2020 Topic 22 Shades of Blue with TS (by Helen Chilton)

  2020 Topic 22:Icy Christmas

With a decidedly icy colour scheme but a wreath that would warm any home, Helen has created a fabulous wreath from a special mouldable foam. Who knew that paint would work on this too. The large flowers morph into something very lifelike and give a sumptuous softness to the wreath

~ Keren.

Hi everyone, it's Helen with you today, and, for my Icy Christmas project I've gone with cool shades of blue with touches of Metallic Glaze and sparkle.

I'm using flower foam or Foamiran for this as I already had it in my stash. It comes as a very thin sheet of foam that can be heated and shaped. I haven't tried it before with stamping as I wasn't too sure how clear an image I'd get. I was delighted with the result - it stamped beautifully.

I also hadn't tried painting on it before to add colour - I've always used inks or chalks - but it took the paint really well - it didn't soak through and didn't stick to the iron.

The wreath I already had - it was just sitting there waiting to be decorated!

I've used some of Tracy's newest stamps:

Cut the Foamiron into smaller pieces and stamp the large flower. You'll need 5 large flowers and 8 smaller flowers.

Add a wash with the Frescos - Seaglass and Blue Smoke, then paint over with Metallic Glaze for a bit of sparkle. After that you've got to cut them all out! 

Before the next stage you need to have everything ready. If you haven't got a ball tool, just use the end of a chunky paintbrush. Use the iron dry. I only use this iron for crafting as you can tell from the plate!

Touch the flower to the hot plate, stamped side down. It will start to curl and then fall off.

Fold it up quickly and twist it.

Open up and press the centre into the sponge.

The foam stretches a bit.

Then, putting a dot of glue in the centre, layer up the next flower, offsetting the petals as you go. The large flower has 5 layers and the small flower has 4.

Then just add your centre and stick to the wreath, adding some card leaves.

 The leaves are great as, once you've cut them out, they'll bend round the wreath.

All in all this was a fun experiment - Tracy's stamps were ideal as they're large and have a good solid outline. By using a Stamping Platform you can stamp each image several times to get the depth of colour you want.

I love trying out new things - you can get this foam in all colourways, but the beauty of white is that you can make it truly your own with paints. Think of some of the other Tracy Scott sets  and JOFY sets that would be great with the technique.

Helen

Blog: A Splash of Colour