Adrienne's Art Garden

Odd shaped art

2012-01-15T04:08:00.000Z

Annie ran a swap last year, where we all made 6 little pieces of art to fit plastic pockets of an odd size - hence 'odd shaped art'. Of course, once in the plastic pocket page, we realised we needed six more to go on the other side of the page...

So, here are my second set of odd shaped art. My new scanner is very clever, and as well as scanning it does this autocrop thing when you scan several things at once. Unfortunately the autocrop feature sometimes crops the bottom off things! So one or two of these have lost their bottoms....

The first is on canvas, two image transfers (one behind the heart), and a collaged photo of a sculpture, plus a friendly plastic broken heart and some Tim Holtz music tape. The word and the (cropped) dots were done with a Viva Perle pen.

This background was watercolour paper covered with tissue and painted with a dozen or so thin layers of acrylic paint - it starts to look and feel like leather. Between the last couple of coats, I scribbled with an iridescent oil pastel crayon, you can see the metallic glimmer through the paint. Then I covered almost all of it up with a Klimt image, some Tim Holtz tape, and some german scrap!

This background was made by painting cardstock generously with gesso, and stamping into it whilst wet. A quick sprinkle with salt, and a spritz with watered down Quink permanent black ink, and leave to dry. The salt dissolves a little, leaving little pitted textured areas, and the ink separates out to give patchy mottled colours. I stamped a zodiac stamp onto a paint sample, added some Tim Holtz tape and the word and dots with the Viva Perle pen.

More of the acrylic paint background, this time covered with a digital collage (all my own work), and a stamped definition.

This one is really shimmery in real life - shame the scan never captures that. Moonshadow sprays on watercolour paper, with interest added by sponging acrylic paint through a sheet of ironed angelina. I added a stamped image (Stampers Anonymous), some german scrap, and some letters.

Finally, the background to this is made by crumpling waxed paper, ironing it onto glossy cardstock, then sponging dye ink on. The wax resists the ink, and creates this lovely pattern. I've had this image for ages but never found anywhere to use it. The background colours reminded me of India, so it seemed appropriate to use it at last. I punched three flower shapes out, and backed the holes with some pearlescent pinky red card, and added some sari ribbon. Clever autocrop chopped the bottom off!

Daily thought - morning

2012-01-14T12:00:00.000Z

Lose an hour in the morning and you will be all day hunting for it.

Richard Whately, Apophbegms, 1864

Daily thought - morning

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000Z

It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly.

When every day is a step into the unknown, as for children, the days are long with the gathering of experience.

George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-12T12:00:00.000Z

May the Great Mystery make sunrise in your heart.

Sioux Indian saying

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-11T12:00:00.000Z

The earth does not argue,

Is not pathetic, has no arrangements,

Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,

Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures,

Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out.

Walt Whitman, A Song of the Rolling Earth, 1860

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-10T12:00:00.000Z

Some of the ancients, divining the truth yet from far away, reckoned that the soul knows things because it is composed of them.

Thomas Aquinas, Philosophical Texts, C13th

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-09T12:00:00.000Z

The One remains, the many change and pass;

Heaven's light remains, the Earth's shadows fly;

Life, like a dome of many coloured glass

Stains the white radiance of eternity,

Until Death tramples it to fragments.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais, 1821

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-08T12:00:00.001Z

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, 1854

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-07T12:00:00.002Z

Thou art a shadow and in love with the sun: the sun comes, that shadow is naughted speedily.

Jalal Al-Din Rumi, The Masnavi, 13th century

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-06T12:00:00.002Z

They were all night and dreaming; now is the day and they are vanished.

They were spring flowers and, spring over, they are all faded together.

They were a shadow, and it has travelled on beyond.

They were smoke, and it has gone out in the air.

They were bubbles and are broken.

They were cobwebs and are swept away.

And so this spiritual refrain is left again for us to sing: vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

John Chrysostom, 4th century AD

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-05T12:00:00.002Z

I am that which began;

Out of me the years roll;

Out of me God and man;

I am equal and whole;

God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily;

I am the soul.

Before ever land was,

before ever the sea,

Or soft hair of the grass,

Or fair limbs of the tree,

Or the flesh-coloured fruit of the branches I was,

And thy soul was in me.

A.C. Swinburne, Hertha

Brown paper ATC

2012-01-05T05:43:00.000Z

I tried out a new-to-me mixed media technique for this ATC and am rather pleased with the results.

Take some brown (kraft) paper, an inch or so larger all around than your finished piece, and crumple it up. Crumple and uncrumple a few times till you like the texture.

Cut a piece of iron on interfacing to at least the size of your finished piece, and iron it on. The paper now feels more like fabric than paper, and won't tear where the interfacing is adhered.

Turn the paper over, raw an outline of your finished piece in pencil. Stick some pieces lace or other deeply textured textile on - I used gel medium to stick mine.

Take some perle embroidery thread - different weights would be nice, I only used one because an ATC is pretty small - and sew. I used stitches to ensure that the lace was anchored, and also as part of the design of my finished piece. The stitches are simple - blanket stitch, fly stitch, straight stitches and french knots.

Take some gesso and paint over everything you've done. I know, you just did all that embroidery - don't worry, it will all look good in the end!

Once the gesso is dry, paint over it with dark acrylic paint - I used Golden fluid acrylic in Paynes Grey (which I think is more of a blue!). Be sure to get the paint into all the texture - this will probably take 2-3 coats.

Once the paint is dry, rub all over with a gilding wax - I used Treasure Gold in sapphire. You could use rub'n'buff, or a Liberon product.

Finally, highlight all that texture with a contrasting colour of gilding wax - I used Treasure Copper - you need to have a very light touch for this part as you need to avoid getting the contrasting colour on the background (as far as you are able).

I'm really pleased with the end result, it has 'wow' factor - I will use this technique for other projects.

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-04T12:00:00.000Z

.... this is a piece too fair

To be the child of Chance and not of Care.

No atoms casually together hurl'd

Could e'er produce so beautiful a world.

John Dryden, To My Honoured Friend Sir Robert Howard on His Excellent Poems, 1660

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-03T12:00:00.000Z

The darkness of night, like pain, is dumb; the darkness of dawn, like peace, is silent.

Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies, 1928

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-02T12:00:00.000Z

For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?

Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, 1927

Daily thought - sunrise

2012-01-01T12:00:00.000Z

Believe each day that has dawned to be your last.

Some hour to which you have not been looking forward will prove lovely.

Horace, Epistles, c20-8BC

Beaded brooch

2011-12-20T11:55:00.000Z

I have a very classy and elegant friend whose wardrobe only contains clothes in black and white.

Very clever idea, which simplifies her life, because everything in her wardrobe goes with everything else, she never even needs to think about that, she can just pick anything out and it goes together...

I decided to make my friend a Christmas gift as she has been very kind to me this year, and I wanted it to be something she'd find useful - she's not a crafter and I'm always hesitant about making things for non-crafters as I'm not sure what they will appreciate!

I finally decided to follow a pattern I'd found for a beaded flower brooch. I had no idea quite how long it was going to take me to make ( 3 evenings!!!!) and instead of going for a carefully chosen mixture of beads of one colour but different textures as the pattern specified, I thought I'd try black and white so it would go with my friend's clothes.

I often dislike projects when I've finished them, especially if they've taken some time to make. That's usually when I know they are finished! Mostly, when I look again a few days later, i like them again. This time I'm really not so sure....

Maybe it's because I'm not a black and white kind of person. Maybe because there are starker contrasts than I usually include in my pieces. Maybe it will grow on me. Maybe.

Hope my friend is happier with it than I am - but I gave it on the understanding that if she didn't like it, she isn't obliged to wear it from politeness, but can donate to the charity shop!

Christmas presents

2011-11-23T11:34:00.001Z

I took part in a '12 days of Christmas' swap again this year. I love this swap, it needs 13 players, and each player makes 12 gifts which are swapped out by the hostess.

I open a gift a day until Christmas Eve, others save all theirs for Christmas Day!

Here are my gifts, all wrapped up and ready to mail. Usually I make my own wrapping paper too, but this year's gifts were 'plan B', as 'plan A' went pear-shaped, and I ran out of time!

I used some special handmade papers I bought years and years ago, instead, and was busy wrapping (badly) ready to mail on the way to the airport for my flight to Germany. Talk about cutting it fine.....

Plan A was needlefelted silk 'scarfettes', but the embellisher machine went on strike after number 7, and I couldn't get it sorted. I will post about those another time, but the books below were what kept me up late for a couple of nights in November (this post has been delayed until I knew everybody had opened their gifts).

The covers are made from foam board - very useful stuff, as it is light, yet strong. It comes in black and white, and takes paint well. I cut the covers to size, then coated the edges and one side with a generous coat of gesso. While the gesso was still wet, I stamped into it (wash the stamp immediately after you've done this), then left to dry.

I tore textured paper into strips and wrapped them around the edges of the covers, so that there was textured paper covering at least the first half inch of each side. I stuck the papers down with matte gel medium. Once dry, I started painting. Each cover had several layers of Golden fluid acrylic paint - the more layers you add, the more leathery the look. These covers had about 10 layers of paint.

The final steps for the covers was to line the reverse side with velvet paper to finish them off, then to highlight the stamped image and textured papers. You can use anything metallic for this step - gilding wax, iridescent oil pastels, Shiva/Markal paint sticks. I used a mixture of Treasure gold gilding wax and Sennelier iridescent oil pastels.

Finally, cut the papers to size and bind the books - I bought myself a Bind It All a few years ago, but you can just punch holes and use book binding rings. This might have been the best plan for me, because once i had punched all the papers I discovered that the covers were too thick for the Bind It All, and I had to punch every binding hole by hand.... Ho hum!

Proverbs ATCs

2011-10-23T12:40:00.003+01:00

Three ATCs on the theme of 'proverbs'. The backgrounds were all created by stamping glossy white card with Brilliance ink (white, silver or platinum all work), then drying with a heat gun, before using a sponge to rub dye inks over the top, then polishing firmly with a dry baby wipe.

The words are stamped onto a background paper created by randomly adding paints and spays to some cream card, and the images are stamped and embossed onto the background.

Conjoined ATCs

2011-10-13T15:30:00.000+01:00

Another swap, another theme.... 3 ATCs joined together in some way, so that they can stand up without any support.

I used 6 pieces of mountboard, painted with Ecopaints in Clay.

For the fronts, I stamped and embossed the left hand side of each ATC with Stewart Gill metallic copper embossing powder. The stamp is 'Stately' by Acey Deucy. I then overstamped with a Stampers anonymous stamp and Brilliance Lightning Black ink. I found 3 images, and'framed' them with very fine copper peel offs.

For the backs, I used the same two stamps, but embossed the Stampers Anonymous one, and overstamped with the Acey Deucy one. The ATCs were glued together, trapping some bronze glittery ribbon between the layers.

Autumnal colours mixed media postcard

2011-10-11T15:23:00.003+01:00

Autumnal colours of browns, reds, oranges, yellows and greens... inspiration is all around me.

I made this postcard by painting some canvas with 2 or 3 colours of Golden fluid acrylic paints, then sewing small silk squares onto it using perle and metallic threads and embroidery stitches. The whole thing was mounted onto a piece of painted watercolour paper, which I swiped with a dark brown Stazon inkpad.

Blue & Green ATCs

2011-10-09T15:03:00.004+01:00

Made these thee blue & green ATCs for an upcoming swap.

The background is dyed scrim, glued to cardstock. For the first one, I added some dyed silk scrim down the left hand side, and sewed some sequins and beads to it. I stamped a piece of green painted watercolour paper with Versamark and embossed with Moonlight Obsidian Teal embossing powder. The stamp is 'wild asparagus' by My Mind's Eye.

