Blue Star Candles

Good morning

Christmas will be here before we know it and this year I am making an early start on my preparations.

I love decorating candles with stamped images and these two were so quick to do.  This stunning stamp is from Stampin' Up.

Adding stamped images to candles is so easy, simply stamp your image onto tissue paper, then, after roughly cutting out the image, place it onto your candle.

Cut a strip of baking parchment to wrap around the candle to hold the tissue in place and to give you something to hold on to.  Use your heat gun to gently melt the skin of the candle and watch the tissue disappear into the molten wax.  Take care not to over heat the wax, you do not want it to run.  The wax will quickly set again once you remove the heat.

I finished these candle by adding some pretty navy blue polka dot ribbon to the top and bottom and holding it in place with small silver pins.

Dionne

Bewitched

In the UK Trick or Treat and Halloween fancy dress is not as popular as it is in other countries but it is slowly catching on.  For the last three or four years I have made Jack O'Lanterns and decorated my home and as darkness falls I eagerly await my young visitors on All Hallows Eve.  Sadly, it seems that most of them have not got the hang of fancy dress, but they are improving.

The current challenge, or should I say challenges, over at Crafty Boots Challenges have been inspired by this time of year, there is a choice of theme, either 'Autumn' or 'Halloween'.

Today I have an Halloween card to share with you.

I  coloured a Prima Doll stamp with Promarkers and I made my own witches hat (between you and me, it looks a little better in real life than it has come out in the photo).  I wanted to make the card all about the witch so I kept the background very plain and mounted it on some rich brown glitter card and added a sentiment and three tiny pumpkins.

The pumpkins are from real plants, I think they are seed pods of an exotic plant, these were a gift from my good friend Lisette, aka Mrs Beez.  They are really amazing but I am afraid I have no idea what they are called.

There is still plenty of time for you to enter your favourite project in the Crafty Boots Challenge.


Dionne

Pink Letter K

Good mornin'

Busy day today but I have just got time for a quick post.

I purchased an 8 inch MDF letter from Barry on ebay.  I gave it a coat of Gesso and, once that was dry, I painted it baby pink using acrylic paint.

I also purchased a bag of mixed pink buttons from ebay and used these to cover the painted letter, just look at the shapes and textures that came in my mixed bag of buttons.  

Finally, once everything was dry I cleaned any excess glue from the surface.  

Dionne

Golden Wedding

Some very dear friends recently celebrated there 50th Wedding Anniversary, by any standards that is an amazing achievement, and to be totally honest they really do not look old enough to have been married so long.

I love this IndigoBlu heart stamp, it embossed really well, lots of very fine detail.  I mounted it on some gold mirri card but I could not find any matching mat gold card, so I created my own with a Promarker.  The glittery organza ribbon came from my stash and I made the sentiment on my computer.

I really am very impressed with this stamp and plan to use it some more, so do not be surprized if you see it again in the near future.

Dionne

It's my Birthday!

Actually, that isn't true, it was my birthday yesterday.  I had a wonderful day with hubby, doing just what I wanted to do - he let me loose in our local craft shop.

I had a couple of really lovely surprizes in the post yesterday, cards from two of my fabulous Crafty Boots team mates.  I was so thrilled and they are so gorgeous I wanted to share them with you.

I decided to post them in the order I opened the envelopes in, so no one can read anything into the order I have put them in.

My first surprize was from the lovely, and seriously good with a Copic pen, Zoe.  Just look at her amazing shading in this card.  I wish I could do that.

Next out of the envelope was a card from my very good friend Lisette, most of you will know her as Mrs Beez, along with her trade mark bee stamps.  Take a look at the fabulous layering here and her eye for detail.

The eagle eyed amongst you would have spotted that I swipped these photos from their blogs, shhh, don't tell them.

My birthday surprizes did not stop with these lovely cards, the postman delivered another treat today, two pots of Cosmic Shimmer glitter paste, thank you so much Mrs Beez.  I am such a lucky girl.

I hope you have a good day.

Dionne

Falling Leaves

Hi

Doesn't time fly?  People are already telling me how many weeks there are until Christmas and the days are noticeably shorter.  The leaves are falling from the trees and before we know it Halloween will be upon us.

