Candles are everywhere during the holiday season. They make for great gifts and great atmosphere.

 

This particular candle shade treatment elevates the lowliest votive candle or tea light to sparkling, celestial elegance - and it takes about 15 minutes, But who cares, we have all the time in the world, right?

 

What You Need:

A candle of some kind in a double old fashioned glass (about 3.5” high by 4” high) or similar size glass (you can use a smaller glass instead as long as the sides are much taller than the flame will be).

 

One sheet of Sheer Heaven and some recycled pieces (will make two shades)

One color of Pan Pastel

Pan Pastel Sofft Tools (optional), and a piece of make-up cotton (cotton balls are ok too)

A small piece of Fun Foam from the Craft Store

Clear embossing ink and iridescent embossing powder

Double stick tape, Scissors

 

What To Do:

Cut a letter size sheet of Sheer Heaven in half lengthwise - yielding two candle shade blanks 4.25” x 11”.

 

Draw, trace, and cut out a star from recycled Sheer Heaven - about 3” diameter. If you don’t have any left-overs yet, use part of one of the blanks this time around.

 

My photo shows several sizes of stars but the extras are for other projects. You only need one star for this version of the shade.

Place the cut out star at some random place on the candle shade blank, right side up. The right, suede-y side of the Sheer Heaven will catch excess color and hold onto it.

 

While holding the star in place with one hand, gently swipe away from its edges with some Pan Pastel on a Sofft tool applicator or piece of soft cotton. Think in terms of color “rays” coming off the star.

Repeat this action a few times moving your star to different places on your candle shade.

 

Random overlapping gives the most interesting effect.

 

Try to leave 1/2 inch at one end or the other without much or any pastel on it. This is where your tape will go for closure and tape does not stick well to Pan Pastel. If you accidentally get some pastel in that area, don’t worry about it. These pastels erase very easily.

 

When you are finished with your random star placement, hold or shake the candle shade over a waste basket, and blow away any excess pastel dust that may be on the surface. There is very little dust with Pan Pastels and even less if you use the Sofft tools instead of cotton for the application stage.

 

But for this next step, you must use soft cotton (or tissue if you haven’t got any cotton).

Blending the Design . . .

Start gently at an edge or end of the shade, and rub in a circular motion. This will blend your color but not obliterate your design. Switch to a clean cotton every time you get much color on it. Blend the whole shade with gentle pressure first. Then go over it again with a little more pressure. A third pass with considerable pressure should set your design so you will not need fixative.

Making A Stamp . . .

Trace your star onto a piece of fun foam using a pencil with a soft lead (like a #2).

 

Cut the star out that same way you cut one out of aluminum yesterday - first cut a tight square around it and then cut in from the edge each time. When you have the star cut out, mount it to something stiff - like an acrylic mount or a CD case using a bit of double-stick tape. Now you have a star stamp.

 

Using clear embossing or watermark ink, stamp the star three times across the length of the candle shade - randomly, right over your design. Don’t try to match anything up. Overlapping is just fine.

 

Sprinkle with iridescent embossing powder and heat. (Always keep the heat tool 6” from your Sheer Heaven). You can use clear embossing powder with a little Pearl-Ex mixed in if you don’t have iridescent powder.

However, if you have iridescent powder or can get some, the result is really beautiful, as you can see in the photo on the left.

 

All that’s left to do is apply a strip of double stick tape along that end you kept the pastel off, wrap the shade around a glass and attach the overlap to the double-stick tape.

 

This is gorgeous with a candle lit in it or not.

 

Here’s a close-up of the design. See how much depth it has!

 

I can’t say enough about the wonderful things you can do with Sheer Heaven and Pan Pastels. They just plain love each other.

 

 

This video workshop will be the first of its kind and will be too much fun.

 

Watch for the schedule date which will be announced right here at “information central”.

 

Happy star gazing!