The second ATC uses the same background, with some large domed sequins and beads down the left hand side, and an embellishment made from a piece of Friendly Plastic. I ironed the Friendly Plastic between two pieces of silicone baking paper until it was thin, allowed it to cool, peeled the paper off, heated it with a heat gun, then stamped into it with a Stamper's anonymous stamp. I edged it with gilding wax, then sewed through it into the card using 4 tiny sequins and some tiny beads.

The final ATC has the same background with sequins and beads sewn down the left hand side, and the image (Invoke Arts) is stamped into some mixed green and blue Angelina Fibres.

Inspired by Angie Hughes

2011-10-07T13:56:00.005+01:00

I've had a bit of a play with my sewing machine.

I've been on a couple of day courses with Angie Hughes, and her work has inspired me whilst making a mobile phone case for Wendy, and a Kindle case for Annie.

This silk lined mobile phone case is red velvet, with layered appliqued green and orange silk squares, covered with a red/orange shot organza.

I hand embroidered the details on the silk squares, then used the sewing machine to sew around the silk squares, and 'free motion' embroider the rest of the case.

I completely forgot about using stabiliser when machine embroidering, so the velvet all scrunched up - this gave a nice texture, but meant I only just had enough fabric for the phonecase (whereas I started with a generous amount and expected to have to trim!). It also means the finished phone case is a bit 'squiffy' (sorry, Wendy, not as good as I'd hoped!).

This sewing stuff is big learning curve for me...

The silk lined Kindle case was made using similar techniques but I remembered the stabiliser (I used pelmet vilene), so has a much smoother finish, and the background free motion embroidery is granite stitch.

Inspirational women - Beryl Taylor

2011-10-05T00:06:00.000+01:00

This ATC was made for the theme of 'inspirational women'. I thought about who I found most inspirational in terms of my artwork, and decided Beryl Taylor's work always makes me feel like creating, and I love her style so much that I am happy to create similar work (as far as I am able).

Odd shaped art

2011-09-24T21:05:00.000+01:00

I recently took part in an 'odd shaped art' swap, where I made a series of 2.5 inch by 6.5 inch collages. I thought I'd try a (new to me) collage technique, mixing images, text and painted backgrounds, with some stamping on the backgrounds.

Here are the results:

Random ATCs

2011-08-18T19:45:00.001+01:00

Made various ATCs for swaps recently. The first set were for the theme of 'beauties'. I wanted them to be dramatic but not morbid, so I hope the gold touches lift them far enough out of looking funereal. The images have been trapped under some subtly gold organza. Remember you can enlarge the images by clicking on them if you want to see more detail.

These - on the theme of black and white - were created by fusing and marking man made fabrics with a heat tool - the Margaret Beal heat tool has consistent temperatures and fine points, which makes this type of work easy.

This ATC was made for the theme of 'Abstract'. I used tissue paper which had been used for mopping up excess ink when using colourwash sprays, and dabbed it with painted bubble wrap. The glitzy bits are glitter glue, and the orange squares and small circles are painted and stamped cardstock.

Visitors to this blog

2011-07-24T12:18:00.003+01:00

I just looked at the little map counter which shows me where all the visitors to this blog come from - and was astounded to find that people from 112 countries around the world have been to see what I've been up to!

I hope you all enjoyed your visit, and also that all future visitors have some fun too.

Fused or soldered fabric ATCs

2011-07-18T23:07:00.000+01:00

The theme for these ATCs was 'black and white'. I used a black acrylic felt background, and layered geometric shapes of black and white synthetic fabrics and nylon lace on top. I used a Margaret Beal soldering iron to fuse the fabrics together and also fuse them to the background.

I also used the soldering iron to create patterns in the white fabric by 'doodling' into it freehand and using metal stencils.

I added some small organza 'roses', made by cutting circles of organza, layering them on top of each other, placing a glass bead in the centre, and using a heat gun to shrink the edges of the organza around the glass bead. I stuck the layers together and adhered them to the background with brads. To finish the ATCs off, I added a little running stitch down the edges and a few brads.

Hanging ATCs

2011-07-09T22:56:00.000+01:00

I had a moment of inspiration and made these ATCs, incorporated into a hanging device.

The ATCs were made using an embellisher machine and silk rovings embellished onto felt. I then cut some circles and leaf shapes out of silk fabric and embellished them onto the backgrounds. I added simple hand embroidery stitches - just fly stitch, backstitch and french knots - to add texture to the silk 'flower's and' leaves'.

I used some of the silk rovings to make 2 felt strips to hang the ATCs, and then embellished organza circles onto a piece of organza to add texture and tie in with the embellished circles on the ATCs. I embellished the ATCs onto the organza hanging background.

Felted & embroidered ATCs

2011-06-26T14:34:00.003+01:00

I know. You'll be shocked. I've made some art and am posting it to my blog. I have actually made more art recently but haven't found the oomph to upload it. I made these this morning and was so pleased that I thought I'd share.

These were made by using the embellishing machine to felt all sorts of bits and bobs of silk, organza, fibres, rovings, bits of silk rods and more to a base of emerald green felt. Once felted, I added the odd hand embroidered stitch, some sequins and a couple of organza 'flowers'.

Needless to say, they look much better in real life - really vivid colours.

Altered box

2011-05-13T23:30:00.002+01:00

I altered this sturdy cardboard box - which is about 5 inches by 5 inches - to turn it from a plain brown box into something slightly more attractive.

I used light moulding paste and a stencil which I bought from Crafty Notions to create the raised design.

Once dry, I sprayed the whole box with a variety of colourwash sprays - Radiant Rains, Crafty Notions sprays, Sticky Fingers Sprays and some from Outside the Margins in the US. Once that was all dry, I added colour to the raised areas using several colours of Treasure Gold.

To finish It off, I lined the box with velvet paper,
which I bought from Marco's in the US.

Olied paper experiments

2011-04-02T06:47:00.006+01:00

Many years ago I created a 'faux vellum' by adding baby oil to copy paper. the results were not inspiring enough for me to try it a second time.

However, Maggie Grey has taken the technique futher in her new book by using a variety of papers and adding paint into the mix. The results can be very good, and create a surface that is suitable for papercrafting or stitch.

Annie came to stay last week and we had a little play. We took a selection of papers - a printed brown paper bag, a sheet of copy paper, a vintage map, some old sheet music, and some printed scrapbook papers.

We also used baby oil (but you can use almond, sunflower, lavender or whatever oil you like) and some cheap acrylics. I later tried more expensive acrylics and like the results of that the most!

At a very basic level, you can add oil to a plain sheet of copy paper,then leave in a cool place or half an hour to dry out before painting thinly with acrylic paint (or paint first, oil second) then crumple it up a few times. This looks fine.

We then experimented by stamping the copy paper first:

then painting:

which created a nice paper after crumpling - I don;t seem to have taken a pic of that on its own but it is shown in the last pic of this post.

Next I tried simply adding oil to printed papers - you can see the backs here to show the difference between oiled and unoiled:

and this made a nice surface for stitch, again see final pic in this post.

But this is my favourite - copy paper, painted with Jo Sonya metallic paint:

overpainted with cheap acrylic, paint lifted with a Cory Celaya stamp:

then oiled and crumpled, it looks and feels wondeful:

Here's a pic of all the papers we experimented on, from left to right - painted printed paper bag, copy paper, maps, sheet music, printed papers.

The map and sheet music were the least successful - the papers were too heavy, and probably too old, as they cracked and holes appeared during the crumpling stage. The printed papers were quite heavy but worked reasonably well, but the thinner papers worked the best.

I made some art!

2011-01-23T23:11:00.007Z

Well, it's been a long time since I posted to this blog. A lot has changed in the last few months, and the desire to create has been channelled into work activities and sorting through my belongings to only keep things I really can't bear to part with, and decorating parts of my house to make it more likely to sell quickly.

This week, my good friend Annie came to stay, and we went to Ledbury for two days with Wendy, and enjoyed ourselves in workshops with Angie Hughes. We learnt to make fabric tag books using printed tissue and fabric run through an inkjet printer - the possibilities are endless... We also learnt how to create print blocks from heat mouldable foam, and used these to print and overprint on fabric with acrylic paints and fabric paints. I will share some of those projects when/if I finish them.

Maybe two days spent relaxing and creating in good company got my muse excited because yesterday I made two sets of ATCs and today I made some more! And I enjoyed it. I have made some art over the last few months to fulfil my swap commitments, but I didn't really enjoy doing it.

This first set of ATCs are made form fabric paper backed with felt, with gold stitching round the edge. The images are from PaperWhimsy, I found some collage sheets I bought years ago when I was cleaning and clearing, and decided to use them. I laid organza over the images and stitched the organza all around the images, trapping them on the ATCs. I added rainbow organza ribbon, overlaid with deep red satin ribbon, and added beads as I sewed the ribbons to the ATCs.

The second set are also made from a fabric paper base, using some Xmas tissue wrapping in the process. I sewed some ribbon left over form Xmas down the side, and added more PaperWhimsy images, frames with Stickles. I sewed a sequin and bead in the corner, and stamped some words onto fabric scaps, before adding them to the ATC using Bondaweb. Annie suggested the words after looking at the faces of the three girls, and most appropriate they are too!

I'm still feeling quite creative, but am off to stay with a friend for a week, so may not get chance to make much.

I'll try not to leave it another 3 months before my next post!

Row Houses

2010-10-11T06:53:00.003+01:00

I've been a bit quiet of late - a week in Germany visiting family and the ongoing loss of my muse following the collapse of my marriage have both contributed. I hope to get back into art soon because it takes me out of myself and gives me pleasure (once I get going!) and I need all the pleasure I can get at the moment!

I reluctantly began making some 'row houses' for a swap. They needed to be house shaped, between 1.5 and 2.5 inches wide and between 3.5 and 6.5 inches tall, be in autumnal grungy colours, and to have a face on them.

After looking at lots of scraps of card and lots of face images for a long time, this is what I came up with....

Fabric paper wall hanging

2010-09-11T17:18:00.005+01:00

This was quite a quick project using fabric paper. I used remnants from 3 sheets of fabric paper I'd made a while ago - deep pink, purple and blue. I backed them all with felt, cut shapes out and sewed around the edges. I did a bit of free motion embroidery on the blue piece.

I coloured some paper flowers, then layered them with beads and sequin flowers and sewed them to the fabric paper shapes, then added more sequin flowers, beads and ribbon. A couple of squares with flowers and brads, and a few tiny tags with charms and brads finished the piece off.

It will be going to a new home at the end of the month, I hope whoever gets it likes it.

Fabric postcard

2010-09-07T07:12:00.004+01:00

I have been on a couple of Angie Hughes courses at Ledbury Artspace recently. The first course was all about working with velvet, transfer foils, organza and stitch. I have a half finished piece from that course, but as I have very little experience of free motion embroidery I wanted to get more before I try and finish it off.

So, I thought I'd make a fabric postcard as a practice piece.

I took some red cotton velvet and masked out some rectangles then ironed bondaweb all over it. I covered it with organza and stitched around the rectangles, then used vermicelli stitch to cover the area around the rectangles, using a variegated thread. I hand sewed little flower sequins and beads into the rectangles. Finally, I backed the piece with pelmet vilene and finished the edges with a zig zag stitch. Frankly, I was surprised at how well it went, because I still don't feel competent with machine embroidery!

Paverpol - Altered Element design team

2010-09-06T10:57:00.006+01:00

Altered Element sent me some Paverpol fabric stiffener, some Paverplast, and some 'fabric' for use with Paverpol which is made from beaten tree bark (looks a bit like a very large piece of flattened silk rod!). These materials are all way out of my comfort zone, and I wasn't sure what the heck to do with them!

I surfed the net to see what other people had done with Paverpol, and it was interesting to see, but not 'me'. So I had a little play, and here are the results of my experiments.

