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.

#Cre8time Dream Star and chalk paint

Good moring crafties!

I'm so excited to share my post and I hope you enjoy reading all about it my off the cuff project.

I've seen these 3d stars everywhere and have always wanted to make some, 

but for whatever reason haven't attempted it until NOW!

I've been stalking pintrest like crazy lately and found some tutorials on how to make them.  

Well duh, how easy peasy.  So let's get started 

Using my cricut of course I cut 2 stars 6 x 6 from some thin chipboard.

If you don't have a cutting machine of any kind you can cut them by hand, 

just make sure they are identical cuts.

Then using my scoreboard I scored lines from point to end all the way around the star.

Now you want those valleys and peaks, so fold alternating.

Do that to both stars.

Now I glued them together with hot glue.  

That seemed to be the best solution.

I just added hot glue to a point and ran a bead down and mashed the star together.

It's a bit tricky, but you can do it!  Just be careful because they don't call it hot glue for nothing!

Now I did want my star to look distressed so I added some petroleum jelly 

to the tops so that the paint wouldn't stick to the entire star.

Now while I was on pintrest I also found a recipe for making my own chalkpaint.  

I used 2 ounces of unsanded grout, some acrylic paint and HOT water to give it a smoothness.

and started to paint.  

While it took to the chipboard I wondered if I should have gessoed it!

So I did the other side.

and then painted it.

gessoed

natural chipboard.

I did sand both sides a little with an emery board.  Chalkpaint is a bit unusual.

But, I like them both!

I did wind up using the natural side for my piece.

Then I added a bit of stencil cream in brown and green to give it an aged patina look.

I used the same chalkpaint on a small canvas piece, 

stenciled some green around, rubbed brown around the edges.

I cut the word Dream with my cricut from vinyl and dug in my never ending box of resin pieces 

(made with my Amazing Casting Products)

to find this elephant and fleur de lis, just because, and glued them to the outer edges.

Doesn't this star look fabulous?

The chalkpaint did flake a little while I was sanding it,

but I love the look of vintage, shabby chic that it gives it.

And now it sits proudly on my headboard!

Whew, that was a lot for one post, but I'm over the top thrilled with my newest project.

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have and would love to hear your thoughts!  Leave me a comment and let me know what you would dream up if you could craft anything in the world.

As always, have a great day and God Bless.

#Cre8time meets Steampunk meets Refrigerator Magnet

Good morning friends,

I got super excited about a stamp I recently purchased at a Dollar Store of sorts.  It's really not a dollar store per say as their prices range from $1 to multiple dollars, but let's call it a discount store.  They sell everything from toys to laundry soap.  You never know what you will find.  Well, we used to have this chain in our town, but it didn't last.  Not sure why it didn't last cuz I thought I kept them in business!  LOL  Now, my job has me traveling a bit more and I found this chain in one of the small towns I have to go to once a month.  YEAH me!!!  During one of my last visits I found this awesome steampunk stamp set.

It's got awesome gears and a bike and a lightbulb and oh, just lots of fun things!

And the best part?  It only cost $2.  Yeah, me again!

So I stamped the image on a piece of paper and colored some of the sections. 

Now, while I really liked this, I love mixed media projects and wanted to run with some 3d images.

So...

out comes my Amazing Mold Putty and that gear stamp.

I molded it

and colored them with my Amazing Alumidusts.

Poured my Amazing Casting Resin (I have a few gear molds, lol)

and here are my gears.!!!  LOVE> LOVE

Then using an ordinary pair of scissors I cut my gears apart

(because I wasn't using them all in that way)

and glued them over the stamped image plus others.  I added a couple of hearts, an elephant (my favorite), a bent paper clip that I shaped into a heart, some scribbles around the frame and I added some more gears and rhinestones to the frame.

Now I have an amazing refrigerator magnet.  

Sometimes even I Amaze myself.

I hope you liked my little #cre8time fun and look forward to your comments.

As always, have a great day and God Bless!