Christmas Tree Decorations

Well here we are just 5 days to go till the Big Day---- hope you are all prepared!!! ( I'm not sure there is such a thing as being completely prepared.) Anyway I thought I would share a quick and easy variation of a salt dough that I found whilst searching the internet.

This was an american recipe that was measured in cups so I have converted it to tablespoons which makes it easy to knock up a small batch.

Ingredients

4 Tablespoons Baking Powder

2 Tablespoons Cornflour

3 Tablespoons Water

Mix the 3 ingredients in a saucepan and place on a low - medium heat. This will gradually bubble and thicken to form a stiffish ball similar to mashed potato. Place the dough in a clean bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Leave until cool, a batch this size only takes about 20mins.

Once cool knead until a smooth dough is formed then its ready to roll out. Its best to collect cutters, stamps, inks, baking sheets etc before rolling out. Heat oven to around 170F and line baking sheet with baking parchment.

Once the dough was rolled out I stamped various designs onto the dough before cutting out with different christmas shaped cookie cutters.

I used Archival ink pads as I wasn't sure whether the dye based ones would bleed. After cutting the first batch out I kneaded the remains of the dough and rolled out again. Where there was parts of ink in the dough it made a nice marbled effect.

These small shapes took about 45-50 mins turning over once after 25 mins. This will vary according to the size and thickness of your pieces.

This is how it looks once baked, I lightly sanded the edges to neaten before colouring with various waxes.

On this tree I used Treasure Gold in Ruby and Renaissance and finished with Inka Gold in Platinum.

Its amazing how quickly these shapes transform once you start to add colour.

I am entering these tree shapes into Clarity Stamps monthly Challenge titled 'Trees'

I would like to wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year. Hopefully we will meet again very soon in 2015. Take care and thank you as always for stopping by today.

Best Wishes Jane x

Fresco Chalk Acrylics with Iso Propanol Alcohol Inspired by Wanda Hentges

Hi and welcome to you on this blustery, chilly Sunday. Today I've been playing with a technique that inspired me over on the PaperArtsy Blog earlier in the week, to follow the technique in greater detail click on the link here.

Wanda used Rubbing Alcohol but as I didn't have any of this I raided my husbands stock of IPA which he has for cleaning old vinyl records.

To begin with I painted various pieces of card and a MDF heart with a coat of Fresco Chalk Acrylic paint.

The heart had a base coat of claret with snowflake on the top with then a couple of spots of baltic blue before adding the alcohol.

The green piece of card started off with guacamole with baltic blue then the alcohol was added and whilst it was still wet watered down claret and snowflake were then flicked from a paint brush!

The blues were given a coat of Lake Wanaka first, then the Baltic blue, next the alcohol was added and watered down drips of snowflake dropped onto the alcohol. I then tried adding some guacamole but the alcohol had really evaporated by then.

The small piece in the centre had been painted with pansy a few weeks ago and as I had some watered down Baltic Blue left added this to it, then the alcohol but when I dripped the snowflake on everything was drying out so the paint didn't spread so well but I'm sure it will have a use one day.

I decided to use the green and blue pieces for a christmas card so stamped the words from Special Christmas Plate 3 in Archival watering can on the green.

And Adirondack in currant on the blue ----- but this bleed into the paint so I changed to Brilliance Crimson Copper ( much better!)

These were then torn onto pieces of graduating sizes, the edges inked in Vintage Photo DI and brushed with mica powder just on the ends. The pieces were then rolled round a knitting needle and glued.

The kraft card base was stamped and then white embossed with the sentiment and the edges were stamped using the little lines from Jofy 07. ( Do like white on kraft card)

The tree trunk is a small piece of wood cut to size from the kindling box which I then tied a length of 3 coloured twisted cotton round. 

The star is made from MDF and was heat embossed twice with gold embossing tinsel.

I will have another session with the paint and alcohol as I feel there is more to be explored. I'm not sure of the alcohol content of the IPA as this might well have an effect of the finished piece, but I am happy with todays outcome. 

Thank- you for all your lovely comments on the shaving foam entry a couple of weeks ago, they were much appreciated. I was lucky enough to be the winner of the monthly prize draw over on the PaperArtsy blog last month and am looking forward to playing with my Goodies.

Take care and have a good week whatever you may be doing. Jane x