Easter candles (lambades)

Today I finished the Easter candles (lambades) that I made for my two beautiful goddaughters, Lydia and Sofia - aren't they pretty?

I decoupaged small wooden hearts with a napkin and decorated the hearts with the first letter of each girls name using clay. I then decoupaged the letters with a contrasting napkin. I also decoupaged the pale pink candles using the same napkin that I used for the hearts, added lots of string and a butterfly to complete the decoration.
 



The Greek Orthodox Easter is on Sunday and I made these candles so that the girls can light them on Holy Saturday evening at the Resurrection mass. One hour before midnight everybody goes to  church, each carrying an unlit candle. Later during the mass, all the church lights will be turned off and then the priest will exit the altar with a candle lit by the Holy Light.

The Holy Light is distributed by the priest to everybody present so that they can light their candles and a few minutes before midnight everybody exits the church. Exactly at midnight, the priest announces the resurrection of Christ. That is the moment that fireworks go off and families and relatives kiss each other and wish each other "Hronia Polla".

 



 

Happy Easter to everyone who will be celebrating Easter on Sunday!

 



 

 

 

Glass clock decorated with decoupage

I love working with glass, but this was not always the case! When I first started to practice decoupage, my initial attempts at decoupage under glass failed dismally!

I have lost track of the number of times that I have placed an abandoned plate in a bowl of water to soak for days, in order to remove all the paper and glue and then start again!


For this clock I decided to completely cover the glass surface in collage. I always start with a central image which has inspired me and then I work around this image building up the collage until the whole surface is covered. I just love the way a collage evolves from just one image.

My central image is the gorgeous picture of the parrot

 I  used pictures of exotic birds to build up the collage

I added the decorative hands to complete the clock

A Celebration of Beauty.....

Today, I want to share with you my tutorial which was included in the latest issue of the "Dialogue," the periodical magazine sent out by Decoupage Artists Worldwide to their members.

One of my all time favorite items for decoupage is the dressmaker's mannequin and my tutorial gives step by step instructions as to how to create your own work of art!

I called my mannequin "A Celebration of Beauty" you can see why when you look at the images that I used to create her!