Fairy Light Memento

After Mom's Funeral in April and the internment of both Mom and Dad I felt a need to have a memento to remind me of their love, commitment and my gratitude for having them in my life for over 60 years.

I love glass and have enjoyed looking at vintage, crystal and depression glass on several You Tube channels. 

I decided that I wanted a Fairy Light as my memento.  I could light it when I wanted comfort and a tangible reminder of them.  The vintage ones are hard to find and very expensive. Contemporary examples are more reasonably price.  One of them is by Fifth Avenue Crystal and those still were running about $100 on line which I was not prepared to do the online thing. I could not find anything in my area on Kijiji so I put out the word what I was looking for as most folks did not know.

About mid May I got a call from one of my sisters that she had found a Fifth Avenue one for $30.00 on Facebook. I said YES!  She was kind enough to pick it for me.  Towards the end of May I was able to collect it from her house but with the craziness going at my house it stayed in the box for a while longer.

I did start my plans for how I wanted to decorate it and light it.

This some pictures from on line because I did not take pics of mine before I started.

As you can see the base where the tealight would sit is not flat so I needed something to fill in that space and allow my tealight to sit nicely and safely.  I looked at several ideas for something small and clear like vase filler or seed beads.  Vase filler was going to be way more than I needed and clear sead beads with out silver lining were not available.  Durign the few days I spent with my sister in late June we visited a Dollarama and I found these.

These clear plastic diamonds were small enough to fill in the space, they were clear and the price was right.

Once I was home, I poured the bag of the smallest diamonds in the base and then set the clear plastic tealight holder on top.

It was perfect. They filled the cavity below the tealight exactly the way I needed.

The bottom right hand photo is seeing the candle wax completely melted in the clear plastic tealight holder and you can see the diamonds below.

There is the risk of spilling the diamonds out of the base as they are just sitting there but that is okay.

I knew I wanted green and blue glass beads so the light would go through them.  Dad's favorite shirts which Mom made for him were forest green and Mom's favorite color was blue.  Not cobalt but a true blue.

The Fairy Light offered 2 places to put some sort of decoration.  The indent on the shade and the one just above the base.

Here's my first attempt with EBeads on the base.  It's hard to tell in this photo but we received a small locket at the funeral.  We cleared Mom's stuff at Easter and we had slated her clothes to be donated. When the time came my sister could not send Mom's favorite dress to the thrift store and she decided to make it into mememtos for the kids and grandkids.  She put a small piece in the lockets for the boys and the girls received a scarf from the fabric.

The locket is still a memento from both Mom and Dad.

During this time my mind was working on what to buy for beads.  I did enjoy the Fairy Light a few times lit late at night.  

As you can see in the above photo only the shade is lit with the tealight at the top of the base.  I made the decision a few years ago to limit my use of real candles and switched to wax for scent.  I do have a few real tealight candles because sometimes in photography nothing but a real flame will do.

The thought crossed my mind that if I could find a light which the Fairy Light could be placed on then it would not be fire and the base would be lit as well.  

The brainstorming began.  I have an etched crystal block which has a LED light in the base which lights it up. Okay, that one has several colors of lights that rotate through - red, green, yellow and blue I think.  Well I knew I did not want colored lights. Now, I want a white LED light round base.  I put that into Google and stuff came up. They do sell LED light bases for crystal and glass figurines, etched glass items, and gemstones etc.  Again, none easily available in retail stores in my area. But I persisted!  Eventually, I found round puck light which can be placed under your upper cabinets.  They are battery operated and light when you press the center of the puck. I brought a tracing of the Fairy Light base with me to make sure that it would stand safely on this puck. I was a the big orange store which on line indicated there was 16 in stock.  After asking several customer service reps for assistance I received what I needed. A couple of guys checked the inventory and sure enough there was supposed to be some in stock.  A sharped eyed young man said there the right number on that box way up there! Up they went and brought down the box, I check the diameter against my tracing and walked out of there with 3 for less that $20 and the AAA batteries were included.

This is starting to fall into place.  Beads are next.

I decided that Michaels would by my starting place for beads.  The day I was there the shelves were mostly empty.  Supply chain issues? I don't know. I found some green faceted beads in the size that would work but no blue ones.  Another girl in the aisle said she was going to visit a Michaels in a city south of ours as there were fewer customers there and hoped the selection would be better.  After giving that some thought I decided to follow here lead.  Into the car and headed south on the big highway.

Sure enough, there was the same green ones in the the 4 different sizes and cobalt blue ones in the 8mm size which were on sale! One of the green strings was 8mm. Perfect.  They were faceted.

I used strong beading cord left over from my Christmas tree project. 

I placed the green and blue glass faceted beads alternating the colors until I had enough to go around the shoulder of the shade.  I tied my knot then added a few more for dangles.  I added an EBead and a silver crimp bead at the end to keep the beads in place.

 

I chose to use silver lined EBeads for the string of beads on the base of the Fairy Light. Again, I chose deep green and cobalt blue for color. I tied the cord tight with 3 knots.

I added the hinged locket on the string and let it sit over the knots.  That worked out really nice.

One of my sisters had the lockets in her stash of craft stuff and brought them with her.  It was great to be able to have something from that day.

As you can see it is hinged so I may put a bit of Mom's dress in it.

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I am so happy with how this project turned out. It took almost 3 months for all the pieces to come together but it is so gorgeous.  I will enjoy it for years to come.

I love you Mom and Dad!