I wanted to see if Paverpol could stiffen fabric yet maintain transparency. And the answer is - sort of! I covered a glass bowl with cling film, then draped organza over the top. I cut some excess organza away, then applied the Paverpol fabric stiffener with a paintbrush, and left to dry. Once dry, I trimmed the 'brim' into a flower shape. This is the result:

It's sort of pretty, but a bit flimsy. I had planned to add some hand embroidery - maybe some french knots or lines of stitch form top to bottom, but it is too flimsy for that. I may yet add some curved lines of Friendly Plastic all around the outside of bowl sides, to make a sort of supporting framework, and perhaps do some gold stitching afterwards. If I can find time and my mojo at the same time!

My second experiment with Paverpol was to use it to stiffen and adhere fabric to a metal tin - every other glue I have tried has left bubbles or marks, so I was very pleased to see that the Paverpol left a flawless surface. This was very easy to do - just cut a straight edge at the bottom of your fabric, add Paverpol to the tin itself and start wrapping your fabric around the tin, coating with Paverpol as you go. I then took some thin strips of gold Friendly Plastic, heated them in a puddle of water in my melt pot, and squiggled them around onto the tin. The Friendly Plastic adheres to the fabric really easily - which can be both blessing and problem LOL.

I love the fabric I used - I've been hoarding it for ages!

I finished it off by adding 3 turquoise Friendly Plastic 'flowers', made by laying a strip of FP on a non stick sheet, heating with a heat gun, using a cutter to cut the shape, and allowing to cool completely before removing the shape. I laid the flowers on top of the gold squiggles, heated it all with my heat gun and used an embossing tool to make a centre and some depressions in the petals. I rather like this!

I will try to play with the Paverplast soon but that may be more of a challenge...

Something a little more personal - a different kind of art

2010-08-08T18:49:00.004+01:00

Some of you may know that I was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 years ago. Next week will be the five year anniversary of my mastectomy. I came across this poem today whilst looking for something else, and it touched me, so I thought I would share it with you. It comes from a publication called 'The Healing Muse'.

Your Breast a Unicorn

B.A. St. Andrews

I.
Uncut and unsewn my breasts nuzzle yellow silk secure as two fauns nestled in Debussy's dream, sun-dappled and safe, finding solace singly and together.

My heart beats staccato under slumbering glands of these breasts and I think about the milk of human kindness and my friend who, unaware, suckled an abomination which curled inside her softness and betrayed her.

Like Cleopatra's asp awakening on compassion's mound, on passion's curve, at consolation's center one aberrant cell metastasized, stirring from slumber to pierce with death that tender sweetness it had dreamt upon.

II.
She hates that phrase "lost a breast" with its insinuation of carelessness.

"It's not as if the three of us went off to market," she says, "my left breast, my right breast and I and one zipped off to ice cream while the other darted to bottled dressings and me just meandering beside vegetables stacked and clotted like a painter's palette with apricot,celeriac, eggplant, muscadine.

It's not as if I realized suddenly one of my breasts had gone missing and charged the courtesy counter breathless on the PA system announcing: I'm waiting on aisle nine for my right breast, my recalcitrant child who has spent her full, fragile, throbbing life with me so please return please and help me push the cart piled high with treats for her: my other darling, my rose-tipped girl, my comfort."

III.
Breasts make money, cut or uncut.

We speak of capital "B" breasts as if they were priceless organisms to be mined or culled or caught in the teeth and so they are.

The Breast is a bronze pendant, a cocoa fruit lopped from its emerald vine.

Breast is an apricot moon pinned to the vineyard of night a pool mirroring the love-sustaining needs of women and men, women and women, mothers and sucklings.

Breast, tumescent and detumescent as any male part, is mystical and defiled, swollen and confined, life-giving and powerful as Africa's Nile.

The Breast reigns: Queen of Solace, Empress of Amazons, Priestess of Pleasure.

We all worship the Breast, ripening or withered: first pillow, first nation, first food.

IV.
Your breast is gone, medically incinerated before we could place it among stars.

Lost as the unicorn, that ancient sigil of innocence, your legendary breast is extinct and wandering in fields of praise.

Like the Unicorn's, let your struggles be woven into tapestries and hung in halls of queens and heroes.

Let your face be fashioned of herbs and flowers; let your courage be emblazoned in golden thread so light-yielding, so steadfast that fragile sister ships may, by your radiance, glide unperturbed past shoals and reefs of fear and anguish which lay siege on every heart.

By your burning may ships heavy laden, carved with busts of mermaids and deities who tame wild seas, deliver safely their cargo of women brave and beautiful as you.

To celebrate the five-year anniversary of my cancer surgery, I am considering covering the horrible mastectomy scar with something beautiful.

I, who have always eschewed tattooos, am thinking of having a very personal piece of art of my own placed on my breast, so that when I look in the mirror, I will no longer see puckers and lines, but beautiful designs....

Oooer and crumbs! Altered Element DT pack

2010-08-04T21:05:00.002+01:00

Oh my goodness.

This month's Altered Element Design Team pack is Paverpol.

I have a sheet of Paverpol Reliefdecoration, to 'decorate Paverpol statutes', a bottle of Paverpol Transparent craft medium, and a tub of Paverplast.

I have no idea what to do with this stuff! Off to do some research and thinking about what I can create with it all.

Watch this space!

Gothic arch chunky book

2010-08-02T19:47:00.005+01:00

I am taking part in a chunky book where the pages are shaped like gothic arches. The pages need to be grungy with a touch of metal. I've been trying to step out of my colour comfort zone (turquoise!) so chose deep red with black for the pages.

I had some textured glossy card, which I painted with about a dozen layers of fluid acrylics in deep iron oxide red and orange. This gives a lovely leathery finish. I added some black lace, an image, some german scrap, buttons and brads and a couple of words.

For the backs, I used two or three colours of colourwash sprays, then inked over a fern frond using red distress ink, to add a bit of pattern. I stamped some lines towards the right hand side, then added some black stamped and embossed butterflies. I hope they are gothic enough!

Button it!

2010-07-29T19:40:00.003+01:00

My last Altered Element DT pack included some Grungeboard. I've never used this stuff and was not quite sure how to work with it. I used a Cuttlebug heart die and folder to cut it and add texture. I coloured it with a colourwash spray, and once it was dry I added highlights with Treasure Gold.

I painted a 4 x 4 canvas with several thin layers of fluid acrylic paints and overstamped with Stazon. I used fine brass wire to attach the button, ribbon and Grungeboard heart to the canvas, then sent it off to Fiona.

I completely forgot to sign it...

Metal heart

2010-07-27T19:31:00.000+01:00

I absolutely love these Patera metal jewellery findings from Nunn Designs. They come in a range of shapes in gold, silver and copper, and best of all there is a punch which goes with them, and which punches collages, fabric paper etc to exactly the right size to glue into the pendants.

I punched a piece of fabric paper, glued it to a piece of felt, and sewed tiny sequins and beads onto it before stamping and embossing it to add touches of gold. I used a stamp from my last Altered Element DT pack. A few dabs of glue later, and I had a unique piece of jewellery to send off to Hilda!

Altered Element surface design pack - more twisting Tyvek

2010-07-06T22:35:00.003+01:00

I thought I'd try another way of working with Tyvek, so I gave one side of this piece a thin layer of watered down fluid acrylics in Nickel Azo Gold, and Jenkins Green.

Once the paint was dry, I cut the piece in half, and turned one piece over so that the painted side faced down. I covered the Tyvek with silicone baking paper, and used my iron to distort it. This is a process where you don't have much control, Kim Thittachai says the secret is to 'kiss and caress' the paper with the iron (definitely don't apply any weight or pressure, the iron should hardly touch the paper). The tyvek always distorts so that the 'creases' are nearest the iron, and the rounded 'valleys' are furthest away.

If you click on the picture below to enlarge it, you can see that the piece on the left is the side where the unpainted side was nearest the heat of the iron, and the rounded areas are more prominent, whereas the piece on the right had the painted side nearest the heat and the creases are more prominent.

My tyvek now had interesting texture and shape, but I wasn't sure what to do next. So, I cut one piece up, using the lines which had formed when the Tyvek was distorting. That gave me some interesting shapes. And then I had a moment of madness and decided to attempt an abstract embroidery piece!

I used my embellishing machine to create a piece of wool and silk felted fabric to use as a background. I then laid one of the Tyvek pieces on top, and used some hand painted silky thread to attach the Tyvek using some irregular cross stitches. The Tyvek was surprisingly easy to stitch through.

I finished the piece by adding some french knots to the background, and some beads tothe Tyvek, to give the piece more texture. You can see some of the detail in the pictures below.

I think I'll use this as a book cover.

Altered Element surface design pack - Tyvek

2010-07-06T08:33:00.005+01:00

Tyvek is funny stuff - it is used in the building industry and in textile art. I remember the Guardian printing a newspaper supplement on it sometuime around 1990, anmd saying how it would be one of the materials of the future... but I never imagined I would be making art out of it!

I coloured the tyvek with watered down acrylic paint, applied using a baby wipe. You only need a thin layer of paint, especially if you are going to heat the tyvek, as the paint acts as a resists to the heat - so, lots of paint=difficult to heat & distort. I coloured both sides of the tyvek, you can see the coarse 'fibres' take colour differently to the finer ones.

Next, I cut the tyvek up and laid pieces onto deeply etched rubber stamps with bold designs, added a layer of silicone paper to protect my iron, and used the iron (on a cotton setting) to heat and shrink the tyvek. This process can be unpredictable - my iron wasn't hot enough the first time, so I was left with big patches of unmelted tyvek, and it was too hot the next time, so the tyvek disappeared! This is about right, when it melets soem away completely but doesn't leave you with unmelted areas. I need to fine tune it a little bit more as it is still melting more tyvek away than I'd like, whilst leaving patches unmelted.

Next, I tore the melted tyvek into smaller pieces, and added them to a mask (protected the mask form with greased aluminium foil) covered in Perfect Paper whilst it was still wet. The perfect paper dried and the tyvek is inlaid into it. I think I may add colour to the paper parts, and Treasure Gold to add glints afterwartds. I may even post a pic when it's finished!

Altered Element DT surface pack - Stampboard

2010-06-21T00:01:00.000+01:00

I once received a beautiful Stampboard triptych from Trizzy - this is my version, which is very different! I used watered down lettuce and stream inks, stamped with black Stazon, and added Golden mica flakes for a bit of glitz. A couple of paper flowers and a gem or two, and it was finished. I just glued two tiny brass hinges to the back, and it stands up nicely!

Needle felting

2010-06-20T11:45:00.003+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, two friends of mine pointed me in the direction of a brand new Merrylock Embellishing machine on EBay. I was very fortunate to win the machine for £62.99 and I collected it 10 days ago. I didn't find the time to start playing with it until Thursday, and I finished my first project today.

I have seen a number of felted projects which have been beautifully done, but using gross (in my opinion!) colours. I thought I'd make something subtle. I took a base of acrylic felt, and felted some grey-black wool to it. Once I'd covered the felt and made a nice base, I took some more yarn and wound it into spirals, and felted those to the base. I added some simple fly stitching in a shiny crimped yearn, and some french knots in a hand dyed grey & pink perle cotton, and I *think* it's finished.

I'm not sure though - part to me feels there should be a focal point, but I'm not sure what it could be, or where to put it. I'll look at it over the next few days and see if anything suggests itself...

Altered Element DT surface pack - shrink plastic

2010-06-18T07:46:00.003+01:00

Shrink Plastic. Versatile stuff which comes in black, white, translucent and clear. Reputation for being tricky to use. But is it? If you work with it on a non stick surface, and use a 'hairdryer' type heat tool, I find it behaves itself. Just remember less is more when adding colour - what looks like pastel colour will turn out quite brightly! I use Stazon, Brilliance and Fluid Chalk inks successfully (although you have to leave the Brilliance to dry overnight or shrink the plastic VERY carefully!) Once it starts curling I often aim the heat gun at the underside and it kinds of curls back down.

