I know it is coming. The muzak is in the malls, and the crowds are getting rather dense there, but for some reason I seem to be in a bubble of Holiday Denial. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because we are busy at work, and that fall in the garage two weeks ago is still giving me pain in my legs and back. (I don't think I have ever had such kaleidoscopic bruising - from the knee down - huge!). It's getting better but every morning when I get up I feel achy until I've been moving around for a while.The addition of the sprained ankle is just overkill. This is slowing me down!
So I think I have to metaphorically smack myself and say "snap out of it - there is stuff to be done!". Consider me smacked. I have crafting to do, and baking to do, and wrapping to do, and....
Be back when all of that has been achieved!
A Crafty bit of this or that
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Sunday, November 22, 2015
A Goddess of Crafting Passes
I am saddened by the news of the passing of Aleene Jackson this week. Yes, the woman behind the name on the gold bottle of the Glue-that-does-just-about-anything. You can learn more about her on her facebook page - her daughter Tiffany Windsor authored the last entry.
I have great admiration for a woman who was one of the founders of the crafting world we know today. She had ideas at a time when hobby shops were full of model kits for airplanes, and the people behind the craft industry were men in suits. Her bio is fascinating stuff.
In the early 90s she and her daughters Tiffany and Heidi had a craft show on television. What a blessing for me! I was having babies, sitting at home breast feeding, under-slept and looking for a television show that wasn't about disfunctional families or stories about the scary world. It was a crafty oasis of the soul! She expanded her brand at the time of the show to include craft books, paints, tools and some really unique crafting items. But darnit, our dollar was low and the things I wanted were only available in the US. I did eventually get a hold of some things, and her paints did make it here. I learned how to make interesting Christmas ornaments with tissue paper, foiling glue and foil.
And, my very favourite was flowers made of a unique product under her name called Twisted Satin Sheet Ribbon.
It was a plasticized version of the tradition twisted paper ribbon. The technique was to flatten it, cut out petals, then heat the ends and antique them with paint. Put them together with a glue gun and voila! (The tins in the middle and right picture are coffee and baby formula cans that have been painted and decorated)
You can't get the product for a long time now, and the flowers lasted a long time and still are vibrant. However, I had to move at work last year and I moved my "bouquet" only to find that when I touched the blooms, they crumbled. Fine, unless you touch them! What is interesting is that this plastic was NOT exposed to sunlight, just fluorescent light. (the ones on the right). I just checked my remaining stash (in a bin in the cool dark basement) and it looks unaffected by the degradation. More roses?
Anyway, she helped renew my need for crafty things in my life. Since that time, its been fabric painting, cross stitch, polymer clay, paper crafting, mixed media....pretty much whatever. I've done some crochet too - never could get the consistent hang of knitting. I've done some sewing when necessary, but its more instinct than skill. My mother and her sister are Ninja-class sewers as was my wonderful cousin who passed away early last year.
So, here's to you, Aleene, my you rest in peace you wonderful woman - thanks for being who you were and for filling my days with creativity.
I have great admiration for a woman who was one of the founders of the crafting world we know today. She had ideas at a time when hobby shops were full of model kits for airplanes, and the people behind the craft industry were men in suits. Her bio is fascinating stuff.
In the early 90s she and her daughters Tiffany and Heidi had a craft show on television. What a blessing for me! I was having babies, sitting at home breast feeding, under-slept and looking for a television show that wasn't about disfunctional families or stories about the scary world. It was a crafty oasis of the soul! She expanded her brand at the time of the show to include craft books, paints, tools and some really unique crafting items. But darnit, our dollar was low and the things I wanted were only available in the US. I did eventually get a hold of some things, and her paints did make it here. I learned how to make interesting Christmas ornaments with tissue paper, foiling glue and foil.
