. I used pencil so I can easily erase and redraw. My next step with this map is once I have it finalized how I want it to look, I am going to draw it with a fine-tip marker on hand-made parchment paper (also featured in our first DIY Crafts post).
This is so easy to do and helps so much to visualize and stimulate your creative process. Even if you don’t think you have the “skills” to draw a map, I highly encourage you to give this a shot! Especially if you’re a writer, doing this was a nice break from the writing aspect of my novel, but increased my feelings of creativity!
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What did you think of our list? Would you try any of these DIY crafts? Are there any you would recommend? Let us know in the comments below! If you are looking for more DIY projects, check out part 1 here!
Thank you so much for reading!
-Clever&WTF
