Candle Stamping

Hi crafters its Naomi here with a fun project for you all to try - Candle Stamping.

You will not believe how easy this is to do and I guarantee once you start you will become addicted and you will have gorgeous stamped candles all over the house.

Products I have used to create my candles are:

Church candle 

Waxed lunch wrap 

tissue paper

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints

JOFY and Eclectica stamps

Archival Jet Black ink

Step 1. Take an image and stamp it on to a piece of tissue paper with archival ink. (I have used Eclectica EM05)

Step 2. Turn image over and colour with paints.

Step 3. Carefully tear around your image leaving a small border. I find tearing gives a much nicer result as the edges blend into the wax better and don't leave any defined edges.

Step 4. Tear a piece of waxed paper long enough to wrap around the candle and hold onto so you can heat the candle without burning yourself. Place your image paint side to the candle and tightly wrap the waxed paper around the candle.

Step 5. Using your heat gun gently heat the wax using a circular motion so you aren't concentrating the heat on one area causing the wax to melt unevenly. You will start to see the image embedding into the wax and start to go shiny, once the whole image is shiny and there is a small film of wax on the outside of the paper the image is now transferred to the candle, don't continue to apply heat as you will end up with an uneven surface on your candle.

Step 6. Carefully remove the wax wrap and your candle is complete.

Here are a couple of other candles I have made using some of my favourite JOFY stamps.

I added some washi tape to the bottom of this one to give it a little lift, you could also add some ribbon or twine.

I hope you like this tutorial and would love to see some of your stamped candles so leave a link in the comments so I can come and cheek out your work.

Naomi 

New Goodies, New Workshops .....

Woo Hoo - it's Friday

Just ....

I'm up late (or early, depending on which way you look at it) - as always, things are a bit crazy in our household !

We've spent the last week organising the shipping of our old NZ life over to Aus - we are going to be reunited with stuff we haven't seen in 12 years ! It'll be a bit like Christmas I reckon !! Can't wait for it all to arrive.

Angus has been there for the last week and I am off later today (well, midnight actually) for the weekend to tie up the loose ends and catch up with family and friends. It'll be a busy weekend that's for sure.

While all that has been going on, Olivia has been beavering away ordering in new stock and we have some awesome new stuff coming in almost on a daily basis at the moment.

I'm just looking at some of it now .....

 More yummy stencils - such a must have for us all - can't get enough of them .....

and some other interesting bits and pieces as well with more coming in tomorrow !! Lovely, lovely. Can't wait to get back from my little trip and have a go with some of it.

And we have some exciting news coming in the next week ... just a hint .. it starts with G - and that's all I'm going to say about that. But if someone wants to email us at customerservice@crafterscupboard.com.au with their guess on the magic word, there just might be a prize or two for the right answers !!!

It's the Sunday group of Art Journaling Basics next weekend so I'll be making sure they get to play with some of the new goodies. Check out our website for the details !!

And speaking of  ART JOURNAL BASICS ...............

We've  organised another Art Journal Basics Course which will run on Saturdays commencing in July. Check out the website for more details. We have a waiting list for the Saturday classes, so be in quick if you are interested.

This is very much an introductory course for those who have yet to start their Art Journal Journey and you will learn lots of techniques using various products. We cover off the theory of Colour, Creating layers using various mediums and tools, Collage, Doodling, Faces and much more. So .. come and give it a go. The class maximum is 8 - we find smaller groups benefit from the extra attention from the tutor. Our current participants in our Sunday group are having a great time and loving every minute of it. Here's some of the feedback:

' It's wonderful - I go home with my head buzzing' - Danni

'Really good, love it. Can't wait for the next class' - Irene

'Thank you for the class on Sunday. Both myself & Julie really enjoyed it' - Bri

The Basics course gives you the tools, skills and experience to prepare you for moving on to more advanced workshops in the future. If you've thought you wanted to try Art Journaling, give it a go ... you won't look back !!

And that's all from me for now

Have a great long weekend everyone, catch you next week.....

Jennifer

And then there were Demos

Hello Everyone - Jennifer here with the final post on our big day with Paper Artsy.