It was a plasticized version of the tradition twisted paper ribbon. The technique was to flatten it, cut out petals, then heat the ends and antique them with paint. Put them together with a glue gun and voila! (The tins in the middle and right picture are coffee and baby formula cans that have been painted and decorated)
Anyway, she helped renew my need for crafty things in my life. Since that time, its been fabric painting, cross stitch, polymer clay, paper crafting, mixed media....pretty much whatever. I've done some crochet too - never could get the consistent hang of knitting. I've done some sewing when necessary, but its more instinct than skill. My mother and her sister are Ninja-class sewers as was my wonderful cousin who passed away early last year.
So, here's to you, Aleene, my you rest in peace you wonderful woman - thanks for being who you were and for filling my days with creativity.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Magical Shrink Plastic
I learned to appreciate the versatility of shrink plastic early in my crafting career. Its magical stuff - watching your design become a miniature of itself never gets old for me.
At the request of a friend, I'm going to be sharing the shrink-plastic brain-dump. (had to make sure I had my hyphens in the proper place, because I am NOT sharing a shrink plastic-brain dump...)
Basic tools & Supplies:
(Examples above: piece on the left was stamped with a Magenta stamp, coloured with markers and heated. The image on the right was created by my daughter - drawn, coloured with prismacolor pencils and then cut out and heated in the toaster oven.)
a) stamp on either translucent shrink plastic (after sanding one side) or pre-sanded transluscent. Stamp with permanent inks such as Brilliance (which takes a while to dry) or Stazon (which dries almost immediately but should not be used when colouring with Copic markers).
b) Colour in the stamped image, use colour pencils (the softer the better), tombow or Copic markers, alcohol inks, or acrylic paints (these will give the piece a texture once it has shrunk). Note that these colours will all be intensified once the piece has finished shrinking.
c) Optionally cut the piece of shrink plastic to a desired form (die cut machines can be used on shrink plastic, but depending on the type of shrink plastic, one may have to make use of a lot of shims to get the desired cut)
d) Shrink with heat gun and teflon mat or toaster oven.
One can also stamp on a piece of shrink plastic without the decorating step (i.e. metallic StazOn on black shrink plastic).
Note: if the piece is large, has been coloured with wet media, or is of an unusual shape, it should be put in the toaster oven, as the heat distribution is much better than a heat gun.
(Examples, were made stamping (using stamps from Outlines) with metallic inks on black shrink plastic)
a) stamp onto a piece of shrink plastic using Brilliance or Stazon ink. Optionally cut out the design. If you wish to hang them as jewellery be sure to use a punch to make a hole before you shrink.
b) shrink the piece with a toaster oven or a heat gun over teflon sheet.
c) Use dimensional paints (Ranger liquid pearls or Adirondack dimensional acrylic paints) and apply with a tooth pick to the desired areas to decorate.
(Example: stamped with stazon ink and coloured with ink. After shrinking, while still warm. used the same stamp to make a texture. Edged with gold paint marker.)
a) Optional first step is to colour or paint the shrink plastic.
b) Shrink with heat gun and teflon mat (you may also shrink it in the oven for this step, then at a later time warm it up again with the heat gun so that it is soft), anchored with your “stick”. Once it has shrunk it will not shrink further
This is the technique I shared in the last blog entry:
This method is fabulous to use with any scraps of Shrink Plastic that you may have after a project.
a) Heat the scrap with a heat gun – anchoring it with your stick.
b) Wait until it is completely shrunk, then, like the step above, stomp down with an inked rubber stamp, pressing hard.
c) Once you have removed the piece of molded plastic from the rubberstamp, you may choose to glaze or antique it. Remember that the piece of shrunk plastic is a glossy non-porous material some paints or inks may not dry. Here are some recipes and combinations:
Recipes that can be put into the little containers:
• adhesive + alcohol inks
• adhesive + dye inks (use ranger dye ink reinkers)
• adhesive + pigment powders
• adhesive + mica powders (perfect pearls, pearlex, primary elements)
• water + Acrylic paints (Lumiere, etc)
• Copic markers (there will be a bit of streakiness, but this can be a feature!)
• Krylon leafing pens in any colour (or another brand of paint pen, but I always go back to these).
• Metallic gilding paste, or brilliance ink pads for highlighting.