It is also time for a new challenge at Crafty Boots Challenges, this challenge celebrates the time of year with a choice of themes.  Your projects can either be inspired by 'Autumn' or 'Halloween'.

I love the changes the trees are going through at the moment with the leaves turning amazing colours and soon the local children will notice all of the seed pods hanging from the Horse Chestnut Trees opposite and they will be doing their best to bring them down so they can play conkers.

It will not surprize you that my Design Team card tries to capture the changing colours of autumn and the falling leaves.

I scribbled all of those autumn colours onto some white card and then stamped it with some of the leaves from a set of leaf stamps that I have had in my stash forever.  I also punched some leaves from the card using a X Cut punch.

I did not have any pumpkin coloured card so I made my own by colouring some more white card with my Promarkers, then I layered up the leaf images.

Finally, I embossed some white card and cut this in two, reversing one section, so that the pattern is in relief.  I used some matching ribbon to cover the join.

Please hop over to the Crafty Boots Challenges blog and see what else the Design Team have made and, where you may notice, that I have also made a Halloween card - which I plan to share with you in a day or two.

Finally, a quick reminder that Crafty Boots Challenges is looking to add two or three new people to it's Design Team.

This is open to anyone and is an exciting opportunity for someone who has never worked on as part of a Challenge Blog Design Team before and wishes to take their crafting to the next level.

If you think this is just what you have been looking for and would like to know more please click here. The deadline for applications is Sunday, 26 October 2014.


Dionne

Altered Notebook

Apologies friends, I am having to repost this because the original post seems to have picked up a virus.  Fingers crossed this is the end of it ......

Yippee, the weekend is almost here.

I thought I should share another of my steampunk projects with you today. The current challenge over at Crafty Boots Challenges is 'Gold' and this altered notebook seemed to be the perfect project.

Regular visitors will know that I recently bought two of the Sizzix layered Bigz dies, the ones with the texture fades embossing folders ... the bee and the dragonfly.

For this project I used the bee die. I started by covering the cover to a small notebook with some thick hammered card which I had painted that with bronze metallic acrylic paint. Once the paint was dry I ran it through a honeycomb embossing folder.

I then painted more sheets of card with different metallic acrylic paints and die cut the cogs and my bee. (You may have noticed that I went back to the bee with my gold paint and picked out his stripes.)   I used two cog dies sets, these were a Robert Addams set and a X Cut set. I also used some very small metal watch parts to add to the cogs and to decorate the bee. I also added a few flat backed gems to the decorations. Finally, I added black ink smudges.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend.



Dionne

The original post received the following comments:

4 comments:

1. 
   Kathie11 October 2014 at 01:53

   Hi Dionne I think your notebook looks totally amazing and I love your colours and embellishments. Sorry for being so dumb but how did you cover it so perfectly over the wire spine as you've made an amazing job??? :-)
   I look forward to hearing from you.
   Hugs
   Kathie
   kathiezkardz.blogspot.com/

   ReplyDelete
   Replies

   
   Dee's Craft Room11 October 2014 at 12:16
   Hi Kathie
   
   Thank you so much for your lovely comments. Yours is a very good questions and perhaps I should go back and put something about it above.
   
   Actually, making the new cover sheet is not quite as difficult as you might imagine, it just takes a little 'crafty' shopping. When you buy your note book you need to buy the sort with gaps in the spiral binding. Then, once you are home, you have to gently pull the spiral apart so that you can slip the cover out.
   
   You can then re-cover the cover with your chosen papers. Before inserting the newly decorated cover back into the notebook you have to make the holes for the wire. (These days I use my Cropadile to do this but, before I bought mine, I used the hole punch from my eyelet set.)  Once the cover is back in place, gently squeeze the wire back together.
   
   I hope this helps and you have fun altering your notebook covers.
   
   Dionne
   Delete
   Reply
2. 
   Lisette Baker12 October 2014 at 08:37

   I think I like this one the best!!! So glad Kathie asked her question as I was wondering about that too (you must have so much patience ) and thought you might have one of those binding machines.

   ReplyDelete
3. 
   Pamellia Johnson13 October 2014 at 12:02

   Wow Dionne, this is fabulous! I think you might have sold me on purchasing that bigz die! Love all the metallics and the honeycomb background! hugs :)

   ReplyDelete