Beeswax Tiger

I've finally plucked up the courage to try a beeswax collage. I had planned to make a canvas with pics and bits and bobs from our wedding but decided to start on a smaller scale and made this tag

It was great fun to make and not quite as messy as I though it would be although the kitchen did take a bit of cleaning when I'd finished lol.

I started off by making tag from card and covering it with inkjet canvas which had been coloured with Distress Inks in Shabby Shutter and Pine needles. While the beeswax was melting (I used an old ramekin dish in a pan of boiling water as I don't have a meltpot ... yet!!) I stamped some bamboo and oriental script on to some tissue paper, cut out a tiger sticker, cut a pressed leaf in halft and found some beads, oriental charm and some cord. Once the wax had melted I brushed a thin layer on to the tag and applied the stamped tissue paper, some other bits of asian design papers and then heated it with my heat gun to level off the wax a bit. I spread some more wax where I wanted the leaf to go, popped the leaf in place and gently dabbed more wax on the top. I added the tiger using the same technique and then added a large blob of wax to adhere the charm and the cord. I used a stampbord tool to scrape excess wax off the charm and then melted the wax around it to blend it in. While the wax was still warm I sprinkled on some beads, a little copper glitter and some mica powders. I built up the wax around the bottom corners and stamped in to this with a bamboo stamp and black stazon. Once all the wax was dry I tidied up the edges with my craft knife and rubbed some metallic rub ons over the stamped area and round the edges to highlight the texture. Finished off with a brass eyelet using my crop-o-dile. I was a bit worried it would crack the wax around it but no problem there.

I'll definitely be using beeswax again - great to be able to stick things into and create texture, the tag feels lovely too - really silky.

I'm using this tag for the following challenges:

Dragon's Dream Tag it on which is 'Year of the Tiger'

Crafty Ann's Challenge which is Celebrate your Creativity

Rainbow Lady's Challenge which is to stamp on something unusual

Lots to Do which is to use canvas

Corrosive Challenge which is Asian Theme

Thanks for looking

Claire xx