Candle Making

One good thing about a snow day is that I get to stay home and stamp! One thing I love to do with my stamping is to create beautiful candles. When Susana's Design Team started doing tutorials for the store's blog, Follow Your Heart, I knew what I wanted to do mine on! When I saw these lovely candles on other people's sites and blogs, I was intimidated about doing them. Jacqui from the PCP Whiff of Joy group put up a tutorial that made it look so easy, I had to try it for myself. It was so much easier than it looked and I fell in love with my new technique. I want everyone to try them! They're so much fun and who doesn't love candles?



The supplies I used were:
White Pillar Candle
White Tissue paper (like what you wrap shirts or blouses inside boxes in)
Stamp
Ink
Color Medium (I used copics and Prismacolor markers)
scissors
Cut-Rite or kitchen wax paper
Embossing or Heating Tool
Embellishments like ribbon, Shimmerz, Stickles, Glitter Hearts, Bella Baubles, whatever you want to decorate your candle with.



1. Stamp your image onto the tissue paper and color with your favorite medium. Make sure that you have something behind your image because your inks will bleed through a bit.



2. Cut the excess tissue paper off. You don't have to trim it just to the outline because the tissue paper will blend into the candle with heating.



3. Center and place your colored image on your candle.



4. Place your wax paper for your image and pull it tight so that the entire image is flat against the candle.



5. Using your embossing tool, heat over your stamped image. Just like heat embossing, you'll be able to see the image as it melts into the candle. That's just so cool! After you've heated the entire image, carefully pull the wax paper off.



6. Here's what your candle looks like before you've added some finishing touches to it.



I colored her with some Pink Poinsettia Shimmerz, added some stickles, a glitter dot, Bella Baubles and some ribbon. I think she's just adorable!



I hope you will give it a try! You can made any type of candles you want for any occasion. Add whatever embellishments you'd like and make it your own. Personalize it. Everyone loves something that was made just for them.

Give it a try! After you do, leave us a link of direct us to where you've posted your candle. We'd love to see your work!

Candle Ingredients: Hearts and Hugs, Ruby Slippers, Tiara, and Grape Stickles, Pink Poinsettia Shimmers, Glitter Hearts, Bella Baubles, Ribbon, Pillar Candle, Rite-Cut Wax Paper, scissors, glue.

Sweet Peas all in a box

Sweet Peas are so beautiful and delicate but they are one hearty flower. Any flower that can hold up through me has all my respect! Sweet Peas have that beautiful pink, yellow and beautiful light green color that is so refreshing and renewing. They hold up under the full sun and only require some water and love. My mom has sweet peas growing along the side of her house and they're one of the few flowers I've been able to grow outside. Those and inpatients. I'll take what I can get in the gardening department!

Even though she's off at CHA, Suzanne tasked us with using a new Lockhart stamp to create some type of a wrapper, box, bag, anything you'd put something in. When I saw this adorable stamp in Karen Lockhart's new collection in Susana's shop at Susana's Custom Art and Card Design, I wanted it bad! Then I saw the Peapod of Hearts, I thought they'd make a perfect match for a container for Valentine's Day. You can put candy, a stuffed animal, or even a container of Sweet Peas in it. I received a box from Jamie on another group I'm in and I adored it! Thanks, Jamie, for the perfect Valentine's Day container!


I love the paper and the Oyster Bella Baubles. It seems I use them on everything! Can't get enough of the pearls! I colored them with copics and put some Shimmerz on the flowers and used Glossy Accent to make the vase stand out.

I wish everyone something wonderful and pink for Valentine's Day! Make sure you take a look at the other Design Team member's projects at Follow Your Heart!

Card Recipe, Sweet Peas and Peapod of Hearts by Lockhart Stamp Company, Bella Baubles in Oyster, Pixie Dust Shimmerz, Glossy Accents, nestabilities, copics, Crop-a-dile, ribbon, My Minds Eye Valetine Collection paper.

Hoo loves you?

I love Valentine's Day, digi stamps, and Basic Grey Papers. The combination of the three together just puts me in stamping heaven! I had a little bit of time last week so I visited the Basic Grey Challenge blog and found the cutest digi stamps that were to be used in their challenge and went to town. I got the card done, but was having so many problems with losing my internet signal and connection that I missed joining the challenge. I asked Kim, who designed the digi images for the challenge if she minded if I still posted the card using her images and she said sure! She was so great about it and I think all of you should visit her blog. She's got fabulous cards and is going to be doing some of her own digi stamps for sale! I'll be there to help start her on her adventure!

When I saw this beauty, I knew I wanted to use my Basic Grey Bittersweet paper and the sketch is from i{heart}2stamp. I loved this sketch and plan on using it tons more! I love the sweetness of her and the dreamy look she has on her face. I remember sitting with Tiffany and Nichole while they were doing the valentines and making sure that no one in the class was missed. The far off distant look in her eyes reminds me of Tiffany trying to decide which boy would get the best valentine out of her pack. And then there was the year that Nichole decided not to give any of the boys in her class a valentine at all. That was until her dad conviced her that she needed to be nice to the boys because they always brought the best chocolate! She gave them valentines, but reluctantly! Always the rebel, my baby girl was!

I hope you enjoy her because she was such fun making!

Card Ingredients: Valentine digi stamps from Kim, Sentiment by H&M Stamps, Bittersweet paper by Basic Grey, Ribbon by Basic Grey, nestabilities, copics, spica glitter pen, Distressed Inks, beads from Joann's