This is a very different way of using Shrink Plastic - 'distressed shrink plastic', as taught to me by my friend Jessie in New Zealand. Take a piece of shrink plastic, a heat gun, a non stick craft sheet, a texture rubber stamp, and a metal skewer (or use your craft knife, palette knife or similar).

I used a piece of translucent shrink plastic about 2 x 2.5 inches.

Cut the shrinky stuff into irregular triangles and kite shapes. You can also punch holes in them at this point, it adds more texture to the finished piece. Pile them up on the craft sheet.

Have your metal skewer ready, and your rubber stamp. Heat the shrink plastic with your heat gun - preferably a 'hair dryer' type (it doesn't blow things around as much). It will start curling, if any pieces decide to leave the pile, push them back. when it looks as if it's all or nearly all shrunk, stamp into the pile with your rubber stamp - push down hard and hold the stamp there for about 30 seconds.

I wish I had another photo to show you how it looks now, but the one I took was too fuzzy.

Your shrink plastic will look textured, and have an odd shape. It might not look too inspiring at this point. Persevere! Add colour - I use alcohol inks, but I guess acrylic paint or Stazon or Brilliance ink would work.

Once coloured, apply wax rub on to the edge with your finger, then go lightly over the top with the rub ons. I use Treasure Gold (Wendy will be surprised LOL) because of the depth of colour and the fact that it dries to a permanent finish. You can use the 'palette' type, and either use a fixative or wait a week until they have set permanently.

This is what you can expect it to look like at this point.
(sorry about the slightly fuzzy photo)

Here's another.

And this is how it adds dimension to my finished chunky book page - the page had looked too 'flat' to me, but I needed the embellishment to be unbreakable, quick, easy, and in the right colours for the page. This simple 'distressed shrink plastic' element does all of that, and was very quick and easy to make.

10% discounts at the Altered Element during England games

2010-06-14T21:29:00.002+01:00

Read more about how you can get 'World Cup discount' on all Altered Elements orders of wonderful goodies during England games:

http://alteredelement.blogspot.com/

Altered Element DT pack

2010-06-09T07:51:00.005+01:00

This month's Altered Element DT pack is all about surfaces. It contained sheets of metal, tyvek and translucent shrink plastic, mini canvas boards, chipboard, stampboard, fusible film, glass squares, some tea dyed fabric, some grungeboard and some polymer stamps form Artemio.

Gazing into my crystal ball, I foresee many projects....

I started with a mini canvas which incorporated fusible film and shrink plastic.

Fusible film always looks much better on a dark surface, so I coloured the canvas with the Crafty Notions opaque black colour spray.

I coated the canvas with PVA glue ot hold the film in place, then covered the canvas with a sheet of silicone paper, and ironed the film onto the canvas - my iron gets used more often in art projects these days than it does for smoothing out creases in my clothes!

The more heat you apply, the more colour change you get in the fusible film, but you do have to be careful not to heat it too much or it disappears in patches - if this happens to you, just lay another piece of film over the top and iron more carefully, it will fuse to the layer you've already added without any need for glue. This is how the canvas surface covered with fusible film looks.

Next, I considered embellishments. I punched 5 'inchies' of translucent shrink plastic, and daubed Stewart Gill Byzantia paint thickly on top - using two colours.

When heated, the plastic shrinks as the paint dries, and the surface of the paint forms lovely little shimmery ruffles...

I used some angelina fibres, ironed between two pieces of silicone paper, to make a small sheet of texture, and ironed that onto the left hand side of the canvas. I glued the small shrink plastic and paint squares onto the angelina, then added a transparency and a german scrap 'frame', and here is the finished canvas:

Altered Element Upcycle

2010-06-09T07:38:00.003+01:00

My purple pack of pure pleasure arrived from the Altered Element last week - each item is beautifully wrapped in brown paper bags and purple tissue, and it always feels like opening Christmas presents!

This month's Upcycle element was a very old booklet of sheet music, and I did use some of it in the hanging ATCs in the last blog post, but I also used it more obviously to create this little heart box.

I cut the sheet music and glued it to the box with gel medium - I like to use this because it is 'drier' than glue and tends not to make the paper bubble when adding it to a solid surface. Once adhered and trimmed, I painted a fabric flower, the rim of the lid, and the interior of the lid and box with Radiant Rain in Jasper Red. I gave the whole box a coat of acrylic wax to give it some protection, and added the flower with a tiny brad.

Hanging ATCs

2010-06-06T22:43:00.003+01:00

I am in a swap where we made a set of 3 hanging ATCs - any theme, colour scheme, media or way of hanging. I decided to combine metal with paper, and made 3 ATCs in my favourite colour combination of turquoise and copper.

The hanging 'mechanism' is 5 pieces of copper wire, twisted together and curled at the ends. I patinated the copper lightly so it has some areas of light turquoise verdigris. The ATCs are attached to the twisted wire 'hanger' using jewellery findings - eye pins, head pins & bead caps.

The ATC backgrounds are deli paper sprayed with colour wash sprays, glued to cardstock. Old sheet music which has been stained with watered down Crafty Notions Creative Colour Spray in turquoise, plus some which has also been dry brushed with white gesso, are layered onto each ATC. Tags sprayed with Sticky Fingers Maple winter ink colourwash spray and the turquoise are wrapped with more sheet music with words stamped on top, and punched flowers with tiny brads were added . To finish the ATCs, I glued on copper coloured metal embellishments from the US, and a letter 'A' triple embossed on cardstock.

I hope Annie likes them!

Leonardo chunky book page

2010-06-06T21:30:00.003+01:00

Leonardo Da Vinci was such a special man - a scientist who recorded his ideas and inventions through drawing, as well as an artist who painted the most fabulous paintings. I am involved in a Da Vinci themed paperbag book, and have finished my first page.

I mixed a little yellow ochre and a drop of transparent red oxide with a dollop of liquid gloss medium and a smaller dollop of white gesso. I used this mixture to coat Fabriano hot press watercolour paper, then dabbed it with a crumpled up magazine page to texturise the surface and remove the brush marks. I used a piece of Ranger Cut'n'Dry foam to rub around the edges with yellow ochre chalk ink, then a thinner layer of burnt sienna on top.

I stamped the image with the same burnt sienna fluid chalk ink.

The tag was a manila shipping tag, which I dabbed with black, burnt umber, Payne's grey and bronze acrylics, again using a crumpled magazine page. Once dry, I applied slivers of textured papers (painted bronze to match the background) down the right hand side, and stamped and embossed a pen down the left hand side, before adding a slip of paper stamped with the word Leonardo coloured to match the main page. A few fibres threaded through the tag finished the page off nicely.

Fusing Fabric

2010-05-24T20:10:00.005+01:00

I have been fascinated by the concept of fusing fabrics and cutting them with a soldering iron. I bought Margaret Beal's 'Fusing Fabric' book a couple of years ago, and had a little play using a Walnut Hollow hot tool but it was so hot I had no control over where and how fast the organza I was trying to fuse went up in smoke!

I visited Margaret's stand at the NEC in March, and bought her own brand of soldering iron, which has a much longer and finer tip than the hot tool I'd been trying.

So, I took the plunge and had a little play. I laid some acrylic felt on a ceramic tile, laid 3 layers of organza (or two of organza and one of net) on top, then used a metal flower shape to 'cut' around with the soldering tool. It worked beautifully, but I need more practice to work with the layered fabrics to fuse them together without cutting right through!

I sewed my fused flowers onto a bookmark made from pelmet vilene and gauze fabric - both coloured with Adirondack colourwash sprays in Espresso and Butterscotch. I beaded the flower centres with coppery blue 15 delica beads.

I used a slightly different flower shape for the reverse of the bookmark.

This was fun. I am attending a 2 day course with Margaret Beal in Chepstow Castle on 20th & 21st November and look forward to learning more about fusing fabrics and having more control!

A selection of ATCs

2010-05-23T21:04:00.003+01:00

I usually forget to take pictures of ATCs, and share them here, even though I often make them! Here are just a few I have made recently.

The first set were made for a 'metallic embellishments' theme. The backgrounds are deli paper, sprayed with Starburst Stain colourwashes (actually overspray from other projects, I just line my spray box with paper to catch the spare spray, rather than waste it). I stamped the papers with Versamark embossing ink, then used detail gold embossing powder. The photo doesn't show the deep rich range of shimmering colour being set off by the gold, but if you click on the image you might see it in the enlarged version.

The heart and flowers are all made from metal mesh, punched and layered and attached with mini brads. The ATC on the left has a copper strip wrapped around it, with the word 'art' punched into it, and a leaf peel off above. The ATC to the right has a hammered wire embellishment with spirals at each end, and an etched metal charm wired to it.

The ATC below was a mini experiment - the base is thin canvas, painted with acrylic paint, then stencilled with gloss medium mixed with green PearlEx. The letters are die cut form gold cardstock, and the little butterfly is made from moulded polymer clay which had a layer of metal leaf added and rolled out to crackle before placing it in the mould.

This ATC has a light background made by using Starburst Stains on smooth watercolour paper. This was then stamped with a face stamp by Lost Coast, and masked using a sticky note cut to the same shape, before darker ink was sponged all around the central image. Once dry, the central image was masked again, and a numbers stamp from Paperartsy was stamped on top using Brilliance Moonlight White.

I'll try to remember to post my ATCs here more often!

Altered Element design project - polymer clay and circle frame

2010-05-15T19:44:00.006+01:00

There was some Sculpey Studio polymer clay in this month's Altered Element Design team package. I haven't used this clay before, and I must say it is very user friendly. To condition polymer clay, so that it is nice and soft so it's easy to use, you need to know whether the brand of clay conditions through pressure or warmth. I ran this through the Wizard and it didn't make much difference, but putting the package into my bra for a few minutes (nice and warm n there!) helped considerably! Once warm, I kneaded the clay for a few moments before pushing it into a Krafty Lady silicone mould. Which is when I discovered the only pitfall with this clay - it's so soft that it is difficult to unmould. Every time I tried the frame distorted as it came out of the mould.

I know could have baked it in the mould, but I wanted to make several frames, and bake them all together. So, I put the mould and clay into the freezer for 5 minutes. That worked perfectly, the clay frame popped out of the mould without any distortion whatsoever. I baked the frame, and found that this clay has a pretty matte finish, but with slight sparkle.

However, the frame looked a little dull, so I gave it a quick application of 'whitefire' Treasure Gold. It looks lovely now, all I need to do is find a tiny image to put in the middle!

In the April design team pack there was some knitted wire tubing, which I couldn't find a use for. I had a little play with it, and found it stretches and shapes in interesting ways. I cut an inch of the tubing, and stretched it into a circle, which you can see in the picture below, along with the knitted wire in it's original state.

I painted the circle frame (from the design team pack) with white gesso, then stamped and embossed the raised 'frame' area with copper embossing powder.

I inserted the stretched and shaped knitted wire into the frame.

Finally, I added a moulded piece from my stash - it was just the right size and colour!

The other side of the circle frame needed to be different. I painted it with the deep turquoise Crafty Notions Spraypaque.

I stamped a texture stamp onto the raised frame, and embossed with gold. I made a dragonfly moulded disc using the Sculpey Studio antique gold polymer clay and a mould I bought in the US last year (Enchanted Gallery?) and painted the dragonfly body with acrylic paint. I gave the wings a quick coat of iridescent medium, then glued the piece into the frame and gave the disc and inner part of the frame a coat of acrylic wax to protect it.

