Candle Project - Rub 'n Buff on Wax

In my continuing efforts to test out Amaco Rub 'n Buff on different surfaces and materials, I decided to dress up a plain pillar candle with Silver Leaf Rub 'n Buff and Ruby Rub 'n Buff. 

I made a stencil using masking tape and the Colonial Pattern Fiskars Paper Edger. The project turned out really well, I think. It was simple and easy to do, and the finished product looks really nice. I was able to make a cheap candle look a lot better. I wanted to add a little more to it even by sticking some pins with colored head into the candle or tying ribbon around it, but I didn't have anything appropriately colored.

First, I made stencils using masking tape and the Colonial pattern Fiskars Paper Edger. I find that it is best to lay the tape directly on one of the blades, smooth it out, and then cut. For longer stencils, I lay the tape on a piece of wax paper to keep it from sticking to itself as I cut. The photo above shows the results of my cutting. I put small piece of tape at either end of the patterns as well to complete the stencil.

Next, I painted inside the stencil with with Silver Leaf Rub 'n Buff. I was really impressed with how Rub 'n Buff coats wax. I barely needed any at all to coat each pattern strip, and the color is bright and clear. There is no absorption at all, so you will never need a second coat.

To make the Ruby pinstripes, I cut strips of masking tape in half and place them between the silver patterned stripes.

 

I painted the stripes with Ruby Rub 'n Buff. Once again, the wax took the color nicely.

 

Here is the finished product. Simple and easy to do. How do you dress up your candles? Let me know in the comments!

P.S. I am taking a break from videos - maybe permanently. They were a lot of work, and I wasn't getting that many views on them anyway. I will post a lot more process photos (as above) for future projects to make up for it.

Penn State Pride Magnets

As mentioned in an earlier post, Supplies On Demand is now carrying a nearly-exclusive line of NCAA themed break-apart word magnets and scrapbooking stickers from Triple Overtime Promotions. You can usually only find them in campus bookstores, but we have worked out a deal with the manufacturer to be their only online exclusive retailer.

Today, we are featuring the Penn State magnets and stickers. Any true PSU fan will appreciate this set which includes pictures, words, and logos particular to Penn State. These are great to use alone or to add a little PSU flair to other word magnet sets. Current students, parents, alumni, and lifetime fans will all love these magnets. Give them as a graduation gift to commemorate an accomplishment or to a new student to add some school spirit to their dorm-room fridge.

Both products have the same basic design, but the stickers are larger and are spaced out to allow for a border. The stickers are printed on high-quality, thick stock, acid and lignen free paper perfect for creating lasting memories in a scrapbook. You can see pictures of both below followed by a list of the images and words found on each.

Words:

Football

We

Are

PSU

Nittany

Lions

Let's Go State!

Tailgating

Pride

Blue

White

Champions

Fans

Penn State

110,000

Happy Valley

Blue Band

Creamery

Linebacker U

on

University

Pennsylvania

Fight

the

GO!

Rec Hall

Pattee Library

Mount-Nittany

Beaver Canyon

S-Zone

State

Arts Fest

State College

Alumni

University Park

Thon

Photos:

Lion Shrine

Bryce Jordan Center

Old Main Bell Tower

Palmer Art Museum

HUB

Beaver Stadium

PSU Lion Mascot

IST Building

Creamery Landmark Sign

Nittany Lion Inn

Images/Logos:

Classic PSU logo with stylized text

Modern (Chipmunk) PSU logo with stylized text

Modern PSU logo (Large)

Heart

'College Ave' Street Sign

'Atherton St.' Street Sign

Lion statue face w/ paw prints

S

'Penn State Nittany Lions' stylized text

Picture Frame Craft Project 2 - Rub 'n Buff and a Paper Edger

My first attempt at making a picture frame didn't go quite as planned, so I decided to try another one. I went a little simpler this time - no hot-gluing, no "distressed look" as I said repeatedly in the last video in an attempt to cover the fact that I'm just a messy crafter. I used Ruby Rub 'n Buff, Gold Leaf Rub 'n Buff, and the Pinking pattern Fiskars Paper Edger with masking tape on an unfinished wood picture frame to make alternating zig-zag and straight vertical stripes on another unfinished wooden picture frame.

I made the stripes by cutting a long piece of masking tape in half with the Pinking Paper Edger. TIP: I stuck the tape to a piece of wax paper first so that as I was cutting the long strip, the tape wasn't able to stick to itself, the scissors, me, etc. It released from the wax paper perfectly, and I had my perfect stencil. I got the alternating stripes by leap-frogging the two sides of the stencil down the frame - when the cut sides faced each other, it stenciled the zig-zag. When the un-cut sides faced each other, it stenciled a straight line.

I moved down the frame, painting the zig-zag with Ruby Rub 'n Buff and the stripe with Golf Leaf Rub 'n Buff. You can see a pic below and a video below that. I think it turned out pretty well - a little rough, but you get the idea. If I were to do it again, I would make a bunch of stencil strips. Using the same one over and over resulted in a stencil that wasn't very sticky by the end, and that led to some sloppy stenciling.

Picture Frame Craft Project - Rub 'n Buff and Paper Edger

Here is my first attempt at a picture frame decorated using Amaco Rub 'n Buff and a Fiskars Paper Edger. I painted the entire from with Antique White Rub 'n Buff, painted the corners with Sapphire Rub 'n Buff using a stencil made from masking tape and the Deckle Pattern Fiskars Paper Edger. I also painted four bottle caps using Silver Leaf Rub 'n Buff and attached them to the frame with hot glue.

