Welcome to Day 4 of the
Waltzingmouse Stamps November SOAP (Stamp of approval parade), thanks for all the lovely comments yesterday, I really appreciate them. Ok, so today I decided to focus on 'light', I love a warm glow about the house at Christmas, the fire lighting, candles on the mantle, fairy lights on the tree pretty much anything that gives off light. So I decided to make some luminaries.
I included a couple of techniques, some piercing and cutting. When I was a teenager I made these lampshades that had pierced patterns and paper cutting on them, they glowed beautifully. So I looked at some different stamps to see which ones would lend themselves to this technique. On this label from
Seasonal Remedies I pierced all the way around the border and cut sections on both sides of the label (you'll see why once they're lit up).
Here I teamed the star from
Seasons of Love - Tags (this is one of my favorites!) with the Santa silhouette from
Santa's Coming to Town. Again I pierced around the edges of the star and cut sections of the circle.
Lastly I used the ornament from
Santa's Coming to Town and repeated the same steps as with the other two. The luminaries are just a simple cube shape made from white card, the edges are distressed with ink. Each of these images are on two sides of each cube.
For all the other sides I stamped one of the backgrounds from
Pic-Nic Patterns, a perfect pattern for the piercing technique. So, once it got dark I popped in some BATTERY OPERATED TEA LIGHTS!!! (Card and naked flames don't mix!) This is my first time photographing anything in the dark! I tried my best!
I think I'll have these dotted around the house at Christmas, just to add a little glow here and there. I don't have to worry about Isabelle playing with them either since they're just battery operated.
I love how they come to life. The piercing alone gives a nice effect but I love the extra light the cutting reveals.
There are so many possibilities with this technique, next on my list will be
A Cottage Christmas. I can so imagine that little cottage with glowing windows!
On two sides of each of the luminaries as I mentioned before I used
Pic-Nic Patterns, to pierce it all might have been a bit much (not to mention taken forever) so I just picked out some of the dots from the pattern. It turned out really pretty though!
And then I decided to stamp some candles... I've seen this done a few times before and I was a little nervous about trying it but I'm so glad I did. It's easy-peasy!! Get an ordinary candle, stamp label onto tissue paper (I stamped onto the slightly shiny side) I used a brown ink for a softer vintage look. Cut around, leave a bit of a border, position onto candle, take a piece of wax paper (enough to wrap around the entire candle and let you grip it at the back) cover the stamped label, try to make sure it doesn't move,
heat with heat gun, don't over do it! You'll see it changing once it's heated enough, over heat it and you'll have drippy bits! There are a few video tutorials on YouTube.
Here they are lit, I love this technique! I'm so glad my mom brought me home wax paper from her last trip to the States now! I've never seen it here!
Today we invite you to participate in a CASE (Copy and Share Everything) competition. Here’s how it works: Find a card or project from any of the projects posted over the past few days by the WMS Design Team, CASE that project using Waltzingmouse Stamp images, and link it using the Inlinkz on Claire's blog. At the end of the competition, one project will be randomly selected to be highlighted with a Parade of its own on several of the Design Team blogs. We hope you will enjoy this competition and that it will inspire your creativity. You have one week to complete and link your project as the competition will close on November 10th at 8:00 AM which is 3 AM Eastern, 2 AM Central and Midnight, Pacific time. The winner will be announced on Claire's blog on November 11th.
Well, I hope I gave you a few ideas to try! Here are the Design Team members bringing you ideas today!
Anya Schrier
Becca Feeken
Clare Buswell
Julia Aston
Jennifer Holmes
Kate Whelan
Kelly Schirmer
Laurie Schmidlin
Lynn Mercurio
Mona Pendleton
Sandie Dunne
Tosha Leyendekker
Claire Brennan (Owner)