Well, that's all the items in this month's Altered Element design team pack used in a range of small projects. Roll on next month, I'm looking forward to it already!

Altered Element Design Team project

2010-05-10T13:16:00.004+01:00

The Altered Element design team pack this month included a gorgeous deep turquoise colour spray by Crafty Notions. I used it to spray a box, and also some of the square beads form the Upcycle pack - I spray everything in a paper lined plastic box, and use the oversprayed paper for other projects - don't want to waste all that lovely colour!

I trimmed the unmounted Karantha stamp form the DT pack, and used one end of it to stamp onto a piece of copper shim from last month's pack.

I then used Ten Studios tools to go over the design on both sides, 'puffing' the design out. I haven't played with this before, and I am sure I'd get much better with practice - it would also help it if I had a paper stump to work with instead of using the same tool for two purposes. Once I was happy with the design, I filled the back with moulding paste and glued it into the top of the box.

You can see the 'feet' made from square beads and also the little painted beads from the broken necklace in the upcycle pack. It was at this point that I remembered that I should have 'antiqued' the copper panel before gluing it to the box.

So, I did the next bit VERY carefully. I added deep turquoise acrylic paint with a paintbrush, then wiped it off. I did the same again, and left it to dry. This takes some of the high shine off the copper and gives a 'verdigris' style finish. All I need to do now is fill the box with some goodies and it will make a nice little gift for a friend's birthday.

I hope she likes it.

May Altered Element upcycle projects

2010-05-10T12:34:00.006+01:00

Lynne from the Altered Element sent me 3 broken necklaces to alter this month. So far I have made two upcycle projects, but there may be more in the pipeline!

I took the top necklace apart, and painted some of the beads and have used them as 'feet' on another project. I took the middle necklace apart and re-assembled some of the components to form the basis of a wall hanging. The bottom necklace is made from small seed beads and rectangular pieces of coloured shell, and I have saved the seed beads for another day but used the shell in the second upcycle project.

I removed most of the beads and some of the fixings, and re-assembled the 3 wooden rings with some of the jump rings and decorative rings.

I painted all the metal and wood with the Crafty Notions copper glaze Lynne sent in the DT pack. I 'marbled' the bead using the same glaze, but it doesn't show that well on the picture (click to enlarge).

I made some background paper by spraying cardstock with the Crafty Notions colour spray, then stamping into it whilst wet - this 'clumps' the mica into the patterns made by the stamp.

I cut circles from the background paper, and circles from photo transparencies, and mounted these inside the 'frames' for the front of the hanging.

For the back of the hanging, I punched some flower shapes from the background paper, and added circles cut from Crafty Individuals transparencies.

For the second project, I decided to make a mosaic. I soon realised that the small frame Lynne sent in the DT pack was just the right size to use with the shell pieces.

I used the Crafty Notions gilding flakes in the DT pack to give the frame some glitz and glamour, then glued the shell pieces into the frame. I added purple microbeads to the gaps between the shell pieces.

I stamped a face onto the shell using Stazon, to finish it off. And then I realised the frame was recessed on both sides, so the other side couldn't be left bare!

For the other side, I used a Crafty Individuals image (which fitted the frame exactly), and coated it with gel medium, brushing vertically and horizontally with a fine bristled brush. This gives the appearance of 'canvas'. I then added the tiniest amount of Treasure Gold (whitefire) to catch the high points to bring out the texture.

Woo Hoo - Altered Element design pack for May

2010-05-08T09:01:00.004+01:00

Well, I wonder if Lynne knows it is my birthday tomorrow? The postman just bought a purple parcel from the Altered Element, which has so many lovely goodies inside that it feels like a birthday gift!

My upcycle challenge for May is 'broken jewellery', and there are the remnants of 3 broken necklaces. One idea immediately sprang to mind for some of the middle necklace, and another idea for some painted beads in the top one wasn't far behind. The third necklace is seed beads and shell pieces, I'll have to ponder that for a while.

The design team project materials are in my favourite colours of turquoise and copper - a Crafty Notions creative colour Spraypaque Turquoise and a Crafty Notions copper Rainbow Glaze. Along with the colours, Lynne has sent round and square paper mache frames with hanging eyes, a tube of richly coloured metallic/iridescent Czech glass beads, some Crafty Notions variegated copper gilding flakes, some Sculpey Studio antique gold polymer clay, and a lovely Crafty Notions Karantha Stamp (I love these as they are nice and deep and are great to use with Friendly Plastic and Polymer Clay).

My thinking cap is ON!

Friendly Plastic supplies

2010-05-01T10:24:00.001+01:00

Somebody posted a question on my blog 'Guest Book', asking where I get my Friendly Plastic from.

There are 3 reliable places in the UK who carry a wide range of colours and enough stock not to disappoint:

Altered Element - who also sell all manner of other fabulous goodies - http://www.alteredelement.co.uk/epages/es108190.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es108190_es119921283844/Categories/Friendly_Plastic

Liz Welch - who also does FP classes - http://www.rarebird.ltd.uk/FPshop.html

and

The Frame Workshop - http://www.theframeworkshop.co.uk/friendly-plastic

and I have never had a 'snapper' or faulty stick from any of them! Snappers are no good to work with. Always check your FP sticks before using them by bending them so that the ends touch - if they do this without snapping they are fine to use. If they snap, you may as well just put them in the bin, as they won't behave themselves when you're trying to work with them!

The 'snappers' are just born that way - it's not an age thing. Apparently the product was originally developed for a non-craft purpose and was not intended to be melted and re-melted, and if the formula is just a tiny bit different the sticks are crumblier and snap rather than being very flexible.

Nature themed paperbag book

2010-04-05T13:37:00.004+01:00

I have been taking part in an international collaborative paperbag book, on the theme of 'Nature'. Each player made 2 sets of 12 pages, and mailed them to the hostess, who swapped them out, and sent each player some brown paper bags to help us turn the assorted pages into books.

I coloured the edges of my paper bags with Starburst Stains.

I bound the bags with the open ends alternating, and the binding being about 3/4 inch from the stubby end of the bag - leaving the stubby end as a 'half' page, as seen above. The binding was very simple, I just made 2 holes, and threaded the thread between the holes and around the ends, then tied the threads together and trimmed the ends off. I made 5 pages from decorated folded card to attach to the stubs, and added Nature themed quotations to those pages.

I stuck half my pages back to back with tabs in between, to go into the 'pockets' created by the paper bags, and stuck the remainder on the bare pages. I added covers made from painted & collaged canvas, and added a little bronze German Scrap trim. Here's a picture of the spine of the book, showing the binding thread.

I made 3 bundles of fibres in the colours of the covers, and threaded them through the binding threads, and tied them together in a half knot. This picture shows the cover with 2 bundles added. They cover the binding thread nicely!

I added some letters to the cover, along with a lovely little rusty lizard who came home with me from last year's trip to Arizona. I'm really glad I've managed to bind everybody's gorgeous pages into a book which looks nice - I did wonder if I'd end up with another UFO at the back of the bookshelf....

All I have to do now is bind last year's Meander pages, and the Angel chunky book pages from the year before...

Metal squares 'screen'

2010-04-04T21:12:00.003+01:00

I was in a metal squares swap on UKArtSwaps yahoo group, where we swapped 2 inch metal squares, and part of the swap was that we also had to create an item on which to display our squares.

I decided to create a Beryl Taylor style accordion screen. Beryl's original screen was white, and was the subject of an article in issue 10 or 11 of Cloth Paper Scissors.

I decided that the colours of the metal squares would be best complemented with shades of violet and turquoise. I made a sheet of fabric paper by gluing paper napkins onto an old pillowcase, covering with tissue paper, and painting with watered down Golden fluid acrylic paints before the glue dried. I cut the fabric paper into 12 oblongs, and sewed buttons onto 6 of them, before backing them with felt.

I tore some hot press watercolour paper into oblongs, before colouring it with watered down colourwashes. I sewed these onto the fabric paper backed with felt.

I made some 'joints' by dyeing and sewing some of the pillowcase into 'sleeves' for the wood dowel. I coloured the dowels with Adirondack colourwash in Stream. I glued the 'sleeves' to the back of the felt, and backed with the fabric paper, before gluing the dowel in place.

Finally, I glued the metal squares onto the watercolour paper.

I'm really pleased with this as a way of displaying the squares.

Altered Element April Upcycle pack

2010-04-02T17:18:00.005+01:00

Each month Lynne at the Altered Element will be sending something found in a charity shop, and which I will need to recycle into something completely different!

This gorgeous William Morris fabric was in the April pack, along with several toning lace ribbons, ric rac and bias binding.

This Upcycle pack was clearly a sewing project. Only one problem - I don't really think of myself as a textile artist, or even somebody who sews!!!!

Oh, and our house is so upside down because of building work, that I can't get to a table to put the sewing machine on it. Which is how I discovered that I can use a sewing machine on top of a kitchen worktop, standing on one leg, whilst pressing the sewing machine's pedal with the other...

After considering various options - a book cover, a cushion - I decided to make a shoulder bag. I have a book of bag designs, but they are all so SQUARE! Surely it wouldn't be any more work to make a bag with a different shape? And much more interesting...

I cut a shield shape from some scrap card and used it as a template to cut 8 pieces from the fabric. I cut the remaining long strip into two, and used that to make the straps.

I sewed the ribbons, ric rac and binding onto spare pieces of fabric paper, using embroidery stitches for the pale green ribbon. I made a 'flap' for the bag using more fabric paper and the rest of the ribbon.

I decided the ribbon panels and flap needed a bit of a lift so I covered them all with some sea green/blue organza, and sewed a few silk flowers here and there. I sewed the bag together with the panels, and added a magnetic closure under the flap. There are deep gussets at the sides of the bag, so it can hold quite a lot!

When I started making this, I thought it might make a gift for somebody else. By the time I'd finished, I'd changed my mind and decided to keep it for myself!!! Although I didn't think a patterned bag was my style, I do have a couple of pretty plain turquoise outfits, and this will be a nice bag to use when wearing those...

Thanks again to Lynne for lovely things to play with, and taking me in an unexpected direction!

Altered Element April DT pack

2010-04-02T16:50:00.007+01:00

My April DT pack arrived from Lynne at the Altered Element, and when I looked at the contents, I must admit that my first thought was 'What HAVE I done?'

I loved the colour combination, but didn't have much of a clue as to what to do with the contents of the pack! I recognised the black lightweight Lutradur, and the copper coloured metal and wire, but had no idea what to do with the stretchy twisted wire stuff (bouillon wire), or the curly shredded wire stuff (lametta curls)!

I thought I'd start somewhere in my comfort zone, so I applied some Golden light moulding paste to the Lutradur using a Crafty Notions stencil.

I added copper colour with a Moonshadow Mist Incandescent Copper spray.

I laid the Lutradur onto a spare piece of fabric paper left over from another project. I liked the look, so I sewed them together, then used my heat gun to distress the Lutradur.

I liked the heart shaped leaves in the tree, so I punched some hearts from the metal sheet, and shaped them using a wooden stick sharpened to a point.

I added these to the area below the tree, and sewed some beads around the tree, and the twisted stretchy wire stuff (bouillon wire) onto the tree. I decided that the focal piece needed a background to complement it, which also gave me the opportunity to use some more of the pack contents.

I painted the edges of some thick card with copper acrylic paint, laid some more Lutradur over the copper, added the lametta curls at the corners, and covered the whole with some copper and blue two toned organza. I added a ribbon hanging loop and backed it with velvet paper.

Finally, I glued the focal piece to the background. I never imagined producing anything like this, so am pleased that the contents of the pack took me out of my comfort zone and made me combine metal and textiles.

The pack also contained some gorgeous Cosmic Shimmer thick embossing powder and some knitted wire tubing, but I didn't manage to incorporate those - I'm sure they'll come in handy for another project!

