Tealight Candleholders with Union Jack

Inspired by the events in the UK - the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics I painted these two tealight candle holders with the motif of Union Jack. I used non standard colours for the flag, just for fun ;)

Firey Leaves - twin votives

Time for another blog update. Here are my recently painted twin votives with firey leaves :) I really wanted to paint some glass with some warm orangey colours. They give nice glow and shadows with tealights inside :) The pattern comes from one of the glass painting books I have (sorry, I don't remember the exact title as the book has been lost somewhere in the abundance of my craft books, I should really dig it out ;P) and it was painted freehand.

Taking part in Hand-made Monday tonight! Get clicking to see some other nice web places! 

Winter Berries - Candleholder

Another piece of my recent glass art. One of my favourite motifs - floral pattern (ivy? holly bush? never managed to solve this question) with some red berries. This time I painted it all in warm colours - gold, red and orange. Pretty pleased with the final result. What d'ya think, huh? :)

I think this one would look nice with some golden sand / granules and a candle right in the centre :)
This is not the first time I've painted this motif. About 2 years ago I painted this version - green, gold and red.

Both candleholders became Christmas gifts. The next one I paint will be for me! :)

Hand-made Monday linking fun at Wendy's blog. Pop in and join, everyone! 

Festive tealight candleholders

Hi all. More glass art to show :) I made these before Christmas. Simple festive motifs, painted with glass paints in classic Christmassy colours - red, green, yellow, gold. Added some very fine dusty glitter to make them more sparkly. My favourite shape of glass. Pleasure to paint.

There are three different motifs on them but only one - hollybush - joins them all :)

 

This set of 3 votives was a Christmas gift for one of my friends from Poland. Well-received and enjoyed a lot, apparently, I was told so by her :)

Now, last but not least - Sarah of Tilly Mint Boutique has awarded me tonight with a Liebster Award,

which was a lovely discovery when I came on to my blog today. Thank you very much, Sarah! Pleasure to receive this award. x x x I may have to give myself a good thinking time before giving this award to some of my favourites :)

Houses of Love tealight candleholders

Time for Handmade Monday linking fun! Pop over to Wendy's blog to see some lovely stuff from other crafters.
What have I created for the past few days?
This week has been pretty busy for me and I've got a lot to share :)

Well. first of all, my Houses of Love candlelight holders have finally been finished! Yipeeee! :) It took a while to paint them as glass with curved surfaces takes the longest to be painted all around. I had to do it in stages. Piped some outliner, stopped and waited till it all had dried up, then piped some more, waited again, then piped some again till all glass had been filled. Then filling up with colours - same thing done in stages. Glass painters will know what I mean ;)

Houses of Love are my favourite motif and I've painted them on clipframes and on a glassy cube before but this time it's a set of round tealight candleholders that features them! I used vitrail glass paints, silver relief outliner and martini glasses for this project. 

Deep inky blue night and some colourful vibrant houses pulsating with love! :)

Some painting details...

Secondly, there's been some progress with my wedding sampler with folky birds... this is what it looks like at the moment:

Thirdly, I have finally got myself round to making my first own home made elderflower cordial! I found "my" tree in my area. Hacked it down the other day :) plonked the whole stuff down in sugar and boiling water and here it is! Elderflower syrrup with a citrus twist. It hasn't been bottled yet, just "doing its time" in containers at the moment. Needs to stand like this for 5 consecutive days. Actually I've made 2 lots: one is elderflower + lemons, and the other is elderflower + lemon + orange. Elderflower has a wonderfully refreshing taste and is great in fizzy drinks :) Simply can't do summer without some sparkling elderflower pop! Try for yourselves!

Yesterday we had a great day out - we went to Kelsall Steam and Vintage Rally to see the whole lot of many stylish vintage cars and steam engines. Vintage buses, landrovers and campervans was what we liked best. I ended up bringing home another cup for my expanding mug collection :) Campervans! The iconic cars of the summer season in Britain! (I thought Wendy of 1st Unique Gifts Blog might like them! ;P )

Warm Glow - Dotted Tealight Candleholders

A pair of dotted tealight candleholders I have recently created for the fair :) This time my choice was: warm vitrail colours - red, orange and yellow embraced by the golden relief outliner. The colours are graded, from red, through orange to yellow then back to orange and red at the bottom again. Simple design but pretty effective. Notice how the sun shines through them! :) They give nice glow and shades with the tealight put inside :)

So what do you think?

And now topic change! :) I've been awarded a Blogger award!

