Last Minute Hostess Gift – 3D with Jaydee

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday Night!

Well!  Those of you who read my last post will know that I said that I was on vacation and there were no alarm clocks being activated in my house. Oh! and you will remember that I said Lou was home for a while! Well.  Mmmmm… Sadly, I forgot to de-activate the alarm last night and.. bang on schedule…the alarm rang at 6.45 am this morning!  Grrrrrrrrrrr.  I could even hear the cats complaining!  Then, to make matters worse.  Lou is leaving on a 6.40am flight tomorrow morning – yes, Sunday!  and yes, that was A.M.!  He's spending 22 hours getting to Milan, Italy and 22 hours getting back – for a 3 hour meeting!  I think you can guess my colorful reaction to that piece of news!  It also means that he has to get up at 4.00 a.m.  So… alarm clocks again tomorrow morning.

So, now that I have that out of my system :-)   We managed to get a fair way into the decorations – both external and internal.  The problem with decorating externally was the fact that there is a foot of snow on the ground! It makes it a lot of fun trying to put up Christmas trees on the deck, etc. in a foot of snow!  Next year.  We will.  I promise myself.  Be organized 🙂

The Christmas cards are ready to sign and address – heavens above!  Finalmente, as the Italian's would say!I have only the finishing touches to do to a minimally designed house this year – and I still have some of the 3D items to complete and my Christmas shopping to finish.  It's been a rush this year, that's for sure!  We will.  I promise myself.  Be organized next year!…… I keep telling myself that the more I tell myself that, the more likely it is to be true 🙂

So, on to tonight's project.  But, before I do that – a huge thank you to all of you who have left messages or sent me emails wishing me luck in my new job and wishing me a relaxing and happy vacation.  Big Hugs to you all!

I got a call from my friend Brenda.  She invited me to a group gathering at her house tomorrow afternoon.  The team will be singing carols and also providing an unwrapped present for a local children's Christmas collection. What a great idea.  However, I do have a sore throat and I didn't have a hostess gift.  What do all creative gals do when they don't have a hostess gift?  They make one.  

What do girls with a sore throat do before they decided they are going to inflict their voice on others… test it, right?  Mmmm… So, I did that.  I decided to do a couple of scales and try out the verses to a couple of Christmas carols, just to make sure that I could make at least some of the notes.  Great idea, except Muffin – my female calico – decided I must have been in intense pain!  She came rushing down the stairs, meowing at me with a terribly concerned look on her face.  I think she thought mother was being tortured!!!!!  She really was VERY concerned poor thing.  She was running around and meowing and rubbing against me.  Strange thing… the minute I stopped singing… she stopped looking concerned! :-)  Consequently, I'm thinking I might just drop off the present for the children tomorrow and NOT sing!

Onto the gift portion of tonight's post.  What to do if you need a last minute hostess gift.  Some of you may remember my candle embossing post.  Well, this time I decided to do a slight variation.

I had bought some great candles at Pier 1 today, just in case I needed to do some quick gifts over the next two weeks.  Luckily!  

What you need for this project:

1. A Candle
2. Tissue paper
3. A stamp set – in this case the Berry Christmas set
4. Craft ink and clear embossing powder.  You can also used Versamark and colored embossing powder if you prefer.
5. Brads
6. A heat gun
7. Elastic cord
8. A piece of White Confetti card stock – 3 x 3 – you can make it 2.5 x 2.5 if you prefer

Note:  remember the following photographs are enlargeable!

Start with a candle.  In this case I used an ivory unscented candle.   You can see that this candle still has it's original wrapping.  So I removed all the wrapping and was left with the bare candle.  I set this aside and cut 3 small pieces of tissue paper

I stamped the wreath from my Berry Christmas set onto the tissue paper using Old Olive craft ink.  TIP: I like to use the craft inks for my embossing as they are slow drying and it means that I can get exactly the color that I need.  I have only a few of the large ink pads in craft and am planning to buy the stampin' spots in the new year to give me even more flexibility – and yet still remain cost effective 🙂

I used transparent embossing powder over my Old Olive and set it the images with my heat gun.

I then cut around the wreaths, as I wanted the least amount of tissue paper surrounding my image as I could safely get.  You can see that the Old Olive gives a soft subtle color but has a gorgeous sheen in the light.

Next, I took my candle and placed it on it's side.  I took one of the trimmed wreaths and lay it on the candle.  TIP: Use a pair of tweezers if you have one to hold on to the tissue paper – or… if you don't have tweezers, use the flat side of your small paper snips to gently hold the image in place!

 The next thing you have to do, is gently melt a little of the wax underneath the tissue paper to allow the tissue paper to absorb the wax.   Using a small piece of tissue paper, means that you have very little wax to heat and it's really none messy.  It took me less than 30 seconds to heat the wax all around the edges and under the image.  TIP: If you find that one of the edges hasn't quite stuck enough… just try gently dabbing it with your tweezers or scissors.  If that doesn't stick, zap it with your heat gun for a couple more seconds and press again.

Once you have the wreath applied to your candle, the next step is to do the same around the candle with the other pieces that you have left.  I separated the candle into thirds, and placed a wreath on each third.  TIP: I placed them at different heights on the candle, too…. that way, it mean that when the candle burns down – there will always be something to see! :-)   TIP:  don't place the candle on it's side where you have just heated it – until it has cooled – a minute or so is all you need.  Then you can move on to the next placement and heating.

Now… for the next part – take your brads – in this case I used the bold brights red brads.  I wanted them to look like the berries on the wreath.  As the wax was still a little pliable, I was able to stick the three brads in very easily.  I positioned them in a cluster.     To make sure they were quite level with the candle, I pushed down on them very gently, when I rolled the candle around.  Just a little pressure is all you need.  TIP:  I ALWAYS use my black matt to protect the table :-)  

In this pic – you can see two of the finished images – and you can also see that I took a little gold cord and wrapped it around the bottom for a little extra bling.

Here's the finished candle!  I hadn't trimmed the gold cord when I took this pic, but I did do that using my paper snips.  You can see the fabulous soft feel of the Old Olive and I love the fact that the brads give a three dimensional touch to the image and are tactile.  When the candle burns down the image will just burn along with the candle and the brads will fall out of the candle.  I got this idea from some candles that we bought down in Australia about 4 years ago.  They were just plain cream colored candles, but they had gold brads pressed into them. Really snazzy.  The thing was… I had no idea what a brad was back in those days, so didn't realize how easy it was to make them!  Now…. I know :-)  I also know how much money I could have saved by decorating them myself!

 Next, I took my 3×3 piece of Confetti White card stock and stamped the image from the Berry Christmas in Old Olive and Real Red and embossed the im
age with clear embossing powder.  I stamped the sentiment in Real Read and rounded the corners.  I used my piercing tool to create a hole and thread some Gold Elastic cord through the hole and tied it around the tissue paper that I had used to wrap the candle. 

All that was left was for me to sign the card – and tomorrow I will write in the hostess' name.  Voila!  A quick, easy and easily customizable hostess gift.

Tomorrow, I really will finish decorating and doing my 3D projects.  I feel like the little tank… I think I can.. I think I can… I think I can finish decorating 🙂

I wish you all a fabulous Sunday, filled with the things that make you the most happy – and hope that you get to spend some good quality time with those that you love the most.  I challenge you all to do a little random act of kindness for someone you know – or a stranger.  After all it's the season of giving – and sometimes, it takes just a small gesture, gift, etc. to make someone's day that much better.

Peace

Jaydee