STAMPING ON A CANDLE

This is a long-term Gunnadoo that I have finally actually done!!!  For years I've been reading about stamping onto candles but never quite got around to trying it out .  Basically you stamp onto white tissue paper, then apply it to a candle by holding it in place and heating gently with a craft heat gun (whilst avoiding third degree burns to the fingers) until it fuses with the candle. 

This illustrates why the Papertrek blog is good for me - having decided to do a different thing every week means raiding the dark recesses of the brain for new/old ideas, and not just repeating the same old same old.  (Having said that, even after doing the blog for over two years now, I still haven't quite mastered putting the photos where I want them to be on the page, so apologies for the layout - I must add learning to do this properly to my "Gunnadoo" list!!).

Anyway....back to craft.......Before trying this technique I suspected that the end result would look like a candle with a dodgy piece of stamped tissue paper stuck to it.  The good news is that I was wrong.  Even although I used a piece of tissue paper that came inside the box with my latest pair of shoes, and some very cheap dye ink, the results were great - you couldn't really see the tissue at all, and the image was soft but distinct.

CLOSE-UP OF STAMPED TISSUE PAPER ON CANDLE

This was the point when I became overconfident and tried a huge red stamped rose on a big blue candle......well, the colours worked OK.  I thought the ink might be translucent and that I would end up with a purple rose, but that didn't happen.  Even the white tissue blended OK with the blue candle.  What did happen was that with my handheld craft heat gun I was unable to apply an even amount of heat all over the paper so that some pieces failed to blend in with the candles and others sank in.  Also where the wax was overheated and slightly melted its colour changed to a lighter blue.  As you can see from the photo, the result was "ordinary" to put it mildly.

 

WHAT NOT TO DO

STAMPED CANDLE

I guess what I've learned is that small motifs on white candles are easiest to apply, and that if you were, say, intending to do 50 large candles for wedding tables, I'd buy a few more than needed, spend some time practising, and have a few spares as well!!

I haven't burnt the candle to see whether or not there are any implications when the level of the paper is reached.  I don't anticipate any dramas but wouldn't leave them unattended until I definitely knew the paper wasn't going to burn!!!  (Another little something to try before you use them at a social occasion!).

WOODEN BOX WITH PAPER FEATURES

AUTUMN LEAF BOX

Marvin has been making some more boxes.  This one has a patterned paper (Autumn leaves) inset on the top, which was varnished afterwards.  A hole was made in the side of the box with a Forstener drill bit and the same paper was glued underneath a glass cabochon as a feature.
My contribution (and hence why I include it on my blog even if it is cheating a bit....well a lot) was to line the box with suede paper.
To my mind paper and wood are natural companions so I'll be exploring the combination more this year.

PAPER COVERED BOXES

BOX WITH EMBOSSED PAPER AND PAINTED EDGES

BOX WITH HANDMADE PAPER WITH LEAVES AND FIBRE

 Marvin has been out in the shed making me some MDF boxes so I can experiment with different finishes.  I'm not totally happy with any of these examples but I have learnt quite a bit along the way, and they aren't so bad that they can't be used.

The first box was edged with gold paint and covered with a highly embossed paper. I used doublesided Jac paper to stick the paper, which worked really well.  The only issue was that as the paper was quite highly raised, it didn't sit nicely on the bits where it joined the wood.  A lot of sanding with an emery board and retouching helped a lot but I think gorgeous as this paper is, I'll use a flatter one in the future.

The second box was a real surprise.  I had some small squares of  different coloured handmade papers with leaves and fibre that were not big enough to cover any of the panels.  I didn't think obvious joins would look good so I ripped it into small pieces (with hindsight not the easiest thing to do to paper with so many "solids"), and stuck them to the box with Mod Podge, each slightlty overlapping the other.  The "surprise" element was that whilst the coloured papers covered the surface, the the white paper disappeared completely once the glue was applied, so that the "raw" box was visible with the leaves etc appearing to sit directly on the surface.  It added a really interesting element.  I finished off with about three coats of Mod Podge.  I hadn't really factored "disappearing paper" into my plans but will now test all papers if I'm gluing them on to a particular surface.  If I can find enough of the paper I might have another go at this one as it has potential.

The third box is painted, and decorated with a Kaiser wooden flourish.  The "paper" bit of this one is the lining - simply suede paper applied to very thick card and cut to a very snug fit so glue is unnecessary. I did this in case the lining needs to be replaced at some stage.  (Its not sitting quite straight in the photo but it just needs a little push on the front edge to fix it).  The edge of the cardboard looked surprisingly brown (I just used packing board) so I ran around the edge with a marker (permanant) in a green to match the box.

PAINTED BOX

SUEDE PAPER BOX LINING.

FRAMED WALLPAPER

FRAMED WALLPAPER

A visitor asked me why I had a frame with nothing in it when she saw this picture on my wall.  Had she been wearing her glasses, she would have seen these samples of gorgeous vintage white wallpaper which have pride of place at the top of the stairs.

TEALIGHT CANDLE HOLDER

TEALIGHT CANDLE HOLDER

We've been playing with our new(ish) forstner drill bits.  Marvin (the pseudonym preferred by my husband for the purposes of this blog....."dreadful, isn't it") made this tealight holder with cut-outs for the candles and for glass cabochons  We put some lovely blue-green paper with silver detail underneath the glass.  The photos don't really do it justice but the metallic pattern glints beautifully when the candles are lit.

DISPLAYING ORIGAMI

ADD TO AN EXISTING DISPLAY

 You have probably gathered that I really like paper.  I find folding it to be a very relaxing thing to do, and I love the tactile aspect of many papers.  The problem (such as it is) is what to do with the end results as (much like this blog) its the doing rather than the end product that is the main attraction for me.

I rescued the dictionary from which these examples are made from the bin at work, and rather liked them, so I'm putting my mind to thinking about how to display little bits of origami around the house in such a way that it doesn't look like a tip.

DECORATE YOUR POTPLANTS

Here are a couple of ideas .


The motif is made from interlocked waterbomb bases with a split pin in the middle.

The butterfly is the Yoshizawa butterfly.  You'll find lots of instructions on-line if you want to make your own.