rose candle

Another sample from the latest Chocolate Baroque TV show, this actually was shown, a candle in a gift box, using the rose image from steampunk butterfly

I made the candle first, and was so pleased that it ended up still looking like a candle - thanks to helpful tip from Anne Waller to use a baking parchment wrap when heating the design onto the candle.

The steampunk rose was stamped onto white tissue paper, coloured with marker pens and fussy cut out before heating gently to fix it to the candle. I did this twice.

Having got a decent candle, I then decorated a kraft box to go with it. The sides of the box were covered with gesso, crackle mediem and acrylic paint, and quite a decent crackle finish appeared. I tried to get a crackle finish on the corners of the box lid but failed, not sure why - I suspect a combination of not enough medium and too much green paint!

The steampunk rose image was inked with memento black ink and pressed into a splodge of paper clay. Once it was dry, coloured with promarkers and fussy cut out again then glued onto the lid  It made quite a dimensional image, but too thin a layer of the paper clay was too difficult to cut out.

candle and box

Loving the new background stamps, this one is called baroque orchids and reminds me of brocade, and it seems  a shame to cover any of it up!

Recently I finally managed to get a candle that looked ok when finished – previously they have looked decidedly the worse for wear and rather mis-shapen. Using baking parchment wrapped tightly round when heating the tissue paper onto the candle makes all the difference! Pushing my luck, I thought that I would have a go with this stamp and my last remaining candle.......

I stamped with black memento ink on to what I thought was white tissue paper (reminder, don’t choose your tissue paper by artificial light next time!) then cut out around the image to make a strip to fit the candle, which was too short for the whole image.  I tightly wrapped the candle with the baking parchment, and held it by this while heating gently – I still have a very old hairdryer type heat gun, which has a more gentle heat than the newer guns.

Those who saw the fab shows at the weekend with Lesley on the Craft Channel will notice that the image is actually upside down - it was a bit late by the time I realised this, so I carefully made sure that the image on the box lid was the same way up as on the candle when I took the photo...in my defence, I think it works any way up!

 The box was painted with black acrylic paint, and I smudged the corners with versamark and copper EP to make it a bit more interesting. The image for the lid was stamped in versamark onto black card, embossed with copper EP, cut to size and glued down.

Finishing touch was the tissue paper, black paper  randomly stamped using a copper pigment ink pad.

Fortunately my daughter doesn't have time to read my blog, as this is part of her Christmas present!