Cheery Flowerhead Top (by Anne)

Good morning. Today I am sharing a stamped and coloured T shirt top using the gorgeous Flowerhead stamps and alcohol ink pens to colour. I had ruined this top while cooking a curry and couldn’t get rid of tiny yellow stains splashed across the front. Now you would never know that they are there.

I hope that you like this fun project. We need some summery florals to brighten up these darker winter days.

 

Materials:

• Flowerhead stamps (Mesh Centre, Daisy Ring and Dotty Centre), Leaf from Tall Trees stamp set
• Dye based inkpads suitable for fabric (black and dark blue)
• Alcohol ink pens (citrus greens, yellow, pinks, orange, greenish blues and turquoise)

 How to do it:

1. Wash and dry the item thoroughly and do not use conditioner.
2. Place some scrap paper under the shirt to absorb any ink that may bleed through. Stamp the Flowerheads with black ink and the leaves in blue ink.
3. Colour the images with alcohol ink pens. Note: it is not possible to get controlled colouring and blending as the ink instantly sucks into the fabric. I used absorbent cartridge paper underneath to take up the excess ink (keep the stained paper to create backgrounds on your cards – it looks quite pretty). I used the lighter more transparent colours for the main colour fill (so as not to obscure the stamp detail), then added accent shading with the darker colours.
4. Leave overnight for the inks to ‘set’ into the fabric. Iron fix with a dry iron (at the hottest setting that your fabric will tolerate) to make the images and colouring permanent and washable.

Anne x.

Floral Decorated Candles (by Anne)

Morning all. I so love these big floral stamps. This time I have used all six of the fabulous new Flowerhead stamps to jazz up some candles. I hope that you like them.

 

WARNING: The method involves melting the wax with a heat gun to embed stamped tissue paper onto the candle surface. Please take care. Wax is flammable. It may be an idea to have a wet tea towel by your side to smother the candle should a mishap occur and the wax ignites. This has never happened to me yet – but please be vigilant. This is not a project for the children.

I don’t intend to burn these candles but am having them simply as decoration. I have safely burned these in the past without any problem. If you do burn them there is a possibility of the tissue catching fire and acting as a wick. Again, please take care.

I hope I haven’t scared you all! They are really fun to make and look lovely.

Materials:

• Flowerhead stamps (Daisy Centre, Swirl Centre, Mesh Centre, Daisy Ring Centre, Circle Centre and Dotty Centre) and Nature Fragments set
• Inkpads – Dye inks (green, turquoise and purple), Memento (TuxedoBlack)
• White tissue paper and baking parchment
• Alcohol ink pens (lime greens, turquoises, pinks and purples)
• Fine tipped marker (black)

Method:

1. Stamp the flowers onto tissue paper with black ink, colour with alcohol pens and emphasis some of the outlines with fine black marker. Cut out.
2. Stamp the texture stamp using random mix of the coloured dye inks. Tear into small patches.
3. Working with one stamped image at a time, place onto the candle and hold in place using the baking parchment. Grip the parchment so that it sits tightly and smoothly over the stamped image. Heat the stamped area using a heat gun. As soon as you see the wax begin to melt move the gun slowly across the image (in a similar manner to melting embossing powder). Do not keep the heat in one spot for too long. The wax melts almost instantly and the tissue becomes embedded into the surface.

I hope that you all have a great weekend.

Anne x.

A Bunch of Flowers (by Lesley)

Well almost the end of another month and time keeps marching on. Not sure about dark nights and soon to be dark mornings, so to keep us all reminising about summer and lazy lighter days how about a collection of fancy flowerheads to make you smile.

It's new stamp release time and our November stamps are a collection of individual flowers which are cling mounted and already cut out ready for you to play with as soon as they land on your craft table.

The first three are Daisy, Circle and Mesh Centre Flowerhead

and the second three are Daisy Ring, Swirl and Dotty Centre Flowerhead.

Of course you could collect all six in our money saving multi-buy

Each stamp measures approximately 3.5" in diameter so they are a good sized image and will be excellent for anyone who enjoys colouring, decoupage etc.  These will be fab for art journaling and mixed media too.

The Design Team have, once again, come up trumps with some fabulous creations which you will be able to see over the coming month. In the meantime here is a quick piece of artwork from me.

 And here is a close up which shows how much wonderful detail Sue has incorporated in these designs.

Hope you enjoy creating your own bunch of flowers with these fabulous new individual stamps.