Decorative Diamond Stamp Christmas Decorations

Hello today I'm going to show you how to make some Christmas decorations using the Decorative Diamond Stamp.  

Ingredients - 
Decorative Diamond rubber stamp
Translucent shrink plastic
Black archival ink (I used ancient page)
Acrylic paints
Paint brushes
Cheap make up sponges
Glitter glue
Acrylic matt glaze (optional)
Paper hole punch
Heat gun
Wooden barbecue stick

Using one colour

1. Sand your shrink plastic -this helps the paint to marry with the plastic.

Add your paint to the plastic using your sponges - add them quite lightly as the colours will intensify once it has shrunk down. 

Stamp your image matching up the center of the diamond - as close as you can.  It doesn't matter if there is a gap in between the stamped images.

2. Cut out the star close to the outline.  

Punch a hole for the ribbon at one of the points - I used a paper hole punch

3. Shrink down the plastic using your heat gun - use the barbecue stick to stop the plastic from flying off the desk and to prevent it from sticking to itself.  Add some glitter - I used Stickles crystal ice

Using multiple colours

For my second decoration I painted the design on the diamond with 3 different coloured acrylic paints.  I stamped the image on the same piece of shrink plastic to which I'd used for the above decoration.  

As above the plastic has been cut out, hole punched and shrunk down.  I've used some acrylic paint varnish/matt glaze to protect the paint.  Painted on acrylic paint when heated and shrunk will create a texture on the plastic - you can see some of it on this image before I added the glaze/varnish.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial and will have a go at making some bespoke decorations for your trees or to even hang around the house or even in your window - if you use the clear shrink plastic you can make them look like stain glass/acrylic stars.

Have fun and enjoy experimenting with shrink plastic.

Anita

Big Christmas Collection Christmas Card With Stamps from Oak House Studio.

Today's card  for Oak House Studio features 2 sets of stamp collections, the Big Christmas Collection and the 2 inch Journal Circles set.  For the background I used a mixture of regal claret, citrus orange and totally turquoise from the ink in a bottle range  and sprayed onto a glossy card.  The background was made on a A4 size card and I cut out this square as the colours worked well with the Sea Blue ink pad .  

To start with the construction of the card I stamped the dotted frame circle onto my background square.  Then I stamped the solid snowflake bauble from the big Christmas Collection onto white card stock with the sea blue ink.  I cut this out using a 1 inch circle punch (you can just cut around the bauble if you don't have a punch).  I then glued this to a flattened bottle cap, let it dry and then added the clear bubble dome on top.  I then applied this to the center of the stamped frame - if you score the back of the bottle cap with a scalpel it will help to adhere the cap to the background.  the corners are then stamped using the open snowflake bauble in the 4 corners of the background.  I've mounted the whole thing onto a coordinating paper from my stash of scraps.  To balance the whole card I added the words "Let it Snow" from the Snowflake collection.

Have a great day 

Anita

Create a Picture with Rubber Stamps

Hello everyone hope you've had a wonderful weekend.  Today I'm going to show you how to create a picture using rubber stamps.  In the picture below I have used the Scroll Frames rubber stamp as an edge to a page in my journal.  I stamped it with the midnight ink pad  and then used a damp paint brush to move the ink around the swirls to add some shading to them.  I've added some pink highlights with some neocolor II water soluble wax crayons and added some black dots with a copic pen.  

The trees I made using one of the 2 inch Journal Circles and added colour with the wax crayons.  The dots, edge of the circles and the tree trunks were painted with the black acrylic ink to which I added some white acrylic paint to make them 'pop'. 

For the grass I used the fir sprig stamp from the Big Christmas Collection and stamped it using the spring green ink pad.  

This young lady was a happy accident.  I was playing around with the stamps as you do when you first get them and as I stamped the larger of the scrolls I thought 'oh hello' this looks like curly hair.   I added some more 'curls' with the smaller swirl and hey presto a full head of curly swirly hair.  Don't you love happy accidents?

Thank you for popping over and reading my post. 

Have a wonderful week crafting.

Anita

Autumnal Holly Leaves

Hello everyone hope you've all had a wonderful weekend.

I've been having a play with the holly leaf from the Big Christmas collection.  I started by stamping the leaves in a circular design very organically with black archival ink.  I then painted the whole image using neocolors II water soluble wax crayons.  I built the colours up gradually until I was happy with the depth.  I've added some gold acrylic and glitter to the leaves.  To finish off I added some red star gems in between the outer leaves.

The center of the card is made up of 5 leaves which have been stamped, coloured and cut out and then mounted using foam pads to give some depth.  

The berries are made from a selection of seed beads in a mix of red and gold - these were threaded onto some thin wire and just randomly twisted until they resembled a cluster of berries.

I've mounted this onto a cream A6 card to which I've stamped the leaves using the Spring Green and Dusky Rose pigment ink pads  - I added the dusky rose to the center of the leaf and then the spring green to the edges to get a two tone effect.

Until next time keep crafting.

Anita