Many people who do crafts have worked with hot glue – maybe even all of them. But a crafting person generally uses hot glue to affix one thing to another. When you use hot glue in a different way, though, you can make all sorts of new home accents for mirrors, doors, curtains, and more. When you use a hot glue gun – and the accompanying glue – as a paint brush, you can make unusual but cool things to embellish objects around your home.
You don’t have to have an extreme amount of drawing talent to make things with hot glue. You’ll be able to draw freehand, or use stencils, to get the shapes you want. To begin, lay a piece of quality aluminum foil on a flat baking sheet. Draw the image you want onto the foil, using a small, rounded object, like a ballpoint pen, or even a toothpick with the tip sanded a bit. Create a simplistic shape or outline.
Use the hot glue gun to fill in the image you’ve drawn. Keep the glue layer fairly thin but fill in the entire shape. While the glue is still hot, lay any chosen embellishments in it. You can add a hanger, wiggly eyes, rhinestones, pipe cleaner pieces, beads, bows, beans, glitter, or other craft supplies. Allow the glue to cool. After that, place it in the freezer – still on the foil – for a couple of hours. Once the glue is frozen it’s easier to pull the foil off of the back. If needed, you can trim the shape up with regular scissors.
Hot glue now comes in assorted colors, and glitter varieties, so that makes it fun to create assorted designs for your home. You can make a hot glue disk, implant a wrought iron piece in it, and use it as a decoration for a mantle, door, or cornice. Make a glue letter and you can use it in the same manner, but as a monogram. Use the same technique – and your choice of embellishments – to make curtain tie-backs, a lampshade accent, designs to stick to a mirror, or even Christmas ornaments. In fact, when you lay out an irregular circle of glue, then add bead eyes and other features, you can create what looks like a melted snowman face.
With hot glue being so cheap you can make many different home accents for just a couple of bucks. Play around with this simple technique and you’ll see that there are lots of different yet easy accents you can make for your home.