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Showing posts from July, 2017

Mod Podge and Punched Tissue Paper Candle Holders

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This past spring I discovered that you could, in fact, use a paper punch to cut tissue paper. Way back when, I saw a project online using the punched paper, and I was pretty miffed when I couldn't get it to work. But I made a heart shaped bowl with heart shaped paper decoupaged onto it with pretty good success. So, when I found some new paper punches on sale at Tuesday Morning, I knew I had to try it again. Tuesday Morning had a good selection of Martha Stewart punches. Even this big butterfly punch (which makes a 1 1/2 inch butterfly) was only $4.99. What I learned from the last project was that the only way you can get the tissue paper to work with a paper punch is to fold it so you are punching multiple layers at once. How many layers it will punch depends on the punch. So there will be some trial and error. Sometimes it feels like you've folded too much, only to find out that the paper will only punch once you've folded it some more. So, if at first you do

Alcohol Ink and Plastic Wrap Flower Vase

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This is now my third project using plastic wrap to apply alcohol ink to glass. My first attempt was a decorative wine bottle from the dollar store. Then, I applied it to some altar candles to try out a smoother surface. It creates a neat crinkled look, but it takes a bit of fiddling to get the surface completely covered and looking good. Hopefully, I've got the process pretty much down pat because when I saw this perfectly smooth cylinder vase, I totally wanted to plastic wrap it. I grabbed my inks and a craft mat (or two) to get started. Then I tore off a piece of plastic wrap that was a bit bigger than my vase. I've tried a couple brands of plastic wrap and haven't noticed any difference in the result yet. I chose ink colors that were close to each other on the color wheel  so they wouldn't turn brown when they mixed together. I dripped 4 or 5 dots of each color onto an area roughly the size of my vase. Then I set the vase down on the edg

Alcohol Ink Foil Gift Bags

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A while back I decorated some white gift bags with alcohol ink . They turned out pretty fun, so I was on the hunt for gift bags I could decorate. I'm still looking for silver, but sadly all I found were these metallic pink ones (it was probably around Valentine's day that I found them). I wasn't sure how these colors would work out, but I'm always up for alcohol ink experiments! I laid out my craft mat and grabbed some dark colors (like pitch black and indigo ) and my silver alcohol ink. I spread some black on the hot pink bag and used a can of air to blow it around. It didn't soak into the bag quite as much as it did with the white, but it also didn't want to spread much. Since the metallic pink was already pretty showy, I wanted to keep the ink fairly simple. I added some silver and used the can of air to spread it out a bit. For the shiny coral colored bag, I went with indigo instead of black and then added silver to it.

Alcohol Ink Mason Jar

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I had a quart sized mason jar lying around and I figured, hey, I haven't inked a mason jar yet (unless you count the slightly ill-fated attempt with food coloring and mod podge )...and that's good enough reason for me to give it a whirl. I grabbed my craft mat , some alcohol inks , and a can of air to start off the project. I chose mostly blue-green inks to cover the majority of the jar. I have quite a few shades of teal and aqua so I knew I could get some variation without having the colors mix and turn brown. I started out by just squeezing a fair bit of ink into the jar and then blowing the canned air on it to get it to spread and dry more quickly. I kept adding different shades of green and blue and spraying them with the canned air until the jar was mostly covered. Then I flipped it over to make sure that the ink wasn't settling at the bottom and left it for a few minutes. I opted for my accent color to be a purple-y shade of pink. The

Stars and Stripes Craft Collection

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Happy Independence Day to all of my American readers! Have a fantastic 4th of July and Check out my Stars and Stripes Craft Tutorial Collection .