Stamped Christmas Gifts

This month's challenge for the Serendipity Stamps is to create either a gift or an ornament using Stamps from Serendipity.

I decided I'd like to create a set of candles. Have you ever made stamped candles? These are really fun to do and fast to make. Here is how I did it:
Supplies needed:

Stamps: Serendipity Stamps #1196G Snowflake Flourish Lg and #1197B Snowflake Flourish Sm.
Ink: ColorBox Cyan (Blue) and Clear Embossing Powder
Paper: Tissue paper (kind of tissue paper you use to line gift bags with)and waxed paper
Accessories: Any size or shape of candles to fit your image

Process: I stamped my snowflake stamps numerous times on a piece of tissue paper with ColorBox pigment ink and then used clear embossing powder to set the ink. Cut the snowflakes out close to the image. A little border is fine and won't show when you are finished but do try to keep it cut as close as you comfortably can. Next place the stamped tissue paper image on the candle in the position you want it. Take a piece of waxed paper (NOT parchment paper or plastic wrap - it must be waxed paper) and place it over the tissue paper and wrap it tightly to hold it in place. Use a large enough piece of waxed paper that it will wrap around the candle and you can hold your image tight by holding the waxed paper (balled up) behind the candle. This is helpful so that when you apply your heat you won't burn your fingers. Finally, let your heatgun heat up good and hot and then heat the image remembering of course that you have the waxed paper on top of the image holding it in place. You can see the image through the waxed paper and in a VERY SHORT TIME you'll see that the heat from the heatgun is melting the candle wax and your tissue paper has adhered to the candle. Carefully remove the waxed paper and .... VOILA! You have a stamped candle! If you've heated your candle a little too long and you see that the candlewax is uneven or slightly drippy, while it is still warm use the waxed paper to smooth out the image.

It is important to note that the whole heating process takes just moments and you do not want to heat too long or your candle will melt.

You can embellish your candle in many ways. I used dots of Stickles glitter at the points of the candles. You could add crystal while the wax is warm if you worked quickly enough. Ribbons, garlands, charms are all very pretty too.



Be sure to hop on over to the rest of the design team's blogs and check out their gifts and/or ornaments they've created for this month's Serendipity Stamps Challenge.
Amy Cokley
Anya Schrier
Kathie Bailey
Lynda Benden
Shannon Teubner
Sue Eldred
Yvonne Hagane

Have a creative day!