Candle ambiance

Good afternoon crafty people,

Today I want to show you a quick tutorial of how I created a candle from a upcycled jar!

If you remember about a month-and-a-half I was a participant in a blog hop for stencil girl.  I created an awesome elephant Mosaic in blacks and purples! (You can see the full tutorial here)  

After it had been sitting on my end table for a while I thought it might need some ambiance with it so I created this!

I started with a plain jar that hubby threw the lid away for (always upcycling) and mod podge and food coloring! Just pour some mod podge and a few drops of food coloring into the jar and swirl it around! Turn it upside down on some newspaper and after it dries put it in the oven for about 30 minutes at 225 degrees!

Now I really do like the look of the clear glass but I was going for another look.

After pulling it out of the oven I let it sit for a while and then I took a spray bottle filled with water and my looking glass spray paint and spritzed the jar with the water and then spritzed some of the glass paint. I also just ran my fingernails across the jar while it was still somewhat wet to give it some openings. And this is what you get!

After it completely dried I plopped a candle inside the jar and set it next to my mosaic for a nice glow!

Pretty awesome, right?  I hope you've enjoyed my quick tutorial and please leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to keep following my blog for future tutorials!

Have a great day - Brenda

Elephant Mosaic

Welcome to our Stencil Girl's Bloghop.  I'm super excited to share a fun project with you today, but first a little backstory about myself before we get into the tutorial.  My name is Brenda and I've been with Amazing Casting Products since the beginning and I've enjoyed every minute of it.  My blog is Creativity is a State of Mind because I believe each one of us has a different view on artistic talent.  I've definitely come a long way since working with this Amazing team.  Also working with these products has taught me so much and I've enjoyed learning new techniques.  Therefore, whenever we can partner up with another designer or design team, I look forward to expanding my horizons.  

Since I've been on the design team for so long, I've accumulated ALOT of pieces.

Anytime I'm making a project I wind up with more and more resin pieces.  Some finished, some not.  And this is how my project was born ...

I started out with a foam core piece that I cut to 10 x 10 and I painted green with acrylic paint.  Next I took my Stencil Girl Elephant Parade (which by the way is my obsession)

 

and traced the elephant with a pencil after the paint was dry.

It doesn't have to be perfect because I'm only using it as a guide.

Next I got out my box of resin pieces and began laying them inside the elephant outline.  It was kinda like putting a puzzle together.  Absolutely every one of these pieces has a story for me.

Here are a few pictures of some of the pieces I used with their molds.  (I've made ALOT of molds :)  The Amazing Mold Putty is still by far my favorite product.  I love duplicating little charms and such that I find while antiquing or junking because I don't want to use the original piece.  Especially in a project like this one.

Some butterfly charms

A Fleur De Lis I found in a box I bought at an antique shop.

The Fleur de Lis that I embedded into an 

Amazing Clear Cast Resin bezel.

Some leaves that were molded from a broach that I got

in a jewelry lot at an auction.

Branches that were hair barrettes to start out.

I just have tons and tons of molds...

After I had all my pieces laid out the way I like it, I glued them down.  After they were all securely adhered I took the piece outside and spray painted it black.

I didn't let it dry completely though.  

In fact, I took a hairdryer and gave it a 3 minute blast on the cool setting.

Stencil Girl's Ornamental Compass Screen was my next addition to this piece.  

I dry-brushed it with purple metallic acrylic paint around the edges of the corners.

While that was drying I also used the same acrylic paint and dry-brushed the 

elephant mosaic-ed pieces to give them some dimension also.

In my box of pieces I also found some roses I made a long time ago with the Amazing Clear Cast Resin.  I absolutely love how they looked like glass, but I did  want to give them a bit of dimension also.  I dry-brushed a bit of black and the purple metallic around the edges.  Just enough so that you can still see their clearness, but also some definition.  

After everything dried a little, I  saturated the entire piece with the Amazing Clear Cast Resin.  Not only does this give it a nice GLASS touch when it's cured, but it will also keep everything  in place.  But now here comes the magic.

I took a toothpick and ran it around the edges of the elephant outline while the clear cast resin was still wet and also within the stenciled area to "scrape off" some of the black and purple to expose some of the green base.  It gave is just enough color to make it pop.

After letting it cure for 24 hours I was able to display it in my elephant collection.  Now, the best part of this is it's weight.  If you would have used this many heavy trinkets, your piece would have been very heavy.  The Amazing Casting Resin is so super lightweight. 

This by far is one of my favorite projects up til now.

I totally love how this turned out and I hope you have found my tutorial useful.

Now for the bonus fun stuff.  There is a giveaway involved...

One lucky winner will receive both a $25 Gift Certificate to StencilGirl Products

AND a $25 Gift Certificate to Amazing Casting Products!

Visit the fabulous designers from both teams and comment for your

chance to win!

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN!

(One comment per blog please.)

You have until Sunday, April 23rd at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments.

Winner will be announced on

StencilGirl's Facebook page and Amazing Casting Products’s Facebook page

on Monday, April 24th.

So thank you for coming and hopping along with us today and be sure to leave a comment so you get entered in the giveaway.  Until next time, happy crafting.

Lasting Memories #46 "Try your Hand @ Mosaic"

Good Morning and welcome to another Lasting Memories submission. 


Now I've been having so much fun creating layout for Lasting Memories.  All the girls over there are such an inspiration and so sweet and Karen makes us work so hard...I am just kidding!!!.  It's been great to "think" outside my box and come up with new ways of scrapbooking.  Now if I could only get the hang of using pattern paper.  I am so glad to be designing over there and hope that I have given some of you some inspiration.  This week's challenge was "Try Your Hand @ Mosaic"  WOW!!!  I actually learned a technique using this idea a long time ago and had to go back to my archives and find out how it was done so let's get started...

Take a picture and flip it over.  Now draw your grid ...  you can use whatever size you want.  As you can see by my picture it isn't even.  I made the outside squares a bit smaller and actually made them rectangles.  Once you have your grid laid out, number each square and then cut them out.  The reason for numbering them is so you don't have to try to PUZZLE the picture back together as a precaution if when you flip your picture over again you don't loose your space.  I actually just pick up each piece, dab some glue on it and place it on my mat that I cut just a bit larger than the picture itself.  

There was a bit of dead space, (that's what I call it when it's really not needed in the picture) so I added a small picture of my son with the bubble wand.  You can't really tell it's not supposed to be there unless you look really hard.  This was super fun to make and I hope I've inspired you to try some mosaics on your layouts.  It gives your pictures some new dimension and adds a lot to a layout I think.  Be sure to head on over to Lasting Memories and link up your layout with a mosaic look.