Adhesive can be: Ranger Glossy Accents (may not dry very quickly; try wiping it after application and/or adding perfect pearls on top of it), Ranger Studio Medium, Perfect Paper Adhesive, Judikins Diamond Glaze.
There is an ultra thin version (no longer manufactured), and a version that is able to go through your ink jet printer.
Shrinky Dinks
PolyShrink (Lucky Squirrel)
Grafix Arts Shrink Film
Ranger Ink Essentials Shrink Plastic
Klutz Books Shrinky Dinks
Best quality is probably Lucky Squirrel or the Ranger brand, and the easiest to get is the Shrinky Dinks (go to Michaels with a coupon!)
► There are a number of Youtube videos for projects.
► If you wish to use stamps on the shrink plastic, I would strongly recommend you work with the pre-sanded type. They look cloudy before shrinking by they get pretty clear once they have shrunk completely. They are probably the best type, they don't "warp" and have the tooth to receive colouring agents.
► When you are shrinking the plastic, depending on its shape, and what colouring medium is on it, it may distort. If you find two corners are sticking together, cool the piece until you can “snap” the stuck pieces apart, and then continue to heat. If you are going to be stamping a rubber stamp on it as in our project, you can just “shmush” the whole thing together. Shrinking the plastic is not a science! It will not always shrink exactly the way you want it. Always make more, so that you can use the best pieces.
► Many brands have a “weave” that is to say if make several designs on a piece of plastic to shrink, you should make them all going in the same direction, or they will turn out somewhat different in dimension from one another when they shrink. I find that the crystal clear type is especially prone to this warping.
► Remember that when you are shrinking a design, the colours will be brighter when you shrink it. So, go light on the colour, or in some cases your finished work will be darker than you like it.
► If you use a thick medium to colour the shrink plastic before heating (like acrylic paint), experiment first as the different brands will yield a different texture. Here is an example with Lumiere paints.
► You can always remelt your shrunk pieces – this way you can add texture and dimension by: stamping on it for a relief look; heat it over a curved surface to make it curved (like a post for curtains or banisters)
Here are some good crafting books:
The first two are Design Originals Books and the one on the right is available on Amazon.
Here are two sampler frames with different pieces on them
So that's it. Play with it - watch your hands while it is melting - and have fun.
At the request of a friend, I'm going to be sharing the shrink-plastic brain-dump. (had to make sure I had my hyphens in the proper place, because I am NOT sharing a shrink plastic-brain dump...)
Basic tools & Supplies:
- crafting heat gun / teflon craft sheet / chipboard clip board
- toaster oven
- bamboo skewers, knitting needles or any pokey craft tool
- paper towels
- dollar store paint brushes
- rubberstamps with well defined patterns or the type that outlines and can be coloured in
- Glossy Accents glue
- cyano-acrylate glue (E6000 or Crafters Goop) for gluing your finished pieces onto a surface.
- pigment powders (see last blog entry)
- Dye inks, alcohol inks, colour sprays, acrylics, colour pencils, markers (water or alcohol based) - including Copics, Tombows, Tim Holtz Distress Markers, etc.
- metallic wax paste (many water or solvent based brands)
1. STAMP-DECORATE-HEAT
This technique is wonderful for those who like to colour and make their images small(Examples above: piece on the left was stamped with a Magenta stamp, coloured with markers and heated. The image on the right was created by my daughter - drawn, coloured with prismacolor pencils and then cut out and heated in the toaster oven.)
a) stamp on either translucent shrink plastic (after sanding one side) or pre-sanded transluscent. Stamp with permanent inks such as Brilliance (which takes a while to dry) or Stazon (which dries almost immediately but should not be used when colouring with Copic markers).
b) Colour in the stamped image, use colour pencils (the softer the better), tombow or Copic markers, alcohol inks, or acrylic paints (these will give the piece a texture once it has shrunk). Note that these colours will all be intensified once the piece has finished shrinking.
c) Optionally cut the piece of shrink plastic to a desired form (die cut machines can be used on shrink plastic, but depending on the type of shrink plastic, one may have to make use of a lot of shims to get the desired cut)
d) Shrink with heat gun and teflon mat or toaster oven.
