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I saw that you or someone you worked with created Glass planets as wedding centerpieces for Mel & Tevis' Space-themed wedding. There were the 8 glass planets with glowing moons. I am desirous to know if I can purchase those somewhere or if you make them yourselves.
Do y'all remember this space-themed wedding? An Offbeat Wed reader recently asked us how the heck they pulled off these glass planet centerpieces. Here's what they were talking about:
These planet centerpieces are out of this world!
We love centerpieces that can be used as home decoration after the wedding. If you're fascinated with all things outer space, you'll be delighted to know you can DIY these planet centerpieces yourself! The bride, Mel, was generous enough to share how she made them:
We decided our wedding would be space-themed almost immediately after we announced our engagement. We both have an intense love for the physical sciences, and astronomy specifically sparked our imaginations. I did a hell of a lot of crafting: the tables at the reception were named after the objects in the solar system, and each one had a painted glass planet as its centerpiece (except for Pluto/Charon, which had two glowing moons)…I made the planets by painting the insides of glass globe lighting fixtures with “glass enamel” paint. It was more affordable than floral arrangements, and more fun than table numbers!
Mel from this space-themed wedding
We love how specific they were about the moons in their planet centerpieces!
If your wondering “What should I put in the middle of my table?,” at your space-themed wedding, planet centerpieces are it! Not only do they make for novelty table decorations, but they're an amazing party visual effect. Ready to wow your guests?
Here's how Mel DIYed these planet centerpieces:
Step 1) Buy neckless glass globe lighting fixtures
Look for ones labeled with “imperfections” like tiny bubbles, as they’ll be much cheaper (sometimes as cheap as $10!)
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In the case of finding glass gloves for your planet centerpiece with imperfections, you probably want to check at your local lighting fixture store! But if you're too exhausted to look and just wanna hit add to cart (hey, we get it), you can find them here:
Step 2) Get “glass enamel” paint
We mostly used the “Folk Art” brand.
Here's another glass enamel paint brand we found for your DIY planet centerpieces:
Step 3) Paint them with a long paintbrush ON THE INSIDE
This takes some trial-and-error, but the paint is actually not too hard to scrape off if you mess up.
We found this set of long paintbrushes that will make you feel like Picasso! After all, these planet centerpieces will be a work of art once you're finished!
Step 4) Be gentle with your DIY planet centerpieces
The paint instructions will tell you that you need to bake the paint onto the glass, and maybe that’s a good idea, but some of those globes didn’t fit in our oven, so we didn’t. The paint stayed on well–just don’t let any well-meaning relatives try to pack newspaper or bubble wrap on the *inside* of your globes … because you’ll be doing some touch-ups the day before the wedding if they do …
Want your planet centerpieces to have moons too?
Mel didn't specify where the moons came from, but we found these rechargeable LED balls. They're approx 3.15inches each and can be changed to be different colors so you can create specific moons!
Here's what one review said about these rechargeable LED moons:
if you reas the dimensions you’ll know this is a small little ball but it’s so awesome actually. it lasts for hours without needing to charge and it’s very bright. i’m getting more
Alicia Nevarez on Temu
And that's how you DIY planet centerpieces
Many thanks to Mel for giving us a breakdown! In summary:
Step 1) Buy neckless glass globe lighting fixtures
Step 2) Get “glass enamel” paint
Step 3) Paint them with a long paintbrush ON THE INSIDE
Step 4) Be gentle with the insides of your planets
Oh, and if you tried the LED moons, let us know how they worked out for you.
Blast off into our archive to see more space wedding theme ideas!