The afternoon and evening demo sessions flowed on from each other and from the class earlier in the day. Everyone gathered around in chairs and watched Leandra demonstrate lots of her techniques including brayering and the use of foam to get the paint down, along with creating backgrounds using some of the new recent stamp releases. Here are some examples - the pink background piece looked very reminiscent of basic grey and gave everyone ideas on how to make their own backgrounds for so many things.

 Leandra also showed us how she stamps onto a background and then uses the Fresco Paints to achieve a water colour effect in colouring the stamps. Below are two examples of where she has used Lyn Perrella stamps and the paints to give added depth and layers to the stamped images. It was fascinating to watch and we all learnt a huge amount from her.

 She was great at taking questions from the floor and also demoing anything that anyone requested or needed clarification on. There were some clear followers of her You Tube videos on the room !

And of course, after you've made a mess with paints, stamps, Treasure Gold, Stencils, Inks etc etc, some one has to clean up the mess !! Here's Leandra at my kitchen sink doing the honours !

and last but not least, a photo of us both together.

It was a quick visit, minimal planning, but so apreciated by both the Crafters Cupboard team and all our customers who were able to get at short notice on a working day. Next time we'll give you more notice - promise !!

Thanks again to Leandra and Mark for taking the time to detour through Melbourne and spend some valuable time with us all.


Jennifer

The Class with Leandra - Part 2

Hi there -

Me again, with the second part of the class with Leandra - sorry it''s taken me a few days to get back to this - needed to track down a photo ! Long story ..

So, after everyone had completed their background peices using both brayers and cut n dry foam with lots of paint etc, we moved to working on our 'Finnabair inspired' peices which we had started at the beginning of the class.

By this time, they were completely dry and ready for the first coats of paint. One peice had a coat of Nougat while the other piece had a coat of a dark Opaque colour (or colours). Try mixing Claret and French Roast together - they create the most gorgeous deep mahoganay colour which reminds me of the inside of a beautiful and expensive chocolate. Our boards had to have a couple of coats of paint to make sure all the white bits were coloured up.

Then came the fun part ... finishing them off! These photos are Jennifer's large board which she had prepped the night before. Leandra finished it off, colouring the metal heart with a translucent paint and highlighting the various embellishments with another paint to provide awesome contrast to the background of the claret and french roast base coat. And last but not least, Treasure Gold for highlights.

Aren't those large resin roses just gorgeous ! We are on the case to track some down !! You will recognise a lot of what is on here as we stock it at Crafters Cupboard in our embellishment section on the website.

Leandra then demo'd a great colouring technique with her large board that she had prepped the night before with Nougat. She sprayed water in areas to be highlighted, the dabbed French Roast in with a paintbrush and used a baby wipe to dab off the excess paint. This gave a great grungy feel to the canvas board piece and this technique can be used with anything to get the look. Remember the Fresco paints are able to be used indoors and outdoors, being UV resistant and permanent so you could use the paints and this technique to decorate anything, be it for indoors or outside.

Here is a pic of Jennifer's little board using this technique

And here is Leandra's small board using dark opaque colours with highlights, including Treasure Gold to finish off (sorry can't remember the exact colours that she used). You can see the impact of the Treasure Gold over the paint on the various embellishments - looks awesome

And here is Leandra's finished large board. What a great colour scheme !

Next time we'll cover off the demos which were held in the afternoon

Cheers everyone,

Olivia

The Class with Leandra - Part 1

Here I am back again with the second in the series of posts in our Paper Artsy Day wrap up.

We started off with the 10.00 am class. Everyone arrived early - and just as well, as Leandra had them all working by ten o'clock on two pieces of work, both inspired by 'Finnabair'.  You could have heard a pin drop in the room, as everyone selected their pieces and carefully put them in place on a both a flat board and a small substrate. Lots of heavy gel medium and then the works were put to one side to dry, while the next activity was rolled out.

 For this one, everyone got the chance to play with the new Ellen Vargo stamps along with lots of paint and some of the new Archival Ink colours from Ranger (created by Wendy Vechi) which are fabulous for creating awesome backgrounds that can be used for art journal pages, cards, scrapbooking or anything else your imagination might come up with !

