Two Candles

I discovered how easy it was to decorate candles back in the summer and am thoroughly hooked. I usually give them to friends telling them to remove brads, flowers, ribbons etc before lighting them and then my Sister said 'Can I burn it indoors?' Burn it!!!!! You don't actually burn them, I just say remove the bits for Health and Safety reasons, LOL Anyway, not to be put off by such a cavalier attitude I have made two more which are more of an experiment.


The first one is on a pink candle. I stamped the butterflies (from Clear Choice stamps) in black StazOn on white tissue and coloured them with my brand new, absolutely gorgeous Derwent Inktense pencils. I then added the little flowers and seed heads (from Stamps Away), also with black StazOn. The ribbon round the bottom is from Celebrate. It doesn't show in the photo but I overheated it a bit too much in once place and the wax ran! Memo to self - be more careful in future!!


The second candle was a practice for Christmas candles. I stamped some Crafty Individual images in black StazOn onto red tissue when I was at my friend Lucy's. Then I added it to a red candle. I finished it off simply with organza ribbon from Dovecraft and little 'bling' stars from Paper Mania. I think I shall be doing more of these.

My first canvas

This my very first attempt at decorating a canvas. My good friend Lucy showed me how to do this when I visited her on Wednesday. I coloured the canvas with Brilliance inks in Sky Blue, Coral and Jade. Then I stamped the Crafty Individual Butterfly Lady in Azure StazOn onto tissue paper, masked the image (my first attempt at this too) and overstamped the Crafty Individual flower background in Dove Grey StazOn. I stuck the tissue onto the canvas with Modge Podge. I found the Dove Grey flowers almost disappeared so I added Crafty Individual butterflies in Teal and Cherry Pink around the edges. I found the beautiful feather butterfly in my stash and it was perfect, so on it went, and then lots of Mulberry flowers, adding turquoise half pearls from Paper Mania to the flowers, butterfly and lady. I hung the canvas in the window to photograph it because I like the effect of the light through the centre of the canvas.

I had a fabulous day

I had a fabulous day with my friend Lucy (who has a brilliant blog called True Colours) and she showed me how to do these gorgeous slide mailers. They are painted with teal and white acrylic paint (roughly mixed to give a marble effect).

The large mailer was painted on the inside with a brush. The birds and swirls are from Crafty Individuals but the sentiment is from a set from Stampscapes, and all are stamped in Black StazOn. The slides are decorated with more swirls from Crafty Individuals and then the back of the slide is sponged with Azure and Cherry Pink StazOn. The bling is from Hobbycraft.

The small mailer was painted inside and out with a brush and then I heated the front until the paint bubbled to give it texture. I then stamped with the Crafty Individual crackle stamp in StazOn Cactus Green and Teal and the sentiment is from Crafty Individuals. The slide inside is decorated with a Mucha stamp borrowed from a friend and inked on the back with Sunsnhine Yellow and Cactus Green StazOn, then put Microbeads in green and gold round the edges and sealed it with Anita's Clear Gloss. And on the jewelled brad on the front is from Dovecraft.

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge No 2

The Crafty Cardmakers challenge this time was Complimentary Colours. I went for violet and yellowish-green. Not a combination I have used before but I quite like it. The image is, of course, a magnolia pony watercoloured with Whispers pens. The BG paper is from Pocket full of Posies (DCWV). The violet card is embossed with the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder and the Green is punched with an EasyCut Craft Geo Punch (Daisy). The card, ribbon, flower and brad were from my stash and the bling dots were from Dovecraft.

THE WEDDING

My Son and his lovely fiance (Joze) have decided to get married in England on 26 September. They asked me to design and make the wedding invitations and I was thrilled to do so. And Joze helped with the sticking and bugging too. Now all we have to do is post them all off. The base card is from a pack by Craft Creations and has a hammered textured. Next we added a piece of white linen effect card that had been run through the Cuttlebug using the Swirls and Curls folder. Then on top are two hearts cut with the Heart #1 die (again Cuttlebug) in red and gold mirror card. Nice and simple but very effective.

OMG was this my idea!!!

I had to set some themes for card swaps and I don't know what came over me but I decided on an All White card! You could only use silver or gold as highlights - NO OTHER COLOURS!!!! What was I thinking, lol. Anyway, this is what I came up with. I cut and folded a piece of A4 white linen card to make a 14cm square card then cut a smaller piece of white card and ran it through the Cuttlebug Swirls and Curls folder. Then I got a nice piece of white vellum and stamped and embossed the dragonfly (free stamp with Craft Stamper) with white embossing powder. It would have been better if I had had detailed white EP but I didn't (something to add to my rather large shopping list, lol). I then attached it with 4 small silver brads from my stash and added a piece of Organza ribbon and three white silk roses (also from my stash). So there you go, not as difficult as I thought it was going to be.

Blossoms

I have made this card for the new Blog Crafty Cardmakers. The subject was blossoms so I did my favourites - stamped images using a free stamp from Craft Stamper onto a page of an old book. I had a lovely piece of background I had made ages ago that I wanted to use. It had been coloured with Distress Inks (Mustard Seed, Old Paper and Walnut Stain) so I coloured the flowers with the same inks. I then stamped the background using Butterflies in Black StazOn from a Clear Choice set. The ribbons and card were from my stash.

Parchment Picture

I made this picture for a swap on a Parchment Group I am on. I hadn't done any embossing for ages and thought I'd give it a go. It's quite big (A4) and took me 3 days to complete. Lots of the elements are 3D. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed white work, must do some more.