Adventures in Candle Stamping

Today I am eternally grateful to my loving husband for his kindness, sense of humor, and patience with his crazy wife.

With Christmas right around the corner, I've been looking for gift ideas that utilize stamping, and saw these delightful tea lights on Tanya Boser's blog, Tinkerin In Ink with Tanya.  Tea light gift ensembles have been popping up all over recently, and they looked so easy, I thought I'd give them a try.

First, I'll let you in on a little hint.  DON'T buy the tea lights that have a little dome-shaped top.  The stamped tissue won't lay flat, and you'll have to heat it so long with the heat tool, that the wax builds up on top of your stamped image, like so:

For the next one, I tried shaving off some of the dome, and not heating the tea light quite as long, and the result was better, but still not up to my obsessive compulsive high standards.

Next, a holiday image was in order, with some holly, which turned out okay, but the image should have been a little larger, for more "wow".

Then inspiration struck!  How about a little snowman?!  I love snowmen!!!  Snowmen are one of my favorite things - right up there with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens!  So, I stamped this little guy from the Tags til Christmas set, without inking up the "To" and "From".  He turned out kinda cute......

....until I realized from where the wick was protruding:

No wonder he has that big smile on his face.  Ummm, I may have to rethink this one.....