Hello there,
A few months back. I made a small Christmas bauble as a sample for Inkylicious for one of their shows on Hochanda. After the show, I added it to my blog and onto Pinterest and I received so many comments and emails asking me if I would do a tutorial. I thought I would use a slightly different stamp and a larger MDF bauble for the tutorial as you will see below. I was just about to post the tutorial on my blog when Craft stamper put out a request for 3D Christmas baubles. I sent off my email, not really expecting to get a reply but then much to my surprise, I was asked to send my ornament off to them. Due to their Social Media Guidelines, you are asked not to show more than a fraction on the image until the following edition is released. This is the reason why I'm posting this much later than I would have liked too, so apologies for that as I know that Christmas is fast approaching!
Here's the finished bauble and a photo tutorial of how I made it:
I started with a plain MDF bauble
I gave the bauble a couple of coats of Gesso to give me a surface that I could then stamp on and ink up.
I stamped the Winter Lodge by Inkylicious in black StazOn ink. It doesn't take long for this to dry and it is a permanent ink that won't smudge once you start to colour the image. I wouldn't advise using a pigment ink for this as it would definitely smudge on the shiny surface.
Below is a picture of all the product that were used to colour the Lodge that you can see in the next photograph:
If you look carefully here, you can see that there is a shadow image just above the lodge. This is where I originally stamped the image but unfortunately, I didn't get a clear impression, so I gave my bauble another coat of Gesso to cover it before stamping it again. Having just thought this through, I could probably have just removed it with StazOn cleaner and I'm not sure why I didn't think of that at the time!
Once the image was completely dry, I them used a mask over the image to ensure that it wouldn't be spoiled whilst I was inking up the sky.
These are the products used to create my Northern Lights sky:
I always start with the lighter colours first. Using an ink dauber, I made upward strokes from the lodge. Try to do this randomly if possible as the end result will then look more natural.
I then did exactly the same with the pink. I've masked off with post-it notes at this point to avoid getting colour onto my snowy area.
And again with the blue and green. Note how the pink and blue create a lovely purple colour. As you add in the colours one by one, this will then start to give you natural blends as you would see in the in the Northern Lights.
When you are happy with the sky, this is the time to turn it into night. I use a black Memento Tuxedo Black to do this as it dramatically darkens the sky.
Now it's time to remove the mask to reveal the almost finished project. At this point, I added glitter to the roof and Fluffy Puffy Stuff to the edges of the roof and to the trees and I used a white gel pen to add snow to the top of the fence, although the photo doesn't really show it.
Here are the products that I use to whiten the snowy area and to create the snow drifts. Ordinarily, I would use Ink Dusters or a sponge dauber to do this but as the ornament is so small, I opted to use a cotton bud. You need to make sure that you gently rub this onto a piece of copy paper first to remove the excess ink.
I use a Mountain Valley Stencil to ink in my snow drifts but you could also do this just as easily with a piece of torn copy paper. Although, I thought the bauble was looking okay at this point, I though that I would add a little Gesso to whiten it a bit more, that's when I had an idea........
......Why not add more Gesso and use a flat paint brush to push it upwards and create some 3D snow drifts. This worked and absolute treat and gave the image a more realistic look and added extra dimension. You need to do this fairly quickly though as the Gesso seems to thicken and dry in a very short time. If your paint brush gets clogged up, then just rinse it in water, dry wit a paper towel and start again.
I finished by adding a fine ribbon to hang the bauble and then a thicker ribbon to create a bow to dress it. I chose red as for me, it's the perfect Christmas colour
I really hope that you've enjoyed my tutorial and that I might have inspired you to have a go yourself.
Until next time, Take care of yourselves and happy crafting :) x