I'll be honest - I wasn't entirely happy with how this one turned out. You'll hear me scramble my words in the video a lot, and there is some rough editing. I had some issues - more my lack of skill than anything. I think the frame turned out OK. Not the best thing I've ever made - but not the worst either. Picture of the finished product below, video follows.
 

Amaco Rub 'n Buff - The Rest

Of the 17 different colors of Rub 'n Buff currently available, there are three that don't fit into any of the other categories I've covered in other posts. These three are not golds, metallics, jewel tones, or antiques. They are the misfits - the oddballs. That doesn't make them any less useful. It just makes them unique.

Ebony

Ebony is a deep, inky black with just a bit a medium luster. It comes through a little gray in the photograph, but that is just a trick of the lighting and the reflective nature of Rub 'n Buff. I recommend a second coat of the Ebony for a deep, solid black. On the wooden test block, it wound up a little uneven, as you can see in the photo. Little known fact: 'true' ebony is the wood of any of several species of trees, the most common being species found in India, Sri Lanka, and western Africa. It is very dense, and it can be polished to a high shine.

Pearl Blue

Pearl Blue is an interesting shade of light blue with a high luster. I'm not sure where the 'pearl' comes from. Pearls can be blue in the right conditions - impurities in the water can make pearls almost any color of the rainbow. They aren't very common, though, so you may never have actually seen one. Pearl Blue Rub 'n Buff can look like pewter or silver in the right light - it looks more blue the less light you have shining on it. Little known fact: pearls that are any other color than white or black are so rare and so hard to match in color that a long strand of blue pearls (or any other color) is very valuable.

Turquoise

Turquoise is a naturally occurring mineral that is a mix of copper and aluminum. In its purest form, it can be very valuable. It is, however, relatively fragile, being only slightly harder than common window glass. Turquoise Rub 'n Buff is very thick and opaque with a varying, almost cloud-like, light blue-green color. It has a relatively low luster with an unpolished, stone-like look. Little known fact: turquoise has been highly valued around the world for thousands of years, but it has lost value recently as high-quality synthetics have been introduced.

These three wild card varieties of Rub 'n Buff round out the line-up for this first pass through the spectrum on the Supplies On Demand Product Feature Blog. Look for future series where we try out all 17 colors on plastic and metal to see how the different surfaces take the different colors.

Triple Overtime Promotions NCAA Magnets!

They're finally here! Break-apart word and image magnets for NCAA teams! These magnets are individually designed for each school using images and information from actual students. No detail was overlooked - you'll get official team logos, pictures of landmarks from around campus, and words and phrases near and dear to the hearts of every student and alum. You won't find a better set of magnets out there!


And to top it all off, you'll never find a better value! Each sheet breaks down into 60 high quality magnets, with more than half featuring a photo, word, or image exclusive to the school. Check out the first few products to hit our store in the surrounding photos. We'll be expanding our inventory steadily as new products come in to us from the manufacturer.

Coming soon - high quality scrapbooking stickers! We have Penn State and will have Pitt stickers soon, and the other schools will follow as the manufacturer releases them.

Rub 'n Buff Martini

A while back, I posted about how I tried to apply Rub 'n Buff to a glossy plastic bead with less-than-amazing results. I ended up with an interesting marbled look, and I was determined to do something a little creative with the remaining beads and a few different colors of the Amaco Rub 'n Buff. I used Sapphire Rub 'n Buff, Jade Rub 'n Buff, Ruby Rub 'n Buff, and Grecian Gold Rub 'n Buff on the 17 beads I had (all of varying sizes). Here's the pic from my original blunder again for a reminder of what kind of results I got:

To get this look, I put a dab of Rub 'n Buff on a cloth and rubbed the bead into it. The Rub 'n Buff didn't coat the slick surface evenly as it didn't have any texture to cling to. It was a bit like writing on a dry erase board. The color stayed on the bead until I touched it - then it just wiped right off. I eventually gave up and just let the bead sit for a few hours. The Rub 'n Buff dried on the surface, although it would probably come off readily with some water and elbow grease.

Even though it wasn't what I was going for, I thought the bead ended up looking pretty cool. I had another 15, so I decided to try out some different colors. It was interesting to work with the different varieties on the material. The colors that have a higher shine (Jade and Grecian Gold) have a much higher concentration of metal flakes and a stronger color relative to the other two jewel tones (Sapphire and Ruby) which have a more translucent finish. If I had worked at it, I probably could have gotten a solid gold bead, but the material is so touchy on the plastic surface, that there would have been no way to get it perfect. Flaws would have driven me crazy, so I stuck with the marbled look.

After I got done with all the beads, my first thought was, "OK, those look cool, but now what do I do with them?" I wanted to get at least one cool photo out of the project, so I loaded all of the beads into a martini glass, filled it with water (originally hoping the beads would float, but no luck). I got this photo, which I think is pretty cool:

So I successfully turned lemons into lemonade...err, a martini. Something like that. If I think of anything else to do with the beads, I'll be sure to upload a pic!

P.S. Sorry for the gap in posting. Things were a little crazy at the day job for a while. Look for frequent updates over the next few days!