Altered Element DT pack 1

2010-03-28T22:36:00.004+01:00

Each month, I will have 2 'design team' packs from The Altered Element. One will be a pack of things sold in the shop, and the other will be an 'Upcycle' pack consisting of something from a charity shop.
This month, the Upcycle pack is a beautiful piece of William Morris 'Agapanthus' fabric in blues, greens and lilac, with some ribbons and lace in toning colours. I'm thinking about the possibilities for this pack, but do have a project in mind.

The pack of stock items consisted of a large piece of black 30g weight Lutradur, and a copper themed pack of metal, bullion wire, knitted wire tubing, fine copper wire, and Lametta curls.

I have started working with the contents of this pack and hope to post a finished project this week. I'm waiting for something to dry at the moment, before carrying on to the next step.

What would you make with this pack?

Colorwash spray technique

2010-03-07T23:25:00.004Z

I had a 'light bulb' moment today. I have lots of colourwashes in my stash, and have only ever sprayed them onto various surfaces, or painted them onto specific parts of projects. What was I thinking of? I should have thought of using them like this a long time ago, not finding out by accident today!

I was making something today when I accidentally got some colourwash onto some glossy paper. I dabbed it with a wet wipe. I liked the effect. I added another colour, dabbed, added another colour and dabbed until I was happy with what I had. It looks quite similar to alcohol inks at first glance, but it a much cheaper way of achieving the effect than using alcohol inks. I used what I produced as backgrounds to stamp on, and made these two cards.

Mixed media pendant

2010-03-07T23:10:00.006Z

I had a few birthday presents to make, and reluctantly decided to use my last few Patera hearts. These are part of a range of really high quality jewellery findings, and the pendants all have matching punches, which makes it really easy to achieve a professional finish when cutting your artwork to fit.

I was only reluctant because I have a weird thing about not using things in my stash which I really like, especially the last of anything (because then I won't have it any more, and who knows whether I can get it again LOL).

I was also reluctant because I can't find a UK supplier for these beautiful high quality jewellery findings, and UK customs restrictions on imported goods means I can only buy 5 at a time from the US, unless I want to pay £8 handling charge plus 17.5% tax.

I took some fabric paper scraps left over form my last mixed media art quilt, and punched it to shape. I stamped with Versamark, and embossed with Stewart Gill Metallic copper embossing powder, then sewed on a bead and bead spacer. Voila! A pretty unique piece of wearable art. Apologies for the image quality, I scanned it and probably should have taken a photograph instead.
Anyway, I hope the friends who receive them for their birthdays like them!

Woo HOO

2010-03-07T22:51:00.002Z

I used to buy most of my art supplies from the US, because I couldn't find a UK website which sold the eclectic mix of stuff I like to play with, and I was fed up of paying lots of expensive UK postage to buy bits and bobs from lots of websites. Altered Elements sells most of the things I like to use, so I am really happy to have found their website!

However, I'm doubly happy because I'm delighted to announce that I've been chosen to be part of a new Altered element design team. I will be playing with products from Altered Element for the next 6 months, and sharing whatever I create here.

I will also share them on this blog, so watch this space!

Beryl Taylor style wall hanging

2010-02-16T22:29:00.005Z

I've been making a Beryl Taylor style wall hanging this week. I made some fabric paper using paper napkins/serviettes, I think it's the nicest I've ever made, probably because there is less contrast in the images and colours than using random papers.

I took an old cotton pillowcase, and cut it into 4 pieces. I mixed equal amounts of PVA (white) glue and water together in a pot, and used an old paintbrush to paint the glue mix onto the fabric. I laid cut up napkins on top, leaving gaps between the pieces., and painted with more glue mix. A top layer of white tissue with more glue mix finished the structure, and before the glue dried I added a wash of 3 colours of watered down acrylic paint. I left it to dry overnight, and this is the finished product.

I cut a piece about 7 inches by 11 to use for the wall hanging, and started to use some of the rest of the sheet to make embellishments. Here are a couple of small pieces sewn onto felt, trimmed, and with buttons and beads added.

This heart is made the same way - sewn onto felt, trimmed, then embroidered and beaded.

I sewed the background onto a piece of felt, then added some painted diamonds, ribbons and hand dyed lace. I stamped onto the diamonds with gold paint, and sewed around the edges to make them stand out from the background.

I added another ribbon, and sewed square sequins and beads onto it to break the colour up. I sewed some of my little beaded and buttoned embellishment pieces on, and thought about what to put in the big space!

When I'd made some more embellishments, including one made from Paper Perfect, and sewn them on along with some silk flowers, the quilt was almost finished, but the vertical stripe of turquoise ribbon was too strong, so I broke it up by applying moulding paste through a heart stencil at regular intervals down the ribbon. Once dry, I finished them with Treasure Gold rub on wax. To finish the hanging off, I sewed deep pink organza ribbon around the edges, and backed the fabric with some mount board. The finished hanging looks like this:

This quilt took about 20 hours to make, but I enjoyed making it, and hope the long standing swapping friend who receives it like it too.

Ribbon storage

2010-02-14T15:27:00.002Z

I have tried all sorts of ways to store ribbon, and have always ended up with several problems - I can't see what ribbons I have, or how much I have of each ribbon, and despite my efforts to wind it onto various things, I usually end up with a tangled mess in a box.

And then I found this:

http://www.ribbonring.com/

and I thought it was too expensive, so I bought some plastic ribbon storage cards which did stop my ribbons getting into a tangled mess, but still stopped me seeing how much of any ribbon I actually have. And all the ribbons on the cards were still in a box, so I couldn't see at a glance whether I had anything which would go with whatever I was working on. I certainly couldn't just lay some ribbon onto a project to see how it looked - I had to delve into the box, unwrap ribbon form the cards, try it and re-wrap if it didn't suit.

So, I decided to try the ribbonring system. I am a complete convert. I don't usually promote products here, but this has made my life so easy I thought I'd share it with you all! All my ribbons are now stored on the system, and hang from a coat hook on the door in my craft room. I can see what i have at a glance, and there are no tangles. Bliss!!!!

ATCs

2010-02-14T15:05:00.003Z

Here are a few of the ATCs I've made recently. I love the small scale of ATCs as a 'canvas' to try out new ideas, techniques, and products, before using them in bigger projects where mistakes would be more costly in terms of time and materials.

The pear on this ATC is made from polymer clay, painted with acrylic paints and stamped onto. It's set onto textured card, which I painted with fluid acrylics then rubbed with metallic rub on wax to bring out the texture.

This ATC was a way of testing out Brilliance white ink on colourwash & distress ink backgrounds. I used watercolour paper which had been sprayed with several colourwash sprays, then stamped the main image using black Stazon. I used a mask to cover the centre of the image, and added distress inks around the edges using cut and stamp foam. Finally, I stamped using Brilliance Moonlight White.

This was another new technique try out. I created 'luminous paste' by mixing PearlEx with glossy soft gel medium (one of the variations in Julia Andrus's Paper Transformed book), and applied it to painted canvas through a stencil. The letters are die cut. The butterfly is polymer clay - using clay which was rolled out, had a layer of metal leaf added, coloured with alcohol ink, then rolled out thinly so that the metal leaf 'cracks'. I had leftovers from my mian project so put them into the small buttefly mould to see how they looked. Works for me! I'm not sure I like my design here, but it is a little record of the techniques I used, which will act as a reminder for me.

Fabric paper jewellery

2010-02-14T14:57:00.003Z

One of my friends has a birthday this week, so I thought I'd make her a little something!

I used an antique copper heart pendant finding from Nunn Designs - I love their findings, they are well made and gorgeous. And several of the pendant bases have punches in exactly the same size and shape, which takes all the hassle out of cutting your artwork to fit!

I used a scrap of fabric paper, punched it to shape, laid it onto a piece of felt and sewed around the edges, and trimmed the felt. I beaded the surface, then stuck it into the heart bezel with heavy gel medium. I hope the recipient likes it!

Recycling

2010-02-14T14:51:00.003Z

I made a votive for a friend, using an old translucent cosmetic pot. This is a really easy project, and looks pretty! Stamp your design onto pastel coloured tissue paper, adhere to pot using gel medium, add a circle of velvet paper underneath to cover the scruffy tissue edges.

Cut decorative canvas scrap to size to fit neck edge (this covers the screwtop ridges) and adhere using gel medium. Add a trim of gold german scrap to the inside and outside rim, and it's done!

Friendly plastic butterfly

2010-01-31T17:02:00.005Z

I made a friendly plastic butterfly for the Amaco butterfly competition - all the entries will go to the holocaust museum, each to represent a child who died. I had decided not to enter the competition, as I was very busy at the time, plus international postage is expensive. But somebody from Amaco emailed me and asked if I would submit an entry, which was flattering...

I made this in a bit of a hurry, and it's not as good as I would have liked, but I didn't have time to re-do it, so off it went! It was on display on the Amaco stand at CHA 2010!

The butterfly is about 4 inches across, and I used a colouring technique I learnt from Liz Welch - doodled alcohol ink. I didn't have time to take step by step pics when I was making the butterfly, but have included some from an earlier project (below) so that you can see how easy it is to do. To make the butterfly, I used 2 wing shapes cut from doodled sticks and a body made from a piece cut from a fuschia stick. I joined them all together by dipping the edges into hot water for a few moments then pressing them together and holding in position for a few moments. The antennae were made from copper wire.

To make doodled alcohol ink Friendly Plastic, take a stick of gold Friendly Plastic and drip some alcohol ink on it. The newer bright colours are good for this technique. You can blow the ink around using a straw if you like.

Keep adding aclohol ink. If you're blowing it with a straw, you will find that the ink you're blowing comes to a sudden stop when it touches dry ink. So, eventually you will have to drip or dab the ink into the gaps.

This is what the finished piece looks like, along with the inks I used.

Now take a white Sakura souffle pen, and draw around the blobs using wriggly lines, then infill with doodles, until the piece is doodled all over.

Easy to do, and looks very effective. Liz uses it to make beautiful pendants, by cutting it to shape and size and laying it into bezels, then covering with layers of resin and trapping doodles or tiny embellishments between the layers.

Conditioning Polymer Clay

2010-01-07T22:10:00.004Z

This is a first - a blog post without pictures! I have been playing with polymer clay, but not nearly as much as I'd like to, and I haven't finished anything off to a standard that I'm happy to show off yet!

The problem with polymer clay is that you have to condition it before you can play with it. Clay is properly conditioned when you can fold a thin sheet in half and have no cracking at the fold.

Different brands of polymer clay have different properties, and as I have learnt this week, until you understand what they are, you won't necessarily be successful in preparing the clay for play.

I worked with Fimo Classic last summer, and found it a bit of a pain to condition, even using a pasta machine, so a friend suggested I try Fimo Soft. Fimo Soft is easier to condition, but I don't like the look or feel of the baked clay as much as baked Classic.

I worked with Sculpey's new lightweight Polymer Clay - it is a dream to condition as it is very soft and easy to knead. It also takes colour very well after baking - using alcohol inks and Johnson's Klear/Future acrylic floor polish. If I had found this first, I probably wouldn't have tried any other polymer clays! Except that I like to use black clay, and I haven't seen this product in any colour other than white - it may exist, but I haven't seen it.

I had read that Kato Clay is harder to condition, but worth the extra effort in terms of the finished product. I have tried it this week, and would agree completely that the finished product is the best I've tried, but the conditioning nearly defeated me.

I asked around for suggestions about conditioning polymer clay. Friends suggested that I place the pack of clay in my underwear or that I sit on the package for a while to warm it up before trying to condition it in a pasta machine. I have discovered that this works well - but only for some clays.

Fimo clay is conditioned by the use of gentle warmth and kneading, or running the slightly warmed clay through a pasta machine. So the underwear or sitting on it technique works well.

