Prickley Pear Stamps: Designer Highlight! Sharon Smith!

Hello everyone! It is my pleasure to bring you another edition of Designer Highlight. This time I get to introduce you to the wonderful Sharon Smith and her gorgeous projects. Take it away Sharon!

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Hi, I am blessed as I am a stay at home Mom who loves spending time with my family. I have 2 great kids and 2 fur babies! I am married to my best friend who is my enabler when it comes to my craft addiction. I have been a crafter for many years and have always loved making things. My card making started during my maternity leave after my son was born 17 years ago, but after a short period of time I had to stop. I then met my current husband and he encouraged me to start again, I invested in stamps (as well as lots of other paper crafting goodies) and have never looked back.

I am Sharon and am so happy to be part of the Prickley Pear Rubber Stamp design team,

I am passionate about my card making as everyone that knows me personally will tell you! I love nothing better than spending the time I have away from my family in my favorite room of the house, my craft room, with my dogs curled up alongside me, music playing and a marker (or scissors, dies, paper etc) in my hand. My other favorite past time is photography so I love combining these by taking photos of what I make and sharing on social media.

Today my makes are being showcased over on the Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps blog. I have made a couple of new designs as well as all my previous makes

First of all is a candle and box I have decorated using the stunning Christmas stamps.

And here's how I did it:

I stamped and heat set the Ornate Tree and Snowflake Border images using a metallic silver ink onto white tissue paper. I then carefully cut around the images and laid them on a plain white candle. I wrapped parchment paper around this and heated with my heat gun. This causes the top layer of the candle to melt and the tissue paper sinks into this. once cooled the image looks as though it has been stamped onto the candle.

I added some crystal gems to the stamped image and some silver gossamer ribbon around the base to balance the design out.

For the box I made a box the same size as the candle from pearlescent white card. I then matted the lid of this with silver card. Using embossing ink I stamped the Ornate Tree onto a white piece of card along with the Celebrate the Season sentiment both from Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps. I then added a silver tinsel embossing powder and heat set this. I added some of the same crystal gems to match the candle and then matted this onto the lid of the box.

A stunning gift for someone over the holiday period.

As part of my showcase I also made a very simple Christmas card using the Little Drummer Boy stamp.

I stamped the sweet little fellow in the bottom corner of a piece of white card. He was then colored using alcohol markers. I used a fine line pen to add a border to the card and a gold die cut star just finishes off the image. This was then matted onto a snowflake patterned kraft card and gold card as used for the star.

Here are a few more projects I created for Prickley Pear.