Ahhhhhh Tissue !

Hi everybody ! It's Toni here today, ready to share one of our Inspirational Posts with you.  Here in the UK we are experiencing a typical British summer, a few days of sunshine, followed by a few days of storms and rain ! We love it. While the rain is pouring down, maybe you can stay inside and have a go at the little project I'm sharing, so that  you will be ready for the next run of balmy summer evenings!

Stamping onto tissue paper is fast becoming a favourite with me. I love the way it can be used for transferring stamped images to different surfaces, whether they are flat or three dimensional.Here, I've used heat embossed tissue paper to cover some empty glass jars, to be used as tea light holders.
I started off by sorting through my supply of tissue papers....

I chose pink, orange and black as I thought those colours would look luxurious with gold embossing.

I cut each piece of tissue paper into a strip that was just a little wider than the height of each jar, and long enough to wrap around with a slight overlap. I used quite large background stamps, with Versa Mark Ink to create the patterns. 

I heat embossed each stamping with gold embossing powder.

Here are the finished papers. I really love the way the gold embossing looks against the coloured tissue paper. I then applied the tissue papers to each of my three jars using Deco Art Matte Medium. I'm afraid I forgot to photograph the jars before I got started and once I had started, the process was a little sticky. so apologies for the lack of pictures at this point. It is quite easy to apply the tissue. I coated the jars with matte medium and then rolled the paper around the surface. You need to work fairly quickly, as once the tissue paper starts to absorb. the glue, it  becomes quite fragile. I used a bristle brush in a tapping motion, to gently coax the tissue around the 'shoulders', neck and base of my jars. I then coated the surface with more matte medium using my fingers to smooth over the surface. I didn't worry too much about any slight imperfections as they barely show on the finished pieces. Any rips or disintegrated bits can be easily patched. 

I think the tissue possibly shrinks as it dries and really bonds to the surface of the glass. Once dry, I added embellishments using heavy body gel medium for the metal flowers and Glossy accents for the lace and bead trims. I also twisted some rusty wire around the rims and fashioned a handle to hang them up with.

Here they are ready to hang outside..........

I'm very pleased with my finished tea light holders. I just need to make a few more to dot around the garden and if the summer refuses to return, I suppose they would be great for Christmas ! ha ha .....x