One can also stamp on a piece of shrink plastic without the decorating step (i.e. metallic StazOn on black shrink plastic).
Note: if the piece is large, has been coloured with wet media, or is of an unusual shape, it should be put in the toaster oven, as the heat distribution is much better than a heat gun.
2. STAMP-HEAT-DECORATE
(Examples, were made stamping (using stamps from Outlines) with metallic inks on black shrink plastic)
a) stamp onto a piece of shrink plastic using Brilliance or Stazon ink. Optionally cut out the design. If you wish to hang them as jewellery be sure to use a punch to make a hole before you shrink.
b) shrink the piece with a toaster oven or a heat gun over teflon sheet.
c) Use dimensional paints (Ranger liquid pearls or Adirondack dimensional acrylic paints) and apply with a tooth pick to the desired areas to decorate.
3. DECORATE-HEAT-STAMP
(Example: stamped with stazon ink and coloured with ink. After shrinking, while still warm. used the same stamp to make a texture. Edged with gold paint marker.)
a) Optional first step is to colour or paint the shrink plastic.
b) Shrink with heat gun and teflon mat (you may also shrink it in the oven for this step, then at a later time warm it up again with the heat gun so that it is soft), anchored with your “stick”. Once it has shrunk it will not shrink further
4. HEAT-STAMP-DECORATE
This is the technique I shared in the last blog entry:
This method is fabulous to use with any scraps of Shrink Plastic that you may have after a project.
a) Heat the scrap with a heat gun – anchoring it with your stick.
b) Wait until it is completely shrunk, then, like the step above, stomp down with an inked rubber stamp, pressing hard.
c) Once you have removed the piece of molded plastic from the rubberstamp, you may choose to glaze or antique it. Remember that the piece of shrunk plastic is a glossy non-porous material some paints or inks may not dry. Here are some recipes and combinations:
Recipes that can be put into the little containers:
• adhesive + alcohol inks
• adhesive + dye inks (use ranger dye ink reinkers)
• adhesive + pigment powders
• adhesive + mica powders (perfect pearls, pearlex, primary elements)
• water + Acrylic paints (Lumiere, etc)
• Copic markers (there will be a bit of streakiness, but this can be a feature!)
• Krylon leafing pens in any colour (or another brand of paint pen, but I always go back to these).
• Metallic gilding paste, or brilliance ink pads for highlighting.
Adhesive can be: Ranger Glossy Accents (may not dry very quickly; try wiping it after application and/or adding perfect pearls on top of it), Ranger Studio Medium, Perfect Paper Adhesive, Judikins Diamond Glaze.
General Notes:
Shrink plastic can be most commonly found in clear, transluscent, pre-sanded (clear with one side roughed up to give it tooth for colouring agents such as coloured pencil), white, black and coloured (as solid as white or black; almond, brown, and now Grafix now makes bright colours).There is an ultra thin version (no longer manufactured), and a version that is able to go through your ink jet printer.
Shrink Plastic Brands:
Aleene's Shrink-ItShrinky Dinks
PolyShrink (Lucky Squirrel)
Grafix Arts Shrink Film
Ranger Ink Essentials Shrink Plastic
Klutz Books Shrinky Dinks
Best quality is probably Lucky Squirrel or the Ranger brand, and the easiest to get is the Shrinky Dinks (go to Michaels with a coupon!)
► There are a number of Youtube videos for projects.
► If you wish to use stamps on the shrink plastic, I would strongly recommend you work with the pre-sanded type. They look cloudy before shrinking by they get pretty clear once they have shrunk completely. They are probably the best type, they don't "warp" and have the tooth to receive colouring agents.
► When you are shrinking the plastic, depending on its shape, and what colouring medium is on it, it may distort. If you find two corners are sticking together, cool the piece until you can “snap” the stuck pieces apart, and then continue to heat. If you are going to be stamping a rubber stamp on it as in our project, you can just “shmush” the whole thing together. Shrinking the plastic is not a science! It will not always shrink exactly the way you want it. Always make more, so that you can use the best pieces.
