Snowflake mobile

Hi, Amanda here with an idea for a quick Christmas decoration to add some festive cheer to a ceiling or window. I hope you like it!

First I painted 6 laser cut wooden snowflakes using a metallic pearl paint dabber. I applied two coats of paint on each side, allowing to dry in between each coat. It's a good idea to have a needle handy, in case the paint fills up any of the fine detail.

Then I cut a large snowflake from acetate. I used the packaging from the snowflake die. It was just a tiny bit too thick for the die, but it took very little to finish off the cutting with a craft knife. I painted the snowflake with two coats of metallic pearl paint too, applying the paint with big splodgy dabs to get a nice textured finish.

Once dry, I used a craft pick to make a hole in each point of the acetate snowflake. Next, I cut 6 lengths of white cotton approx 25cm long and tied each one to a wooden snowflake. I threaded on a seed bead, and looped the cotton through the bead again, then through a hole in the snowflake. I added a seed bead on the other side of the acetate snowflake and glued both beads in place, leaving 8-10cm hanging below (I varied this a bit for each snowflake). I made another hole in the centre of the acetate snowflake and threaded through a piece of cotton and a larger bead, then gathered all the ends of cotton up and passed through a jewellery crimp bead. I adjusted so that all threads were under tension, with the acetate snowflake level, then closed the crimp bead with pliers. Finally I looped the threads and passed through another crimp bead to make a hanger. I used a spare cotton to make the threading easier, like this:

Here it is again, all finished:

Thanks for visiting, and happy crafting

Amanda

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Tim Holtz dies: not just for grown-ups

This month my little boy and his two best friends turn 3 years old, a fact I'm struggling to get my head around! The first of the birthdays was for a little boy who loves diggers, so I made this textured muddy building site scene, complete with brick wall.

First I separated a kitched towel into layers, scrunched it up and stuck to plain card with PVA glue.

Then I painted it with two colours of brown chalk acrylics, blending them on the project, to make a nice mud effect.

Next I cut a brick wall from thin grey card using a Tim Holtz decorative strip die. Taking care to keep all the pieces in place, I stuck the wall to plain card. I coloured each brick with a mixture of red, orange, black, and brown watercolour pencils, then blended with a self-moistening brush.

I made a landscape stepper card from two A6 card blanks. I cut a wavy edged section of the 'mud' off to cover the short step and stuck in place. I put the remaining 'mud' onto the back step of the card. As the 'mud' is quite heavy, I added folded card bracing strips to the sides to make sure the card would stand up properly:

Finally I cut out sections of the brick wall and added these to the short step using foam pads, then added a selection of diggers etc and a greeting.

Thanks for visiting and happy crafting!

Amanda x

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Winter candle

Hi everyone, Amanda here again, this time to share one of my favourite techniques - decorating a candle by melting a tissue paper design into the surface.  For this project I've used inks and a die, but you can also stamp a design onto the tissue paper.  Once decorated, keep your candle in a cool place, out of direct sunlight.  As well as the kit from the shop, you'll need a plain white candle, white tissue paper, greaseproof paper, and a soft cloth.  I hope you like it!

First I mixed peeled paint and vintage photo distress inks together on a craft sheet and misted with water.  Then I laid some tissue paper in the ink.

Next I put some black soot distress ink on the sheet, misted with water and dragged the still wet tissue paper through it before setting aside to dry.  If you're in a hurry, you can dry it with your heat gun.

I folded the tissue paper in half and die cut 4 double thickness mini pine trees.  I dabbed the trunks onto the vintage photo ink pad, then sprayed with water to blend and let dry.

To make a wintery sun, I dabbed a little spiced marmalade distress ink onto my craft sheet, misted with water and laid more tissue paper in.  Once dry, I die cut a small circle.

Next, I melted the trees and sun onto the candle.  I laid each one in place and smoothed flat, then wrapped tightly with a piece of greaseproof paper.  I gently heated the design with a heat gun until the wax just melted through - you can see when this happens, as the colour of your design shows more brightly through the greaseproof paper, as in the centre of the tree here:

For best results use a new piece of greaseproof paper for each shape, to avoid a build up of wax  that can make the surface lumpy.  Take care not to keep heating once the colour changes, and peel the greaseproof paper away quickly and carefully.  Before the wax hardens again, buff the surface with a soft cloth to smooth it out.

Once all the tissue trees and the sun were melted into place, I applied streaks of chipped sapphire and spiced marmalade distress inks and midnight rendezvous glimmer glaze with a cloth to get a pale wintery sky.  Excess colour can be removed either by polishing with a cloth, or with a little blending solution.  Finally, I added a little frosting on the trees using Stickles diamond and silver glitter glues.

Thanks for reading, and happy crafting!

Amanda

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Swirly embossed bauble

Hi, Amanda here and I'm going to mention the 'C' word! Although I mean to do a little Christmas crafting all year round, I rarely get round to it until September. So today I thought I'd share a fun Christmas project to get me started. I've made a clean and simple card using a Sizzix Framelits set that includes an embossing folder to make a large bauble, and a second folder with matching dies featuring coordinating images and greetings. The bauble is embossed onto card that I coloured using alcohol inks applied with water.

First I put a few drops of botanical and cranberry alchohol ink into a shallow tray of water and blew the water to make some swirls:

Next I carefully laid white card onto the surface of the water, then set aside to dry. Slightly glossy card is ideal for this - I recycled some packaging.

Once dry, I embossed the swirly card with the large bauble design and cut out, positioning the bauble to make best use of the pattern.

I then highlighted the embossing and edges by applying a mixture of gold alcohol mixative and peeled paint distress ink with cut-n-dry foam.

For the greeting I embossed some gold mirror card first with a frame, and then with word 'Joy' before cutting out with the matching frame die. I used a little low-tac masking tape to hold everything in place:

Next I cut panels of green and red scalloped card and a few centimeters of gold thread and got everything together.

The large bauble design features a small bauble in the centre, and the detail embossing folder features a matching bauble. I embossed, cut, and inked this small bauble, curved it a little and added it to the large bauble with a small gold gem.

I fixed the gold thread to the top of a panel of green card, wrapping it around the back for a neat finish, then matted onto the red card, fixed to a DL card blank, and added the greeting, bauble, and a gold bow.

Thanks for visiting, and happy Christmas, er, I mean crafting!

Amanda

InLinkz.com