Leandra demonstrated the techniques to pull together a painted backgound, which involved using paint and lots of brayering, colour washing and stamping with both ink and paint to create the background.

She cut up one of her pieces to show what could be done with the background pieces & demonstrated using a Lynne Perrella stamp which she painted with a couple of clever little tricks along the way to really make the face pop within the stamp she used - a great technique which can be used in the background of any stamp where you want to make the focal point stand out.

Then another background with different techniques, with cut and dry foam as the applicator.

Everyone then created their own backgrounds using the techniques, under the watchful eye of Leandra with some really good results and a lot of happy faces !

We'll be back tomorrow to show you how the canvas boards and substrates worked out !!

Cheers everyone,

Olivia

It's a wrap - Paper Artsy at Crafters Cupboard

Hello to all our Blog Peeps

What a busy, busy time we have been having at the Cupboard ! Four days after the Pakenham Show, there we were out at the airport early doors to pick up Leandra and Mark from their long flight from the UK. They arrived safe and sound but no time to waste.

We were soon putting together the Kits for the class on Friday morning,

as well as doing last minute pricing and stacking of new products which had just arrived, making sure we had a good selection of goodies for shoppers and samples on show, some of which Leandra had brought out with her.

and doing all those last minute things that had to be done for our big day on Friday. A big thank you to Lynne for the help with kit prep and setup.



And then it was here - our super awesome day with Paper Artsy !

More to follow tomorrow !!

Bye for now

Olivia

Pakenham Show Wrap Up AND GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER

Hello to all our lovely followers

What a great show the Pakenham Show was for Crafters Cupboard ! For those who don't know, it's one of the Picture to Page Shows which run in Melbourne as well as the regional areas of Victoria each year. Last year, the Pakenham Show was held in July. We were newbies to the craft scene here in Melbourne and our business had just 'floated'. We met lots of wonderful people and it proved to be a good launch pad for us, so of course, we were there again this year. What was great was so many people who came looking for us in the same spot, and they weren't disappointed. Our stock as really grown in the 10 months we have been going - Olivia told me the other day that we now have in excess of 5,000 items on our web site !! Wow !!

Well, needless to say, we had a great time at Pakenham - a big thankyou to Shirley from Picture to Page for all her hard work, a big thankyou to all our loyal customers and supporters and of course, thanks to all the team from Crafters Cupboard. Prepping for a show is a lot of work, as is the 'mop up' afterwards. And finally - a huge thankyou to those wonderful customers and tutors who helped with producing the great display of art work that we had - the Journal pages, Canvas works, Cards, Scrapbook pages /canvas's and all the altered art /mixed media samples were great to see and so much appreciated by both the team and the customers - we got lots of super comments about the work on display.

Here's a photo of the stand - well, one corner of it !

And here's another two ...

Now - onto the next big thing............



PAPER ARTSY  are coming to town - THIS WEEK.

We are SO EXCITED to be having Leandra (aka Mrs Paper Artsy) here at Crafters Cupboard demonstrating this Friday.

Lucky for some - they got in quick and are enrolled in her class which is in the morning !! Sorry, all places are now filled.

But don't despair, you can still come along between 3.00 and 5.00 pm or between 6.00 and 8.00 pm to see her Demo - and she is an awesome demonstrator. Some people are coming at 3.00 and they've booked for both !! How good is that.

These demos are Walk In so if you think you are running late, no problem, just come when you can.

So if you've not done so already, get onto our website here under the Classes and Workshops tab on the home page and book a slot (or both slots) to make the most of Leandra's visit. She is only here on the Friday and this offer won't be extended or repeated in a long time so do your best to make it if you can!! We are looking forward to seeing you all. Once you have booked, you will get a confirmation email with details and remember, it's totally FREE to ATTEND !!

And ... if you think we sold all our stock at Pakenham, think again - more has arrived today so we will have good supplies of all the goodies that Leandra is going to be demonstrating. I've seen a sneak peak of what she is doing .. awesome stuff !!

See you all soon - so looking forward to a great day on Friday, so don't miss out.

Cheers everyone,

Jennifer