► Many brands have a “weave” that is to say if make several designs on a piece of plastic to shrink, you should make them all going in the same direction, or they will turn out somewhat different in dimension from one another when they shrink. I find that the crystal clear type is especially prone to this warping.
► Remember that when you are shrinking a design, the colours will be brighter when you shrink it. So, go light on the colour, or in some cases your finished work will be darker than you like it.
► If you use a thick medium to colour the shrink plastic before heating (like acrylic paint), experiment first as the different brands will yield a different texture. Here is an example with Lumiere paints.
► You can always remelt your shrunk pieces – this way you can add texture and dimension by: stamping on it for a relief look; heat it over a curved surface to make it curved (like a post for curtains or banisters)
Here are some good crafting books:
Here are two sampler frames with different pieces on them
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Pigment Powders!
When I first saw Ken Oliver's Color Burst pigment powders, I thought "eh, I have enough water based paints to last me into my dotage, why this now?" Ah, but then the dastardly YouTube showed me the way. Oh! So I ordered the first 6 colours, (because I am, alas, a complete-ist, and there was a good price on the lot), and I found a home for them in the craft room, but did not have the chance to play. When the next 6 came out for good deal, I said, well, okay since I am ordering stuff anyway, throw that in there.
And then I started playing. And I wanted more. But Ken didn't have more, so I discovered that another brand had been around a while, and Magenta had just come out with their own called Nuance. So I hunted around for the best prices on the Brushos, (Forgive me, the site of the manufacturer of Brushos is classically bad; - if you want a better look check out the DickBlick site) and decided to make my first order directly off the Magenta site.
When they all arrived I went to town. Stuck then into a good bin, and started swatching.
All of them use the same principle of highly pigmented granules of powder that react with water. And as you can see with my yellow-orange-brown range, the more complex the colour the more complex the formula of granules. So, a primary colour like the lemony yellows on the left don't have a lot of different colours in them. The more you move into tertiary colours the more different colours go into making that one, like the browns on the right.
If I had to choose one brand of these I like the best, It is probably the Ken Oliver's Color Bursts. Why? Because he managed to create enough different colours in a simple selection, and the container is probably the easiest to use. Screw on cap, just tap it onto the paper.
Brushos are nice, but as I said above, the site is really NOT aimed at the crafting industry. And frankly a lot of the colours are alike. While their container holds a good amount, the original idea is to OPEN the container and take what you need. I noticed a lot of demos suggest you punch a hole in the top and simply store it with a poster pin in it. But they don't even include a colour swatch, so I had to use my swatches to punch out a circle of colour and glue it to the top of the lid.
The Nuances are also pretty gorgeous. They are not mentioned that often on sites or YouTube, as they are not yet as popular. But the Magenta blog has numerous lovely samples. But again, the container comes with a lid to take off - I used the poster pin method with those too. Magenta has always been one of my very favourite stamp brands.
(and then I found another brand, called Bistre from France, but you can either buy this one by the baggie or in humongous containers. Limited to 10 colours and to more antique looking tones).
The best illustrations all around for the pigment powders were the PaperArtsy blog entry (it's a topic for the next bunch of entries - enjoy!) and Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's youtube demo for Color Burst. There are plenty for ColorBurst or Brushos, but this one covered a lot of techniques.
Then, I tried them with GLOSSY ACCENTS.
This was going off on my own, since I didn't see anything about this on blogs or videos.
First I took a bunch of thick cardboard geometric shapes that I have on hand (I use my Vagabond die cut machine and a bunch of those thick Sizzix steel rule dies and regularly cut the shapes from very thick cardboard).
Painted them with an off-white acrylic paint.
