Hi all, well here I am as an official froglet and thrilled to be bringing you my first stamping school! Just before we start can I say thank you to everyone for their lovely comments on my guest spots this month and also thank you to all for a warm welcome to Banana Frog! Ok with that out of the way here’s another project to get the old grey cells whirring….
Stained glass tea light jars
Following on from the mardi gras masquerade project I did for my last guest spot I wanted to explore further the possibilities of stamping without the acrylic block, at the same time we had some lovely summer evenings (no honestly we did!) and while sitting in the garden I thought how lovely it would be to have lanterns in the trees, and voila the tea light jars stamped in pretty patterns came to mind!
The ingredients!
This is a simple and quick project but very effective. You can really go to town on your Banana Frog stamp sets, the possibilities are endless! I used Round in circles, It’s all about circles, Funky paisley and Tropical garden. You will also need some permanent ink e.g. stayzon, some thin wire (I used gardening wire) and some bits and bobs for embellishing, e.g. raffia, string, butterflies form a hambly overlay, prima flowers, stickles and charms oh and of course some jars!!!
Clean your jars thoroughly getting rid of all grease and then select some stamps to make a pattern. To ink the stamps I used the plastic that covers the stamps as a base
Carefully pick up the stamp and, for the smaller ones, place it in the palm of your hand then place it on to the jar, TIP be positive where it is going to go and don’t press to hard straight away or it will slip!!! In effect we are using the palm of the hand as the acrylic block. Build up your pattern
For the larger stamp, place them onto the surface and then place your hand over it to evenly stamp it. (it may take a while to get used to it but it’s only a jar that would otherwise end up in the recycling bin, and if you’re anything like me you will have a hoard of interesting shaped jars that you keep ‘just in case’!!)
Keep building up your pattern with different size stamps and different colour inks.
I love the funky paisley stamps and for this jar I inked the stamp in yellow dabbing round the edges in black cherry to get a shaded effect on the stamped image.
Again put the stamp in the palm of your hand and mould it around your jar
Ok you get the picture of how this works so use your lovely Banana Frog stamps and different colours to make each jar individual.
Once they are all stamped make a wire handle, leave long ends (to fold up later)
Wrap wire around the grooves of the jar catching the long ends of the handle, twisting the 2 ends together and then twisting the long ends of the handle up and over this to secure your handle.
Further decorate your jars by picking out bits of the stamped image. I used stickles, crystals and a gold permanent marker TIP put some tissue or loo roll inside the jar so you can see the stamped image clearer for decorating!
Add raffia and string to the tops, with charms, flowers and butterflies.
I wrapped some gardening wire around the branches of one of my trees and hung the jars on them
The photo doesn’t really do them justice; they are so pretty and magical in real life, so you will just have to make your own to see for yourself!
They also look great in the middle of the garden table, as you sit drinking a glass of wine breathing in the scent of the honeysuckle drifting on the summer evening air (what an old romantic!!)
And that’s it! Told you it was a simple but effective project! Go on get your Banana Frog stamps out, raid the recycle bin and give it a go, you know you want to! And don’t forget to share the results!! I hope you’ve had fun at my first stamping school I’ll be off now to cook up something else for my next one on the 11th July, see you there you don’t want an absent mark do you?!
Thanks for dropping by and come back soon to see what the other talented froglets have to share with you, until then happy stamping!!
Love
M x