Picto  (Jan) from Handcrafted by Picto, thank you very much! So pleased my blog has been noticed and awarded by my lovely visitor! :)
I guess, I'll keep up the award chain play and stitck to the rules:

1. Make a post linking back to the person who gave you the award....  (tick!)

2. Share seven random things about yourself (tick! look below!)

3. Award seven recently discovered bloggers with this award and contact them to let them know they have won..... (tick! also look below)


7 random things about me:

1. I'm a real tea freak. I love drinking teas, buying them, having them, storing them, trying them!
2. I have phobia of caterpillars and spiders.
3. I love collecting language dictionaries.
4. I can't live without crafting. I'm addicted to everything homemade and handmade. For me it's an essential way of relaxing after work and regaining balance between my work life and after-hours private life
5. I could live without tv but not without the internet.
6. I love my milky coffee and a toast with jam on Saturday mornings.
7. I like the frost and chilly crispy air on sunny winter days.


7 blogs with 7 talented versatile crafters I'd like to nominate:


1. The Joy of Creating - Kathryn - for being the most fertile and versatile crafter I've ever known!
2 Carroll Crafty Creations - Robin - for supa cute owls!
3. Adaliza - Adaliza - for interesting blog and lovely sewing projects
4. Carolee Crafts - for so many lovely and different hand made creations
5. Audrey Eclectic -  Heather, for lovely and stylish old vintage paintings and great shots on her blog
6. Puppy Fly Boutique - my fellow glass painter
7. Maria's Blog - Maria, for so many lovely creations she can show off

Tonight I'm linking Handmade Tuesday at Ladybug Blessings blog and Show Me What Ya Got at Not Just a Housewife. Have a wander around the blogs and enjoy browsing through so many wonderful creations!

Oldies from the past: 2 Green Tealight Candleholders

I painted these quite a long time ago when I felt inspired by the transparent green glass I saw on the internet. I used silver relief paste on them and interspersed the shades of green with a few raspberry-coloured stripes of vitrail paint. I glued some sequins to give them some sparkle. Sadly, these are the only photos of these candleholders and they are pretty dark. With a tealight inside, they give a nice glow and shades around. These candleholders sold quite quickly at a local craft fair.

Oldies from the past: Tudor-style tealight candleholders

I love a homely atmosphere. I love the mood. I love ambience. Therefore I love glass painting tealight candleholders, which bring such lovely coloured shadows into  your home :) Here are one of my favourite (and one of the first) tealight candleholders hand-painted by me and inspired by the Tudor-style leaded windows. They live on the mantelpiece today.

Joanita, welcome to my blog :) my 2nd follower :)

Oldies from the past: My glass painting beginnings. How it all began…

I’ve always loved pictures painted on the glass. I can’t tell what exactly attracted me to them, maybe that smooth glassy surface covered with the transparent eye-catching colours contrasting with the uneven texture of the flowing lines, or maybe the intense rainbow colours and their transparency… or maybe all of these things. I loved especially those with some sort of fabulous whimisical dream-like late night scenery, where a thick deep blue inky night of a vitrail paint surrounds the golden-honey stars and moon outlined with a silver contour paste. Everything was so colourful, fairy-tale like, esoteric… The colours were flowing and the lines were curling and swirling all over the glass. I remember that as a child I looked at those pictures as if iI had been hypnotized. I wanted them! I craved them! I wanted to know how to paint them!

I used to see them at the craft shows during the big events in my town. The pictures were painted either by some freelance self-named artists or by the handicapped and sold to raise the money for the local school for the special needs children.

A few years later, as a tutor and student at the same time, I got 2 glass painted gifts from two different pupils. They were a thank-you gift for the whole year of teaching them English. Again, holding  in my hand a piece of mysteriously painted glass, I stared and stared and stared… thinking: what if I tried it myself one day?

Then a new chapter of my life began – moving and living in the UK. February 2008. A new opportunity for developing a brand new hobby arose and the deeply rooted idea of painting on the glass came up to the surface again – I had been taken to a Hobby Craft shop for the first time by my bf. Amazed by the vast craft supplies at that shop, I just couldn’t stop thinking about buying my first few pots of glass paint. And then THE DAY had come! I bought my first glass painting kit – 4 pots of vitrail paint, a tube of outliner, a brush and a pair of glassy votives. I rushed home quickly to see what it feels like to paint on the glass. I fell in love with it! I started and I couldn’t stop… and I still can’t :)

Now, my early works… those days when everything still seemed soooo difficult – piping, outlining, choosing colours and style, smooth even coverage, curvy surfaces, grasping the proportions… Bottles, votives, jars, simple vases – I tried them first, as well as painting on an acetate to get the knack of it.

Below here are a first few examples of my very early works…

I've also painted on an acetate to make transparent window art pictures...

Celestial motifs have always been my favourite! This Sun & Moon Vase was a gift to my bf's mum.

To be continued...