Globbed on the Glossy Accents glue until I had the whole surface generously covered. Fluff on some pigment powders and pull them around in the glue with a pin. Let them sit. Go away or you'll be tempted to play with them like I did - it ends up looking a little messy. My first attempts started bending the cardboard because of all the moisture of the glue. So I stuck them to the craft sheet with double sided tape or the whole goop would start sliding off the piece.
Results: I think I used too much pigment powder because it continued to move and spread after it sat.
The ones on top were the first tries - the ones below were done with a lighter touch of the powder.
Not bad. Then I played with one and it CRACKED! So I cracked it some more, put my favourite homemade antiquing solution (brown acrylic paint and a fixative - usually Glossy Accents or anything else that can make a clear glaze) to make the cracks more obvious.
After that I took the one I thought came out the very darkest (and I didn't like - way too much pigment) and cracked it. Antiquing wouldn't work for this one, so I took a gilding wax (I can't remember which one, but I think it was the Decoarts one) and rubbed it very lightly. The picture shows the same piece with slightly different lighting.
Another technique I had been eager to try was with shrink plastic. We use a lot of shrink plastic - my daughter makes pop-culture jewellery to sell at Anime Conventions. I keep all the scraps though, and most of the scraps are of the pre-sanded transluscent kind. I put a piece (or a bunch of little pieces together) on the craft sheet (I recommend putting the craft sheet on a non-plastic clipboard)
and heat it with the heat tool until it is very very soft and doesn't move around anymore - when the piece has finished shrinking - while it is still hot, bang a rubber stamp with a good deep image on it. Background stamps are ideal for this - (I don't recommend using clear stamps because of the heat) So you end up with things like this.
Some of the colour is because they are scraps and may have lines or colours from whatever we were originally creating. Doesn't matter.
So I puffed a few colours of pigment powder in a plastic palette and then added the glossy accents. Be sure that when you turn the GA bottle upside down that you shake, so that there is no air that comes out first before the glue. That puff of air will throw all the pigment powder out of the resevoir!
Mix it up with tooth picks and use a disposable paint brush to brush it on your shards.
Nice eh? I must confess that this is a very old technique I learned years ago at a crafting workshop. And to make them even more cool, put that gilding paste on them! I tried a number of different brands, but they didn't really look very different so use your favourite brand.
So now I had left over GA+PP mixture. Oh look! I had some samples of craft aluminum (backed with cardstock) I'd run though the vagabond with an embossing folder. Lets slop some of this goop on them!
I sanded back the top one.The bottom one I'd painted the middle element red and the ones on either side a brilliant yellow, waited for them to dry then used a light brown over the whole thing to antique it.
Oh, and by the way, instead of using water to spray on the granules, try using Rangers Perfect Pearls Mist in Biscotti or in their sheer colour "Perfect Pearl".
Okay, so that's it - my brain dump on pigment powder (lots of toothpicks and Glossy Accents used). Now the tough part - to incorporate all my lovely bits into a greater art object. Stay tuned....
And then I started playing. And I wanted more. But Ken didn't have more, so I discovered that another brand had been around a while, and Magenta had just come out with their own called Nuance. So I hunted around for the best prices on the Brushos, (Forgive me, the site of the manufacturer of Brushos is classically bad; - if you want a better look check out the DickBlick site) and decided to make my first order directly off the Magenta site.
When they all arrived I went to town. Stuck then into a good bin, and started swatching.
If I had to choose one brand of these I like the best, It is probably the Ken Oliver's Color Bursts. Why? Because he managed to create enough different colours in a simple selection, and the container is probably the easiest to use. Screw on cap, just tap it onto the paper.
Brushos are nice, but as I said above, the site is really NOT aimed at the crafting industry. And frankly a lot of the colours are alike. While their container holds a good amount, the original idea is to OPEN the container and take what you need. I noticed a lot of demos suggest you punch a hole in the top and simply store it with a poster pin in it. But they don't even include a colour swatch, so I had to use my swatches to punch out a circle of colour and glue it to the top of the lid.
The Nuances are also pretty gorgeous. They are not mentioned that often on sites or YouTube, as they are not yet as popular. But the Magenta blog has numerous lovely samples. But again, the container comes with a lid to take off - I used the poster pin method with those too. Magenta has always been one of my very favourite stamp brands.
