Pony Bead Rainbow Suncatcher

Who is ready for sunshine.  How about a nice spring rain that is followed by a beautiful sky and a colorful rainbow?  Doesn't that sound pretty?  It does to me, it really sounds good to me, because this weekend it was cold, and we had ice followed by snow.

Since it is the first of the month, it is also time for the monthly Inspiration Challenge hosted by Stephanie of Ellie's Bites Decorated Cookies and Melissa of Simply Sweets by Honeybee.  This month's theme is 
"The Sky".  The first thing that popped in my head when I heard the theme was Rainbow.

It was yucky outside, so I made a rainbow..and I can keep it forever!

You can have a suncatcher of your very own, and it is really simple.

I arranged pony beads in a 9 inch cake pan, don't spray it or line it with anything.  I just lined them up, starting with the red, then the orange, and so on, following the curve of the pan.  I used the translucent ones rather then the solid ones, but that is just because I wanted to have the light shine through it.  Do what you want, not judging you at all.

Now, I need to melt them.  Here is where I got a little creative.  This is not some new project that I created.  I can not take credit for it at all, there are 8 gazillion tutorials online to follow, just Google "melted bead suncatcher" or "bead suncatcher".  But, what concerned me about them all was the warning of a "melting plastic smell" that came from the oven when you melt the beads.  Now, I don't know about you, but that smell is GROSS..and it hangs out in your house for like a long time and as I mentioned, is is cold here, and snowing, so opening the windows is not an option that I had.  So..I moved to plan B.

Plan B for me was taking my 'craft only' toaster oven outside and doing the melting out there. Yep it was cold, and I got snow on my, but that was ok, my house did not smell like melted plastic when I was done.  So, I set my toaster oven to 450, and let it warm up, then I placed my pan of beads in it, and closed it up.  Within a few minutes, smoke was billowing out, and yucky smell too.  I was happy with my decision to take this project outside.  I just watched carefully, and within 5-7 minutes, the beads were all melted.  I then removed the pan, and set it on my deck table on a hot pad to cool.  I high tailed it back in the house to warm up.  I went back outside in 10 minutes and with very little effort, I had this!

Pretty, isn't?  I raided Collin's fishing kit, and stole borrowed some clear fishing line and tied it around the rainbow ( you can barely see it in the picture in the middle of the rainbow), hung it from my arbor, took a few pictures and ran back inside just as the snow was starting to fall.  I plan on making more of these, as they are so simple.  My next project will be a tray or cake stand I think.

Just a few notes

*If you plan on using a toaster oven like I did, make sure your pan will fit in the toaster oven before you lay your beads out.

*Once the beads are melted and cool, they come out of the pan pretty simply, but if needed you can GENTLY help it along with a sharp knife.

*When the melted bead are cooling, you might notice some "popping" sounds, that is ok, that is the beads releasing from the metal pan.

*You can drill a hole in the suncatcher with a drill, just make sure you don't do it too close to the edge, or it will crack.

*If you do crack it with a drill or dropping, it can be "repaired" by placing it back in the toaster oven for a few minutes.

There you so...simple easy and fun.  The kiddos would love this for sure, with a little adult supervision, you have a great project that can be used as a gift for anyone, because who doesn't love cute gifts from the kiddos?

Don't forget to head over to Simply Sweets by Honeybee to see all the other projects this month.  You are sure to see some amazing projects.

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