Monday, February 2, 2009

heART Card - the creation

Here's a brief tutorial on beeswax collage - feel free to ask questions!

I found a 'butter warmer' at Bi-Mart, it's perfect for warming a small amount of wax. The tea light lasted for all twenty valentines. For a larger project, I'd use a double boiler or crock pot, but for a small job, this worked well.

I propped the brush against my knife rack, to keep it upright. I used a piece of cardboard as my surface for placing the elements & ironing them.











The base is a watercolour paper circle, covered with a 'donut' cut from a pretty red & gold print napkin. Next comes a doily.










Each step includes painting the surface with melted beeswax, then heating that with the blow dryer (which seems to work fine) & Ironing that layer down.






This is repeated for each layer.







I covered the center of the doilies with a layer of pink tissue paper.






Next is a heart cut from a napkin scrap. I covered this with a layer of plain red tissue.







I printed hearts on red tissue, using gold acrylic paint on a stamp I'd cut into a heart shaped eraser. & last - a shimmer of gold powdered pigment, to outline each heart! Viola - heART Art :)







The valentines remind me of the ones my mom would help me make, using construction paper & doilys. Before deciding on the stamp, I'd thought of running a banner with a word (like a candy hart) across each heART, but I like the gold stamp!

Last Friday, I picked up a two pound block of beeswax from a local beekeeper - so I'm well set for salve & collage :)

3 comments:

  1. Dia, these look wonderful!! I am so excited for these packages of heART loveliness!
    Thanks for sharing your process, and for visiting my blog.
    Have a beautiful day!

    ReplyDelete
  2. So pretty! Thanks for the tutorial! I recently found my small "crockpot" for heating potpourri. I'm saving it to use for melting wax if I ever get out there and get some. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dia,
    I enjoyed reading how you made your valentines! My package arrived yesterday and before I went to bed I sat and looked at each one. Thank you for your lovely heART card! And it smells like bees wax, one of my favorite scents in the world!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment - I love getting them and always read them! Have a lovely day