(and then I found another brand, called Bistre from France, but you can either buy this one by the baggie or in humongous containers. Limited to 10 colours and to more antique looking tones).
The best illustrations all around for the pigment powders were the PaperArtsy blog entry (it's a topic for the next bunch of entries - enjoy!) and Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's youtube demo for Color Burst. There are plenty for ColorBurst or Brushos, but this one covered a lot of techniques.
Then, I tried them with GLOSSY ACCENTS.
This was going off on my own, since I didn't see anything about this on blogs or videos.
First I took a bunch of thick cardboard geometric shapes that I have on hand (I use my Vagabond die cut machine and a bunch of those thick Sizzix steel rule dies and regularly cut the shapes from very thick cardboard).
Painted them with an off-white acrylic paint.
Globbed on the Glossy Accents glue until I had the whole surface generously covered. Fluff on some pigment powders and pull them around in the glue with a pin. Let them sit. Go away or you'll be tempted to play with them like I did - it ends up looking a little messy. My first attempts started bending the cardboard because of all the moisture of the glue. So I stuck them to the craft sheet with double sided tape or the whole goop would start sliding off the piece.
Results: I think I used too much pigment powder because it continued to move and spread after it sat.
The ones on top were the first tries - the ones below were done with a lighter touch of the powder.
Another technique I had been eager to try was with shrink plastic. We use a lot of shrink plastic - my daughter makes pop-culture jewellery to sell at Anime Conventions. I keep all the scraps though, and most of the scraps are of the pre-sanded transluscent kind. I put a piece (or a bunch of little pieces together) on the craft sheet (I recommend putting the craft sheet on a non-plastic clipboard)
and heat it with the heat tool until it is very very soft and doesn't move around anymore - when the piece has finished shrinking - while it is still hot, bang a rubber stamp with a good deep image on it. Background stamps are ideal for this - (I don't recommend using clear stamps because of the heat) So you end up with things like this.
So I puffed a few colours of pigment powder in a plastic palette and then added the glossy accents. Be sure that when you turn the GA bottle upside down that you shake, so that there is no air that comes out first before the glue. That puff of air will throw all the pigment powder out of the resevoir!
So now I had left over GA+PP mixture. Oh look! I had some samples of craft aluminum (backed with cardstock) I'd run though the vagabond with an embossing folder. Lets slop some of this goop on them!
Oh, and by the way, instead of using water to spray on the granules, try using Rangers Perfect Pearls Mist in Biscotti or in their sheer colour "Perfect Pearl".
Okay, so that's it - my brain dump on pigment powder (lots of toothpicks and Glossy Accents used). Now the tough part - to incorporate all my lovely bits into a greater art object. Stay tuned....
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Welcome!
I am trying something new. I will be the first to say I am not an early adopter. I usually watch and wait, and then suddenly I must use a thing. So here I am - somewhere where I can share the latest experiment from the (art) lab.
Now of course I will have to learn how to manage this new do-hickie! So bear with me as I start plumping the pillows and decorating the blog.
My major problem with my art is that I am usually finding the ideas and the thoughts come faster than I can head for the craft room. By the time I get there and I am not exhausted from the rest of the day, I just putter around. I've got lots of ideas, and lots of supplies, But it's those implementation details I have to focus on!
Here then is my very first try at resin. I found a youtube video to make these faux opals, and when I had the need to whip up a batch of resin, the left overs went to making these. I believe I am going to have to up my game on the photography. What am I going to do with these glittery hemispheres? I am going to try and bead around one or two. Stay tuned!
Now of course I will have to learn how to manage this new do-hickie! So bear with me as I start plumping the pillows and decorating the blog.
My major problem with my art is that I am usually finding the ideas and the thoughts come faster than I can head for the craft room. By the time I get there and I am not exhausted from the rest of the day, I just putter around. I've got lots of ideas, and lots of supplies, But it's those implementation details I have to focus on!
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