2016 #2: Lavender Blue {by Lucy Edmondson}

 2016 Topic 2: Hearts

Hi everyone Lucy from True Colours here.

Tonight I'd like to share with you a post about gilding the inside of a bottle with gold embossing enamel. It's a heart shaped bottle, to go with our current theme of Hearts. I don't know if this has been tried before, it probably has, but for me it was a fun experiment when I wondered in the middle of the night (as you do!) if it would be possible to melt the embossing  powder by heating the glass carefully from the outside.

I chose to make a home decor item as I have been turning my old bedroom at my Mum's into as much a sanctuary as possible as I spend so much time with her, and it hasn't been decorated since 1974. It's great with Frescos that you can have whatever colourscheme you choose, and I now have many Frescoed items to match my purple bedlinen.

Step 1: To start off, I used the end of a plastic spoon to tip a little gold embossing powder into my bottle and applied the heat gun to the outside. You don't want to get the glass too hot in case it cracks, so go carefully. Stop once it's molten and sprinkle some onto another area and do the same again. ( Ignore the Versamark and the cottonbud, I'd forgotten I had a clear embossing pen for doing the rim!)

Step 2: Drizzle Wisteria Fresco Finish paint inside the bottle, swirl it around until it is fully coated, then let it drain upside down briefly until dry.

Step 3: Dip the rim of the bottle into the gold embossing powder and melt with the heat tool. If you need to touch up any areas, use a clear embossing pen.

Step 4: Now for the embellishments for the neck of the bottle. Use a piece of cut n dry foam to apply a very thin coating of Wisteria to the rough side of a piece of frosted shrink plastic.

Step 5: Die cut the prepared shrink plastic piece into two sizes of heart. I chose the larger size to fit the butterfly from Hot Picks HP1301 I used Jet Black StazOn and I like to take the shrink to the stamp and press all over with my fingers until I can see the design come through evenly. With frosted shrink, I prefer to paint the rough side and stamp on the shiny side as this gives you a glossy final image.

 HP1301

Step 6: I then stamped some smaller hearts in the same manner using script from HP1304 and a small and a large heart with flowers from HP1009. I then punched a hole in the top right hand corner, shrank them with the heat tool, and edged them with gold embossing powder. You could use a gold pen instead.

HP1304 

HP1009.

I threaded the shrink plastic charms onto gold elasticated thread. You can see the shrunk designs a bit more clearly in this final photo. As you can see in the main photo, I am using my mini vase for a bunch of lavender.

This was such a quick and fun project to make! I would love to experiment with different shades of Fresco and some other metallic embossing powders. It could be done very inexpensively by recyling room fragrance diffuser bottles, and could make great co-ordinated table flower arrangements for a DIY wedding! I'm thinking pale gold embossing powder with Nougat Fresco, and a spray of peach roses ..........

Lucy, True Colours

Lucy this is just beautiful, and what a gorgeous, restful colour palette, perfect for a bedroom. How fantastic that you were able to emboss 'inside' of a bottle, genius! I would have been scared to crack the bottle, but you are an adventurer! A really lovely and professional looking piece of home decor. ~ Darcy 

We would love to see how you interpret this Hearts  topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #2: Hearts, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The 'Hearts' link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, February 7th. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

NB this link is open for 3 weeks instead of 2 - all will become clear why on Jan 31st!