Kato Clay is conditioned by pressure, so warmth doesn't help at all. And even in thin slices, running it through my pasta machine just resulted in a load of crumbs which I couldn't get to stick together enough to run through the machine again, and which were too hard to knead. I spent an evening trying to get crumbs through the machine in enough quantity to stick together. It was really hard to get through the machine, and I had to run it through between 35 and 4o times to get it manageable, but it still wasn't properly conditioned. I gave up and left it alone for a couple of days.

And then I had a brainwave. I remembered reading that you can use your Wizard to condition polymer clay, so ran some clay through it, between plastic bags. The clay got softer, but the bags stretched and popped. I ran some more through between pieces of teflon craft sheet. The clay got softer, but I managed to split the craft sheet! After running the clay through the Wizard about 10 times it seemed much softer, but also seemed to be getting 'dry', so I moved it to the pasta machine and ran it through a few times. It was really easy to run through the pasta machine, and working it between metal seemed to make it less dry and more plastic and elastic.

So, I now have my perfect method for conditioning KatoClay - run small amounts through the Wizard ten times, then through the pasta machine 10 times. Combine the resulting small sheets into bigger sheets, until all the clay you want to work with is in one sheet, and can be folded without any cracking at the fold. This method is much easier than the pasta machine alone, and certainly much much quicker.

I need to experiment with what I use to protect the Wizard plates whilst running the polyclay through the Wizard - polythene is too stretchy, teflon craft sheet is not stretchy enough, and probably too thin. Ideally, 2 thin metal plates would be best, but until I can think of how to create those (cutting up the Christmas 'Quality Street' tins?), I will try using the thin plastic used for slot-together files & boxes, or acetate from Christmas Card packaging, or transparencies. I'll edit this post and let you know what works best when I have tried a few things out!

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda - Happy New Year

2009-12-31T17:56:00.002Z

I'd just like to wish you all a very happy,
healthy and creative 2010 - or,
as we say in Wales -

BLWYDDYN NEWYDD DDA!!!!

I'll drink a toast to you all at midnight. Chink chink.

Perfectly clear

2009-12-29T12:33:00.004Z

I signed up for a swap called 'perfectly clear', where I had to make an item which incorporated a clear element. I made a votive 'shade' by stamping on 2 pieces of acetate with several shades of Brilliance ink. I used acetate recycled from Christmas card packaging, but you could also use transparencies suitable for lazer printers, the acetate just needs to be either reasonably heatproof or stiff enough to stay clear of the candle flame.

I used 4 eyelets to hold the acetate pieces together. I included a clear tealight/votive candle holder, which can take either a real candle or one of the small battery operated votive candles.

It does have a wintry theme, and makes snowflake patterns all over the wall - maybe my swap partner will like it enough to bring it out each Christmas!

Green & gold Friendly Plastic mask

2009-12-28T07:35:00.010Z

My step daughter asked me if I could make a mask similar to the one I had made for my daughter:

but in greens.

A mask takes between 3 and 4 sticks of Friendly Plastic, so I checked my stash and found 2 iridescent green sticks and 2 gold. I cut one of the gold sticks in half and then cut each half lengthwise into 7 strips. I did the same with one of the green strips.

I have a paper mache mask form, which I covered in aluminium foil, so that the Friendly Plastic wouldn't stick to it.

I then set my melting pot to 140 degrees and filled it with water. I dropped a gold strip into the water, coloured side down, and after about 10 seconds I fished it out (using a wooden handled pointy tool), and laid it onto the mask form. I repeated with all my gold strips, until I had my mask base. I pressed the pointy tool into each joint as I worked, the joints are what holds the mask together and I wanted them to be as strong as possible.

I topped up the water, and repeated the process using the green strips, overlapping and joining onto the gold strips as I went.

Next, I put a green strip onto a piece of non stick craft sheet and heated it with my craft gun until soft. I pushed a cutter into the Friendly Plastic then dropped the craft sheet, plastic and cutter into a bowl of cold water. After 10 seconds I took it all out, removed the cutter, peeled the plastic off the craft sheet and used sharp scissors to separate the shape I had cut out from the plastic. I repeated with the green and gold until I had 6-8 shapes of each colour.

I heated the centre of the mask with my heat gun, just enough to make it tacky, then laid a shape at top centre, and continued heating until I could see the shape was soft. I pushed into the shape with the end of the pointy tool - this gave a 'crease' down the 'petal' and also pushed the shape firmly into the layer below, making a strong joint.

I repeated with more heat and more shapes until the mask was finished. You need to be careful not to apply too much heat at once, or the mask will melt so much that it loses definition and oozes off the foil...

Once happy with the mask, I left it to cool on the mask form for an hour or so, then just popped it off.

All it needs now is elastic!

Stampbord triptych

2009-12-26T19:20:00.004Z

Trizzy sent me a stampbord triptych a couple of months ago, and I loved the idea, so I made this one to give as a Christmas present.

I took two of the 2 x 1 inch pieces, drenched with water and zapped with a hot heat gun until they bubbled.

I used fluid chalk inks to colour the bubbled pieces and a 2 x 2 inch piece, then stamped images using Chapel Road stamps and Stazon ink.

I scraped and scratched here and there, but you can hardly tell as when I added a layer of glossy accents to seal it and give it a shine, the ink dissolved just enough that the scratches disappeared!

Finally, I added tiny hinges, and coloured the edges and hinges with a brown Sharpie pen.

Copper & agate brooch

2009-12-26T19:00:00.000Z

I had some 16 gauge copper wire to play with, and decided to make a brooch as a Christmas gift. I had an agate heart which had a pre-drilled hole of about the right size, so threaded that onto the wire. I used round nosed pliers to bend the wire into the shapes I wanted, then used a chasing hammer to flatten all the bends, which stiffens the piece so that it holds its shape.

I hammered and flattened the end into a point, and used much finer wire to wrap around the bottom of the brooch to hold the last curve of the wire in place. Thankfully the recipient likes it!

My new play space

2009-11-20T00:13:00.006Z

Well, I've finally moved out of the dining room into a proper play space. I'm not fully organised yet, so please excuse the messy piles of stuff here and there!

This was once a bedroom, and is still the spare room if/when we have a house full, as the sofa is a fold out bed. To the left of the sofa is the filing drawer unit that I store my unmounted stamps in. To the right of the sofa are the iris carts which were almost the whole of my storage space in the dining room.

But now I have cupboards... no curtains yet, but lots of cupboards!

And spaces on top of cupboards and underneath cupboards... the cupboards were once a mini kitchen which is no longer needed, so we moved them in here. We had to buy new worktops as we've organised the cupboards differently, but we managed to find a cheap worktop at a bargain price.

I have invested in lots of plastic boxes so that I can organise things in the cupboards, but a number of them are empty as yet, as I haven't sorted everything out into its final home yet. I m determined to be properly organised, and have even started putting labels on the boxes so I know what's in each of them. I've already used one dymo cartridge and need to buy another to carry on!

I bought a spice rack for the inside of a kitchen unit, and then had a 'eureka' moment, as I realised that fitting these to the inside of these cupboards would be perfect storage for my embossing powders and colourwash sprays and would be really easy to see the colours.

I'm not sure what the best things to out in drawers are, but for the moment this is my metalworking drawer:

This one's full of napkins and glue guns:

and this one has some of my beads, brayers and non stick sheets. No, I'm not sure about the logic, either!

Because there is actually somewhere to put everything, I am pulling boxes out, using the things I need, then putting them back into the box and putting the box away as I work, so hopefully this room won't degenerate into the dreadful mess the dining room was. Things just piled up on the table there until they reached avalanche point, and slid off the table, at which point I had to try and clear and sort everything. And I could never find anything!

Apart from finding places for the last few piles of stuff, and adding more labels to the boxes, the only things that need to sort out are curtains, the lighting, and the power supply. This room is much lighter than the dining room was, but when I am working on the worktop am standing between the light and my work. The desk lamp helps, but is not enough. We have got some spare lights that fit under the wall units. All I have to do is persuade the man in my life to install them... As for the power supply, I have a double socket next to the sofa, and another in the corner of the room above the worktop. I am right handed, so I either have to use the tools which need an electric supply on the small section of worktop near the window, or use them on the longer piece with the wires getting in my way. I think I'll run an extension lead under the units to somewhere near the door. Makes sense to have another couple of sockets anyway!

It's lovely to work in here, and what's nicer, it's a quiet room at the back of the house away form the traffic noise, and the window looks out over my lovely garden! Oh, and there's a bathroom next door, so carrying water is never going to be an issue!

Friendly plastic mask

2009-11-19T21:00:00.005Z

My daughter is going to a masquerade ball next week. She was going to go shopping for a burgundy and gold mask, to go with her dress. I said I was sure I could make something unique for her instead, and this is what I came up with:

I took a blank mask and covered it in tin foil. I cut thin strips from a gold FP stick, and softened them in water, then used a pointed tool to lift them out of the water and lay them randomly onto the tin foil covered mask. I bent them so that each strip changed direction a couple of times, and made sure they crossed over and joined onto other strips. Once I had a reasonable base, I started cutting strips off an indian red strip, and added those to fill some of the gaps and add strength. When I was happy with this base, I heated it with a heat gun to make sure all the joints melted together. I then took some short red strips and warmed them in the water, and added them to the mask, folded in half, so that both ends were joined to the top edge.

I laid a gold strip onto a small piece of non stick craftsheet and melted it with a heat gun, then used a 4 petal cutter to cut a 'flower'. I dropped the FP and craft sheet into a bowl of water to cool, then made lots more petal shapes in gold and indian red.

I dropped the 'flowers' into the hot water to soften them, then attached them to the mask, trying to spread them evenly over the 'ribbon' framework, and ensure a balanced mixture of gold and red. It's quite sturdy, but nicely lightweight. And my daughter can be certain that her mask is unique!!!!

Aaaarrrggghh

2009-11-12T07:09:00.004Z

Some spammer has found the time to write spam comments on old posts on this blog. Why do people do this? Where do they find the time? Anyway, as all comments are moderated, you will be spared the details of this spammer's body parts and sexual innuendo and practices. Be thankful.

Sadly, it has made it more difficult for anybody else to make comments now as I have had to change the settings so that anonymous peple can't comment, and you'll also have to do the word verification thing from now on.. sorry!

More beading

2009-11-09T10:19:00.009Z

If you are in a Christmas present swap with me, and like surprises, you may not want to read this blog post..... don't panic, the pictures are a long way down...

I have been cutting & beating metal, which I find particularly satisfying for some reason....

Here's a photo of me (very rare!) bashing some metal:

And once the metal is cut, filed, beaten, punched and riveted, it needs embellishing...

In this post there are some pictures of the Beads on Metal pieces I have made recently. Each uses a different Beverly Gilbert bead soup mix . Beverly taught me how to make these Beads on Metal pieces, and I love the technique, but also know that Beverly's bead soups are really so luscious that the they make these pieces extra special. Beverly also has a new book out, 'Beaded Colorways', published by North Light Books, and I am tapping my fingers and toes waiting for my copy to arrive, as she tells me she has shared all her secrets inside!!!

Anyway, back to the artwork - and I have been testing my new camera taking these pictures, which are nowhere near perfect - I'm getting about a 50% success rate on the close up shots (old camera was about 30% success) but really need to keep a photo notebook so that I can remember which settings I took particular shots in, and in what order! It's hard photographing all those shiny bead and metal surfaces, particularly if the camera wants to focus on a different part of the image than I do....

In this pic, the camera really liked the bottom right hand corner - I knew it wanted to focus there but didn't know how to change it's mind LOL. I wanted it to focus on that big bead, which is where I was aiming at through the viewfinder...

In this pic, it focused where I wanted it to, but not quite as well as I wanted it to, and there really aren't and pink beads in the piece - they are a lovely purply wine colour...

