Make a Decoration over on Tuesday Taggers

I saw over on Zoe's blog that Tuesday Taggers challenge this week is to make a decoration. I was chatting to Zoe the other day about shrink plastic and then I remembered the project that Jo Firth-Young did with my Christmas tree stamps featured in the Dec 08 edition of Craft Stamper. I've been thinking about trying the new metallic Stazon with shrink especially on the black, so this was the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately I cannot show you a black Christmas tree as I managed to shatter it by using a crop-o-dile to make a hole after I'd shrunk it....not a good idea! I can report though that gold Stazon works very well on black shrink plastic.

For my glass minders I used the frosted shrink plastic and my Klimt style tree stamp from TandaStamps. I used the gold Stazon, which interestingly enough went a sort of brassy colour when shrunk...(on the black it remained a lovely gold). I also discovered that it is not a good idea to splat your shrink to flatten it as some of the gold transfers across onto your acrylic block leaving a slightly mottled effect...well I know for next time!

Now did I own up to having bought a lampwork bead starter kit at the NEC? Well it has been sitting waiting for me to open the box and my fingers have been seriously itching! Having bought some vermiculite at the weekend, I finally opened the box because I thought that it would be nice to make some beads to use on my glass minders.....so the beads you see in the pictures are my first attempt at lampwork.....I'm just waiting for some more bead release to dry on my mandles so that I can make some more!!! It's pretty tricky, but I am quite pleased with what I have made so far...not managed to make a pandora style bead yet as I don't seem to be able to get a nice round shape yet....I guess I will just have to trawl the internet for how to videos.