Let it burn! Let it burn! Let it burn!

A quick little Festive Friday post from me - the last one before the big day - so I just wanted to show off a a couple of projects I made for the Left of Center Challenge blog. Firstly, here is my festive evil snowman candle - just light it and watch him melt. Mwwah hah haaa.

To make the candle, you're going to need a nice chunky white candle, some white tissue paper, and an image. I used the evil snowman from Delicious Darkness who are sadly closing down (although there is still time to get 50% off all their images before they do).

If you're using a normal rubber stamp, then you would just stamp your image onto the less shiny side of the tissue paper and colour as desired. If you're using a digi stamp or any other printed image, you will need to iron your tissue paper and then tape it, shiny side down, onto some regular printer paper as below. Make sure that there are no bits of tape sticking out - you don't want to jam up your printer.

Colour your image (I used Copic pens) and cut around it. You can leave a small border - it's not a problem.

To fix the image onto the candle use a small amount of glue from a non-toxic glue stick just to hold the image in place, then use a heat gun and gently run it over the image to slightly melt the wax underneath. This will seep through the tissue paper, binding it to the candle. Any of the tissue paper itself, such as the border, will also melt into the candle to become invisible. If you heat too much, the candle will distort, so start gently!

I'm entering the candle into the Altered Eclectics Challenge Blog and the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers for naughty Christmas.

The other project is just a wee card for a friend who always found Santa a little, well, creepy. I used the Skully Santa from Smeared Ink as it was the perfect creepy Santa Claws. I used the music from "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" - he sees when you are sleeping, he know when you're awake. Creepy or what! I hope they like it.

Anyhoos, have a lovely Christmas everyone, and we will be back soon with more weirdness for ya!

Bex

Bad Hair Day Collage and Festive Friday Giveaway

It's another Festive Friday here and another giveaway! The winner of last week's giveaway of the matchbox keepsake box is Carmen. Well done - I will send your prize as soon as possible.

Now, another one for the Left of Center challenge blog now, using the Sadness Walls stamp from Ike's Art. Now, this stamp is fabulous as it is, but especially versatile for the unadorned face. I so wanted to do something art journally with it, but sadly my painting mojo is nowhere to be found this week. However, there is always collage.

No step by step photos this time but I just printed out the face on watercolour paper, fixed the ink with oil pastel fixative spray and coloured with distress inks and a waterbrush (my favourite way) and cut out just the face part. Then out came a handbag sized Marie Claire and I just started placing the head over various pics and cutting out the ones I liked. I decided that she was already having a bad hair day (as she had none!) so it's called it's going to be a bad hair day. Stick the whole lot together with Mod Podge (although be careful as too much will cause the ink on the magazine pages to smear), clean the Mod Podge off your hands, the table and the cat, then you're done. I mounted mine onto a piece of corrugated card which I inked a bit to finish it off. Collage is great if you're not good at drawing, and you can still get creative. Her necklace for example is the roof from a stadium picture! So find a magazine and have fun cutting it up!

Now, my plan was to make a cover for a sketchbook I have from this, but I have misplaced the sketchbook! Still, if I don't find it tomorrow I will get another and add this as the cover and that will be the giveaway. Just leave a comment here or on our facebook group before 12 midnight (GMT) on Wednesday 10 December and I'll pick a winner at random to be announced next Festive Friday.

Until next time have fun and be happy.

Bex

Matchbox Keepsake and a Festive Friday Giveaway

And we're back after our little break with some news. We are now on the design team over at the Left of Center Challenge Blog so we'll be popping by every Friday with something new for them, as well as some of our one off projects. See the end of this post for our new Festive Friday Giveaway.

The first project is a matchbox keepsake box. Now I love my matchboxes and alter them all the time. If someone knows a good use for like a gazillion matches please let me know! Anyway, here's what I did with four of them and an image from A Day For Daisies.

 Looks like a plain old card from the front.

But it's actually a keepsake box that could be filled with treasures.

Really simple to make. Take four matchboxes and line them up like this.

Measure two pieces of card a little bigger than the boxes and glue them to the top and bottom.

Cover the sides of the matchboxes and the front of what will be the drawers with card and add brads to the drawers to act as handles.

Finally, line the drawers and add your chosen decoration to the front, and you're done.

A quick and simple project for these busy times and it would make a nice alternative to Christmas or birthday cards, with the drawers filled with little chocolates pr other little gifts.

I am giving this away to one winner - just leave a comment here or on our facebook group before midnight GMT on Wednesday 3 December  and I will pick a winner at random and send them this box. I made even add a few goodies to the drawers. Winner will be announced next Friday so good luck.

I'm entering this into the following:

Robyn's Fetish Challenge Blog for use a digi

Artistic Inspirations Challenge for warm and cozy/anything goes

Cheers for now and see you soon.

Bex