Tea cup candles

Hello! Today was a crafternoon day - huzzah! Rebecca, Colleen, and I made these *awesome* teacup candles ^_^

We used soy wax and melted 1500 grams of it! Whoa! Our wicks we brought from Spotlight, but they didn't fit into the extenders we brought, so we just tied a knot in them and stuck them to the bottom of the cups with a bit of extra wax. We held the wicks in place using some wooden pegs, so they didn't move while pouring in the wax and/or while drying. They dried pretty quite though! In an hour and a half they were solid (we were a tad concerned how we were going to get them home right after we made them!).

 

We also made quite a bit of a mess! Oh, well, that's half the fun, right? ^_^ One good thing that we did was put out baking paper, which made a lot of our little spills very easy to clean up. We need a better pouring device though! We used a saucepan and a funnel, but the wax dripped down the edge of the saucepan quite a lot. Also a tip - do this on the sink. Boiling water cleans up spills wonderfully, and it's easier to do that on the sink than on your benches ^_^

 

Bec and Colleen made two each, and I made one in a teacup and two in lightbulbs which aren't finished yet because I spilt them (oops!) and so need to melt some extra wax to top them up. We have plenty of extra wax though, so I suspect I will have to make quite a few candles before it is all used up! Do you have suggestions for what one could make candles out of?

And in case anyone is worried, Colleen's cups and mine had cracks and chips in them, and Rebecca's were cheap Made in China ones from the op-shop. We didn't ruin any really nice vintage ones, promise! ^_^

I hope you had a great day today!

- Lisa

 

The Epic Sculpey Drama

Hello! Gosh, is it really November already?! I woke up this morning and realised that I am super far behind on posting, so hopefully I will be able to make it up this weekend. Get ready for lots of posts!

First cab off the ranks is a wedding present that I made for my friends Sian and Shaun who recently got married! Hoorah! I had brought a present, but I really wanted to make something, so, after much brainstorming (you should see my notebooks one day - they are a bit all over the place) I decided to make some pretty little trinket dishes. Sian is a seamstress and loves vintage style, so I was sure she would have some nice little things that needed a place to stay.

So, I made three dishes, stamped them, baked them, and painted them with white acrylic. Apparently, painting sculpey with acrylic is not actually the best idea. They were STICKY! And had brush marks on them, so my poor painting skills were visible. Not a fun combination. But, the wedding was that weekend, and I didn't have time to do over so I pouted a little and then thought I would just hope that they would loose the stickiness by then.

That weekend I was meant to go to the wedding on Saturday and a craft day on Sunday and, wouldn't you know it, I got SICK. Arg! I missed out on everything fun, and instead spent the weekend with my old friends Ms. Painkillers and Mr. Lots-o-naps. Very uncool.

But, there was an upside! Sian and Shaun had gone on their honeymoon (to Disneyland! Very awesome) and so I had time to repaint the trinket dishes! Yes! 

I chose silver spray paint (because spray paint is awesome, and everything looks better in metallic!) and it turned out really well! No stickiness at all! You can still see the brush strokes, but they are not as noticeable, and Pip and Bec have assured me that the juxtaposition of metallic paint and handmade looking brush marks and wonky edges looks very nice. You two better not be lying! ~_^ 

We even came up with a new style: glustic = glam + rustic. We are such trendsetters, this will be the in-thing now, for sure ~_^

Ok, if you're still here after that epic spiel, well done! And here are the photos!

This bowl says "we put a ring on it". I used my Kikki K alphabet stamps for the letters, and the top of a bottle for the rings.

 

This one is "we tied the knot" and I used an actual piece of string to make the stamp. I was really pleased how well that worked actually, and you can see the texture of the string if you look closely which I think is rather nice.

 

And this one says "we said I do + I do" and the heart is a stamp that I carved a while ago.

Phew - so that was pretty epic, wasn't it? I'm just glad it had a happy ending ~_^ 

 

And to finish off, here are some pretty rainbows that I saw while walking home the other day. We have been having summer showers a lot lately, but that makes pretty rainbows so it's ok with me ^_^

 

Have a great day!

- Lisa x