Frugal Village- Frugal living community

Special thanks to Lori aka Captclearance

Let me start by saying, I have no training in Feng Shui and only offer this as a decorative piece.
Materials Needed :
A large pillar candle
Unpolished stones(silver dollar size)
Unpolished or polished pebbles(the size of a penny or smaller)
A plate of your choosing.I use clear glass, black plates, or any plates that may have an Asian
influence
Your computer and printer
Clear coat spray
Black or gold paint(or any color that will show well on the stones)
NOTE: the stone darken when sprayed with clear coat, dry to use contrasting colors or light
colored stones
Fine paint brush or toothpicks
Raffia
Recycled paper or bamboo to go around your candle. Any interesting paper will work well, especially those with texture or an Asian influence. I am using corrugated paper I recycled.
Twigs cut to size also look nice. Use your imagination !!!
A Chinese good luck coin or charm.

NOTE: These coins are hard to find in the mid-west & can be costly, so I have copy and pasted some from the internet on to card stock, glued several layers of blank card stock to the back to give it thickness and body, cut it out, punched the hole in the middle and painted the outer edges and the inner edges of the hole with gold paint, using a toothpick. I then spray them with several coats of clear coat spray.They have worked fine for me. In fact many people have been surprised
to find they are not real coins.

Examples of Chinese characters.I have found them on the internet, but they have been difficult to find, you may have an easier time and I will include a couple of links at the end. I used "Simplified Chinese", I find the characters easier to copy.Do not be intimidated, These are easier to paint than you might think. Look at each character and paint it in pieces.... I have no particular talent for painting and I know if I can do it, anyone can !!

Start by painting the large stones.These should be rounded river rock, NOT POLISHED STONES.
The paint will not stick to polished stones.Copy the Chinese characters of your choice on the rocks, I use a fine line brush or a toothpick to paint them.These characters may look difficult to paint but they really are easy... Just paint them a line at a time.I use simplified Chinese characters, use whatever script you like.You will spray them with clear coat to get a polished appearance after they are painted.The stones will darken when sprayed, so use a color that contrasts well with the color of the stone.

I like to paint the translation on the back of the stone.

In this photo you can see the difference in the unpolished painted stone (on the left) and the clear coated, painted stone (on the right) the clear coat will not only seal your paint, but give it a polished stone appearance.

You will need enough small, smooth pebbles to cover your plate. You can purchase polished pebbles or use garden pea gravel like I did and spray it with clear coat to give a polished appearance.

You will need a good luck coin or charm for the front of your candle. I have had difficulty finding these coins and they can be purchased, but can be costly. The frugal crafter that I am, I have found a way to make copies that look very good for this project. Here is the link to the site I used.

http://www.sportstune.com/chinese/charms/1-2.html

Search the site and find the coin or charm you like best, copy and paste it to any print program (I used WordPad) print it onto a heavy card stock, glue a few layers of blank card stock to it, this will give the coin thickness and body.Cut it out and punch out the middle if needed.

Using a toothpick, paint the outer edges of the coin and the inner edges of the hole with gold or paint similar to your coin. When dry, spray with several coats of clear coat.

Decorate your candle. I like to use bamboo around the candles but it is hard to come by in the mid-west. You can use twigs cut the nearly the height of the candle and hot glued around. I used corrugated paper, use any paper or fabric that offers an interesting texture or an Asian pattern.Glue the decorative wrap to the candle, hot glue for sticks and bamboo, white glue for paper or fabric.Tie the coin on the to front. Here are a couple of examples of how to tie.

The previous photo shows the raffia tied in the front. Cut the raffia to about 2-3 inches. or tie in the back.

These are stones painted with the 5 chinese earth elements."Earth", "Fire", "Metal", "Water", & "Wood".

EARTH.

FIRE.

METAL.

WATER.

WOOD.

These are Chinese Characters.Health, Friendship, Happiness, Peace, Harmony and Chi. Here is a link to a site where I found these.
http://www.lechinois.com/tattoo/tattootempobw03.html

Place the finished candle on the plate, cover the plate in pea gravel.Place the painted stones on top of the rocks. Here is the Harmony Garden.

Here is the Element Garden.

Sites to find characters.

http://www.fengshui-shop-online.com...ui-symbols.html