Winter Robin

Good morning, Kirsten here on the last day of October. I hope you've had a good month. I've got two very quick & simple projects to show you today, I used the beautiful Winter Robin Art Stamp from Imagination Crafts on both.

My base for this project is a white/greyboard postcard from That's Crafty. You can use either side, I chose the white side & as I was stamping & using Distress inks. 

I stamped the Winter Robin in Vintage Sepia Versafine ink with the intention of adding clear embossing powder & heat setting, but I had forgotten that my ink pad is not as juicy as it used to be & I got a slightly faded result, which I really liked & decided to keep. 

I dried the ink with my heat tool, then added some colour with watered down Red & Emerald Starlights. When that was dry I blended Antique Linen & Tea Dye Distress inks around the outside of the image & added the greeting from the Hobby Art Christmas Frosting stamp set. I also added some Diamond Sparkle Medium with my finger to the tree branch.

To finish the postcard I painted two scraps of card with Red, Topaz & Green Starlights, die cut the scraps with the Leane Creatief Flower die 004 to make a poinsettia & glued it & the flourish to the postcard with Cosmic Shimmer Dries Clear glue. A spatula tip of Welsh Gold Sparkle Medium to the centre of the poinsettia & I was finished.

The second project is even simpler. A 6x6 white card blank, Distress inks - Candied Apple, Bundled Sage, Spiced Marmalade - on to a piece of white Super Smooth with splatters off watered down Pearl Starlights, the Winter Robin stamped with Onyx Black Versafine & heat set with WOW! Clear Gloss embossing powder, a piece of grey card as a matted layer & the Hobby Art Christmas Frosting greeting stamped directly on to the card blank.

             

        

               

  I will be back next week with another October project as the 

November class is not taking place until November 11. 

Take care & have a nice week.

Kirsten

Using Art Stamps to make a Christmas Candle

Hello all! A quick 'how to' and a scheduled post from me today, as all being well I should be sunning myself in the tropical climes of North Yorkshire! Optimism I know, but I love the scenery and am looking forward to some lovely walks!

I made a candle for one of my samples this month and loads of people asked how to do it, so I thought I would do a little guide. The Imagination Crafts Art Stamps are perfect for a large candle and the snowflakes from the Hobby Art Winter's Snowflakes Set make perfect little fillers!

The first step was to choose a candle that would work with  my chosen Art Stamp. As I chose to use the Santa Claus Stamp, I wanted a thick tall, church style candle, so that you could see him clearly (it doesn't really work using little thin candles for this technique as you can't see the stamped image really well. It is also a fire hazard as you will be using tissue paper and this will be too near to the wick if the candle is skinny)!

Once you have your candle, you then need to stamp your images and plan your composition. The best way to do this is to roughly work out how high and wide an area you have to work with. Tear a piece of Tissue Paper to the correct size leaving 'rough' edges all around. You won't see these edges once it's done, but they become more 'invisible' to the eye if they are not perfect and straight to start with! I like to have images all around my candle, so allowed for this when planning my stamps. I used Vintage Sepia Versafine Ink to stamp with, using the Santa Claus Art Stamp and the Hobby Art Winter's Snowflakes to surround a sentiment from my stash. I like using Versafine as it picks up the detail, but as it is a oil-based ink you have to remember to keep your fingers away to prevent smudges and transfer of finger prints (how did I find that out I wonder...!) Once the image is on the candle though, the ink will be sealed and you can relax! You can use any ink to stamp onto the Tissue Paper, the best way to think of it is to use the ink that best fits the stamp and colour technique (if any) that you want. I wanted the beautiful detail in the Art Stamp to be paramount here, so chose the detail ink. If you want to use a line-art stamp and colour it in with alcohol pens, use a water-based ink, such as Memento. If you want to use watercolours to colour the image, use Staz-On. It's up to you, experiment! The Art Stamps make this sort of project simple for you, as you have the detail already in the stamp and do not need to add anymore with colour, unless you want to.

Once you have your Tissue Paper stamped, place it in the desired position. You don't have to place it all in one go, just do one section at a time. Then take some baking paper (greaseproof etc.) and wrap this around the whole candle. Make sure you leave enough to grip hold of at the back, keep it tight and not burn your fingers...

Using a heat gun, gently heat the project, making sure you cover all areas and all the tissue disappears. You will see the stamped image become much darker as it is heated and sinks into the candle, once this starts to happen, move onto the next bit. Don't linger too much or you will melt the candle and get drippy bits! Once one section is done, take the baking paper off and move onto the next section. Voila!

To finish my candle I wanted some blingy florally bits (?), so I raided my stash and made a bouquet (if that's what I can call it!) I stuck this to the candle using a glue gun and added some ribbon to finish it all.

There we have it. One Christmas candle, perfect for a gift. If you choose a posh candle, you get a lovely smell too!

That's it from me until next week, in the meantime I think I must partake of some calorific delights to keep my energy up...!

Lots of love,

Martina

xx

  

Imagination Crafts Christmas Robin take two........

Good morning all........

I am still away on my hols, so this is another scheduled post for me today.....

I thought that I would show you today another card that I made in a very similar way as the class cards using Starlights as watercolours, if you missed the post see HERE





I stamped the Imagination Crafts Robin Art Stamp image in Versafine Black Onyx Ink and embossed it with Wow Clear Embossing Powder. I then die cut it with a circle die from my stash and also die cut a larger mat from gold mirror card.
Then as my previous post on the class cards, I coloured the image with my Starlight paints as watercolours using the colours: Topaz, Zinober Gold, Red, Emerald and Rich Gold. I really adore painting with these paints, the gilding flakes in the paint make the images look so gorgeous......

I stamped a message from my stash on to some card that I had painted with the Rich Gold Starlights neat out of the pot and then embossed the image. I also die cut some Poinsettia Flowers and fern and painted them with my Starlights too before attaching them to the card and adding some gem centres..... 

I really do love this robin stamps, he has become very much a Christmas favourite of mine as I love robins anyway and have a a little one that visits my garden quite regularly....

Well that is all from me for now.....

Have a great week and I will be back soon........

Big hugs
Lisa B
xxx


   

               

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Good morning crafters, Julie here. I have used the Santa Claus Art Stamp by Imagination Crafts for today's card.

I stamped this in red ink on to white Super Smooth card and heat embossed using WOW! Clear Sparkle embossing powder.

I then painted with watered down Starlights, I used White Gold, Green and Pearl. For the trees I used a 3/4 inch wide flat brush tip as this gave better definition to them. When the image was dry I trimmed it and matted it onto some red card from my stash.

I then die cut some holly out of some super smooth scraps and painted these with Green Starlights.....I don't know why, but this is quite satisfying and if you are too tired to craft properly you could just do batches of these for other Christmas cards.

I scored a sheet of A4 linen card down the middle and stamped a Christmas greeting in the same red  ink, this time heat embossing in WOW! Clear Gloss embossing powder. I attached my matted Santa to the white linen card with double sided sticky pads and attached the holly using Cosmic Shimmer glue. To finish off I added 4 clear gems to my greeting and some Christmas Red Stickles to the holly berries.

This was quite a quick card to make and good if you need lots of cards as you can do batches of stamping and heat embossing, or die cutting and painting. I'll definitely be doing this crisp card for a few of my friends and family this year and the topper can be stuck flat for posting....!

          

     

Bye for now, have a good week.

Love, Julie x