This is better, but could be sharper...

I didn't light this one well enough - think daylight works better!

This is probably the nicest piece, I should have taken the picture from a different angle to show off the big beads!

I tried a minimalist style here, as far as the beads are concerned, and a wriggly hammered wire piece rather than a hole and jump ring, and I quite like it!

Still quite minimalist, but with a few more beads.

This one looks stunning in real life, I haven't caught the colours at all well.

I am making 15 pendants in total, so will post pics of the others when I have finished.

Beads, beads, beads

2009-10-20T20:56:00.004+01:00

During Beverly Gilbert's 'Wander with Colour' class, I almost finished one necklace in freeform netting, but I also wanted to learn how to do freeform peyote, so I began a freeform peyote necklace too. The first necklace wanders from turquoise through teal and green to chocolate brown, but I chose autumnal colours to wander through for this one.

I have been beading for days, and have finally finished it (I think! My beading needle broke and I took that as a sign!). I reckon it's been about 25 hours of beading, and I will not be giving it away or selling it - this is a heirloom piece as far as I am concerned! You can see more detail in this picture.

I would never have picked up a beading needle if I hadn't seen Beverly's wonderful work, and been inspired to take her classes, so - THANKS Beverly (I think!).

Cory Celaya

2009-10-14T04:37:00.003+01:00

I took a fabulous class with Cory Celaya in Arizona today.

We began by making collage papers:

Next, we painted a canvas:

Then we collaged our handmade and other papers onto our painted canvas, and painted over the collaged papers. We stamped and doodled a bit. This is how mine turned out:

I really like it. I'm not sure yet whether it will become a handbag, a wall hanging, a book cover, or something else entirely!

Wandering with Colour

2009-10-11T07:27:00.003+01:00

Wander with colour is a two to three day beading class with Beverly Gilbert. The first half day explores colour theory, and includes collage exercises which reinforce the colour theory, but which also give participants a couple of colour schemes for future use with beads, or even interior design! Beverly then explains how she creates her wonderful bead soups, and evrybody begins to think about the colour scheme for their pieces, and blend beads to make new bead soups which work as transitions between the bead soups in the colours chosen for the piece. That's probably as clear as mud, hopefully the photo below makes it clearer. I worked with the 5 main colours in the photo, but made blends so that the transitions between colours were not abrupt.

Next, I began beading, making a freeform netting, moving through the colours as I went.

After about 4 rows, I began to incorporate bigger beads.

I then began to strengthen, stiffen, and cross over, to bring the piece togeehr and also bulk out some areas.

This is the piece at the end of the two days. It is almost finished, but needs a little work here and there, and will need a clasp. I will finish this when I get home to Wales at the end of the month.

Beverly really is a wonderful teacher. This is the first wholly beaded piece I have ever made, and I love it already!

More beads on metal

2009-10-11T07:20:00.003+01:00

I am halfway through making a pendant and earrings to match the bracelet I made. I probably won't be able to finish these for a few weeks, but will try to remember to post a picture of the whole set when they are done.

Beverly Gilbert is such a good teacher, and a wonderful hostess. I have had a great few days learning more about beading and metalwork. I highly recommend taking a class with her if you are able to!!!

Beads on Metal bracelet

2009-10-08T03:48:00.004+01:00

I took a class with Beverly Gilbert yesterday. If you ever get the chance to do this - grab it with both hands! Beverly is a fantastic teacher, has a wonderful eye for colour, and makes gorgeous samples. We were very lucky to take the class at Beverly's home, and were also provided with a wonderful lunch, plus teas, coffees, seriously good chocolate, salted almonds and olives a part of the day.

I decided to make a bracelet. This meant cutting ten pieces of copper, filing the edges of each, hammering the edges of each, and hammering five of them to give surface texture. Below you can see one of Beverly's finished bracelets, with the beginnings of my bracelet.

The next step was to create 'anchors' for the beadwork, by punching holes in the smaller 'front' metal pieces, and threading wire through the holes. I stamped words onto the back pieces, using metal punches.

Finally, I created some rivets from copper wire, and joined the pieces together, then 'antiqued' them by bathing them in liver of sulphur. Once the metal was dry, I beaded on top, you can see several stages below.

Once all the beading was done, I joined the links together with hand made jump rings, and made a clasp and link.

A closer view on my wrist:

And then I turned the bracelet over. Spot the deliberate mistake!!!

I will be taking the links apart and turning some around sometime soon!

Friendly plastic play

2009-10-06T04:52:00.008+01:00

Carol and I have been playing with Friendly Plastic today. One thing we did was make some decorated Friendly Plastic strips.

Take a pale coloured strip of FP - white, mother of pearl, pale gold. Drip alcohol inks onto it - the brights work well. Move the inks around with some kind of tool - I used the end of a fine straw. I dripped more ink on and blew some of it around.

The colours I used were POOL, CLOVER, and PURPLE TWILIGHT. The finished strip looks pretty just covered in the inks.

If you want to go a step further, take a Sakura Souffle pen, and doodle all over the inked strip.
You can now use the decorated strip in your projects.

We also made some beads out of scrap FP - some of the pieces we had managed to turn into grey mush during earlier failed experiments! Drop the bits into the warm water (60-70 degrees C or 140-160 degrees F) for a few moments until they soften. Lift out, and roll together between the palms of your hands. Voila, a very quick and easy bead.

Drop the bead into the cold water bath, and after 30 seconds or so, pierce it with a needle tool to make the hole through the middle (you can also drill the beads once they are fully cold if you prefer).

Give the bead a quick blast of a heat gun, just until the surface turns shiny, then roll it in a box of foil flakes.

Lift the bead out of the flakes, leave for a while, then gently rub the loose flakes off. Enjoy using your glitzy metallic bead. You could seal it if you like.

You can use the same decorative technique, but rolling the bead in PearlEx instead of foil flakes - gives a completely different but equally yummy effect!

Etching metal

2009-09-05T16:37:00.009+01:00

I've been etching some metal blanks. I learned to do this in a class I took with Jane Wynn in the US in October 2007, and it is really easy to do, but I didn't find the supplies here in the UK until recently. All you need is metal blanks or charms - brass or copper, some PCB (printed circuit board) etching solution, also known as ferric chloride solution, some Stazon ink, a rubber stamp, a heat gun, some Bicarbonate of Soda/Baking Soda and a small shallow flat bottomed glass or plastic dish. Oh, and tweezers and a bowl of water. And maybe some patina solution, or acrylic paint in a darkish turquoise.

I bought some metal blanks from Fred Aldous, but Beaducation sell them in the US. I prefer the look of etched brass, but could only find copper blanks here in the UK. There are bound to be other places that sell these in both countries, but those are the places I found. You could of course cut your own shapes from sheet metal, you need 18 gauge if possible.

Once you have your metal blanks or shapes, stamp your design on them with Stazon, and heat set. You can stamp on one side, or both. If you only stamp on one side, coat the other side with Stazon, or some sticky tape. This is what my metal blanks looked like after stamping:

Pour about 1/4 inch of the PCB etching solution into your dish, and drop the metal in. Swish it around a little, then leave it in there for ages, checking every couple of hours. It could take anywhere between 2 and 8 hours for you to get the depth of etching you want. I usually find 4 hours is enough. Agitation helps, so give it a swish around every time you pass by. The Stazon acts as a resist, the etching fluid only attacke the areas which aren't stamped. This is what my metal blanks looked like after 4 hours:

When you think they are done, use the tweezers to remove the metal from the etching solution. Dry them on some kitchen towel, then drop in water. Make sure you rinse thoroughly, also rinse your tweezers. Dump a couple of teaspoons of baking soda into the etching solution in your container. It will bubble up and froth, but this neutralises the etching solution to a great extent. Wait till it's done, then scrape the mess onto an old newspaper, wrap and put in the bin. Don't dump it down a drain, it's poisinous. It's worth checking if your local council has specialist disposal solutions for ferric chloride.

Rinse your container out with plenty of water. Now, you can coat your etched metal in patina solution, and leave it to patinate and dry overnight, or if you are impatient, like me, you can give them a thin coat of deep turquoise acrylic paint, wait for it to dry, and then use a sanding block to remove the Stazon, showing the shiny metal. The acrylic paint will have coloured the etched metal, looking like patina. See below, don't forget that you can click on the images to enlarge them.

It took all day to make these, but the actual time you spend actually doing anything is about 5 minutes!

Here's another picture which shows some of the stages -
the charm on the left is etched and sanded but not patinated. The second from left is etched and patinated with Modern Options patina solution, then sanded. The third from the left shows what happens if you stamp and etch both sides of the metal and leave it in the etching solution too long! The one at the right is just as it came out of the etching solution - I haven't coloured the etched metal or sanded the Stazon off yet.

Lutradur book

2009-08-31T13:58:00.007+01:00

I decided to use lutradur to create a quick folded book.I also had an uncharacteristic romantic moment!

I painted some lutradur with crimson fluid acrylic paint. Once dry, I stamped all over it with white gesso, and left that to dry. I then gave a coat of nickel azo yellow fluid acrylic to tone it down a little and blend the stamped gesso into the background. I folded the lutradur in half lengthways, then in half, then folded the halves back on themselves. I slit the lutradur down the between the middle two sets of 'pages'. That's probably as clear as mud but you can work it out from the picture below!

I painted some Crafty Individuals images with matte gel medium to dull down the shine and give a kind of 'canvas' effect, then glued them onto the lutradur with more gel medium. I took some more lutradur, printed it with the same colours, then laid it onto a ceramic tile and used a versamark tool with soldering tip to 'cut' it into strips with wiggly edges. I sewed these strips around the pictures to make 'frames'. After gluing a few heart shaped sequins on, and punching two holes and threading fibres through to hold the book together, I just glued the pages together for a bit of strength. Voila, a quick folded book!

For the cover, I made a cupid using air dry clay and a mould. I painted it with white gesso, then the same crimson paint I'd used on the lutradur. Once dry, I rubbed it all over with Treasure Gold in 'ruby' and just touched the high points with Treasure Gold in 'whitefire'.

I hope Claudia likes it!

I am playing with Lutradur

2009-08-28T03:02:00.003+01:00

No pictures yet, but I can tell you that colouring Lutradur with watered down Golden fluid acrylics works very well. Adding a second colour after the first has dried adds depth.

Stamping with gesso after colouring looks lovely. I'll post pics and a 'how to' for my project when it's finished!

Bookmark

2009-08-16T17:40:00.004+01:00

I am in a bookmark swap and have been pondering about how to make the bookmark - too many choices - paper, fabric, pelmet vilene, grungepaper, fabric paper....

Eventually I decided to try making some fabric paper using Pattie's method. Pattie starts with a layer of organza fabric, which will become the top layer once the fabric paper's made. I then used pva glue and water (50/50) to stick my scraps of printed tissue down, with the images facing downwards, then layered crumpled tissue paper all over the top, added more glue, then painted with watered down Lumieres and Golden fluid acrylic paints. The finished paper was much thinner and more delicate than the fabric paper I've made before, and the organza layer makes it a little shimmery. On the whole, I prefer the fabric paper I usually make, but there are occasions when this will be more suitable for projects, so I'm glad I tried it out.

You can enlarge the image by clicking on it.

I layered two pieces of fabric paper with felt, and machine stitched the edges. I added Stewart Gill paint to a wooden paisley fabric stamp using a colorbox sponge tool, then printed the fabric on both sides. The pale gold colour makes it look very luxurious. I machine stitched some sari ribbon down the middle of the front, and hand sewed two Prima flowers on, using sequins and seed beads to hold them in place. Finally, I hand sewed some sheer gold striped ribbon down the back to cover the stitching from sewing the ribbon down the front!

I hope my swap partner likes it.