Bookmarks XXI: Luminarias for Christmas

On my father's side of the family, luminarias are a Christmas Eve tradition. We get a bunch of brown paper sandwich bags and put some sand and a tea-light style candle inside. The sand keeps the bags from blowing over and steadies the candle. Then we line the driveway and the edge of the street with them, two to three feet apart, and light them. As dusk turns to dark, they transform from paper bags into magical glowing lights.

Most of my grandparents' neighborhood also light luminarias on Christmas Eve. Some of them use white bags instead of brown, but in the dark all you can see is the lines of lights... it's beautiful and peaceful and feels so right for Christmas Eve.

I'm told the more correct name for these little bags is "farolitos", and that they were originally lit either to replace more traditional luminaria mini-bonfires or to guide the spirit of the Christ Child. My family calls them luminarias, and we light them because... well, because that's what we do, and because they're beautiful, and because, now that my grandfather is dead, it is a way of remembering him. He was always the impetus behind getting the luminarias out, even when he became so stiff he couldn't really put them out or light them himself.

This week's Timeless Tuesday challenge at the Flourishes blog was "A Pinterest Christmas" -- find an inspiration on Pinterest and make a Christmas creation inspired by it. I chose these beautiful luminaria pictures:

Source: theroamingboomers.com via Marly on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Brooke on Pinterest

Source: romanceandrevolution.tumblr.com via Liana on Pinterest

I made a luminaria bookmark with these inspiring photos. I don't know that most people would think this was a Christmas project, but for me it definitely is.

I actually made a two-sided bookmark this time: one side inspired by the beautiful swirly luminaria display, and the other by a single glowing luminaria. I didn't quite succeed in capturing the same beauty that the photographs captured, but I am still satisfied with it:

It looks acceptably glow-y here, I admit, but that's a happy accident of messing about in Photoshop to try to get the black to look black. It's rather less stunning in person.

Next time I will read some tutorials about how to produce glowing effect first. Also, I'm pretty sure pigment inks are the wrong kind to be playing with for this effect, but I don't have any dye inks -- I do a lot of heat embossing (as you can see on the swirly side of the bookmark), so pigment inks are more useful.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Timeless Tuesday #186: A Pinterest Christmas
• ABC Christmas: R for Recyling (used a bit of paper bag; luminarias mean Christmas to me)
• Top Tip Tuesday Challenge 85: Recycle It! (used a bit of paper bag)
• That Craft Place: Bling It On (lots of sparkly embossing powder)
• Delightful Challenges: Anything But a Card

Supplies: (brown paper ripped from a brown paper bag)