Resin!

Last weekend I took a resin workshop with Isolina Perez at Michele's studio.  In addition to learning about and using three different kinds of resins, I got to spend a day with so many of my artsy friends.  What a treat!



Isolina provided everything we needed, and we started out using Ice Resin, since it has the longest setting/curing time.



 

 

I had to wait three days for this resin to cure, and then I was able to add some findings to create wearable art.  To turn the little charms containing Van Gogh's irises into earrings required some metal surgery, which I'm happy to say was successful.

 

 



Klay Resin is very cool stuff.  We used it to embed an image, which would later be part of a larger piece.  But you have to work very fast....curing time is about 7 minutes!  For the base the embedded image would sit on, we used copper, which we cut, filed, embossed, and patinaed. 

 

 

I really do love working with metal.  Here is my finished piece.

 

 

 

Crystal Clay is similar to Klay Resin in that it is also a two part clay that comes in colors.  However, it doesn't set for about an hour or so.  We created pendants using this resin with charms and bezels, stamped on it, and embedded crystals into it.  I made two pieces and when I got home, decided to combine them into one.

 

 

 

A few students had already left when this group photo was taken, but you can see how happy we all are.

 

 

 

I'm looking forward to Isolina's next class, and hope it is scheduled soon.   Make sure to check out all the offerings coming up at Michele's; there's bound to be something on the calendar you'll love.





 







 



More Metal, and "Etching" the Easy Way

When I was at CREATE this past summer I was lucky enough to take a wonderful class with Leighanna Light.  Click here to see what we did.  She had some samples of other projects with her, and one was for goddesses that really caught my eye.  So I was happy to take Faux Etching for the Folk Goddess at Art Is You.  I just love using bits and pieces of metal to create these unique wall hangings.  I'm especially fond of the one that uses a nicely aged Altoids tin as the goddess's body.

This is the very beginning of construction.  I was trying out different things for my first goddess.  Those legs are typewriter keys. 

 

 

The look of etched metal you see on the tin is the faux in the class title.  It couldn't be easier.  We stamped on the already darkened tin (torched, or, as Leighanna informed us, placed on the barbecue) with matte medium, and then coated the whole thing with a liquid patina.  It starts out black, but within a few days it was rusty.  You'll see that in a bit.  In the photo above you can just see the rusting in its early stages.  Once it got to the point I liked, I sealed everything I'd patinaed with a metal sealant.  Otherwise, it would just keep rusting until eventually it would fall apart.

 

 

This is a piece of metal that has the technique, waiting to be used on the next goddess.

 

 

Here are my two pieces right after construction.  One used the tin as the body; the other used flat pieces of metal.

 

 

 

And here they are at home, after some additional rusting and a coating of sealant.

 

 

Leighanna provided the faces and the metal for the bodies, and the set of typewriter keys.  We brought an assortment of charms, beads, metal scraps, etc. to finish our pieces.  The hat above is actually a leftover part from the sconce I used in Michael DeMeng's class.  If you take a close look at all the goddesses I think you'll recognize plenty of stuff you'd find in your own junk pile.







 

 

What follows:  Leighanna snapping photos of our creations, and then, the class goddesses (some finished, some still works in progress).

 

 

 

 

And how about this one; not a goddess at all, but a pup!

 

 

 

The organizers of Art Is You are actually accepting early registration for next year (no classes announced, just reserving a spot for the event), and you better believe I'm in!  If you only have the time and resources to attend one such retreat next year, my advice is to go with Art Is You.  And you have plenty of time to start saving.  It's truly a class organization.

 













A Very Riveting Class

Still no computer, so posting from my phone. Better than nothing, but not great.

One of my favorite classes at CREATE was the jewelry class with Jean Van Brederode. We learned how to cut, texture, and shape the metal, and then many ways of connecting the pieces to form a cohesive design.

Jean was so generous with her supplies; we had an unbelievable amount of cool "stuff" to use.

I now know how to rivet, add patina, coil wire, make my own jump rings and my own hook and eye closures.

Here is my finished piece and some closeups.

Birds Gone Wild

The first class I took at CREATE was Birds Gone Wild with the very talented Leighanna Light. We cut up metal, learned to rivet, and everyone left with a small flock of birds.
Although I enjoyed all of my classes, this may have been my favorite.

Filling In The Blanks

Sorry 'bout that; sometimes the clever titles come easily, sometimes you just gotta push it.  So, today's post is all about Vintaj brass blanks.  They are pieces of brass, different sizes, different shapes, different finishes, just waiting to be altered in some way.  The metal is thick enough to be sturdy, but thin enough to take embossing and hole punching (if you have a cropodile or japanese screw punch).  Well, I'm pretty sure you could also bang a hole in them with hammer and nail, though I haven't tried that.  According to the Vintaj website, the blanks can also be cut with metal shears and filed.  For more information and a look at the whole line, click on the link above.

Vintaj recently partnered up with Sizzix to manufacture little embossing folders (they look very much like the Sizzlits; more on that later).  What is unique about them, is that they have different designs on each folder, so you get several different looks from each one.  

Vintaj also got together with Ranger, and now there are MANY bottles of patina to choose from, should you want to totally alter the look of the metal.  And a sealer too, to make your colors permanent.

I've had some of the blanks, two embossing folders, and a handful of patinas for quite some time, and this past weekend I finally got around to experimenting with them.  First I made these dangly earrings.

Too much glare to really make out the design, but I used the folder with the leaves and ferns and isolted the area I wanted on my blanks.  Then I used my japanese screw punch to make an extra hole in the circles so that the little rectangles could be attached.  As for the patina....well, there are many layers and I used lots of colors.  You can apply one color at a time with a paintbrush, or several (the way you would alcohol inks), which I did, dabbing them onto the metal with a foam sponge.  The predominant color though, is verdigris. 

I wanted to see if I could use my Sizzlits, as I have a few of those.  The answer, yes and no.  I tried.  I got an impression, but I won't be doing it again.  The Sizzlit seems a tiny bit bent and the blank is also a little less than flat.  I just have a feeling that using one again and again with the metal will end in disaster.  Also, the Sizzlits aren't designed the same way; most are just one larger image or scattered smaller ones, and don't work well with the sizes of the blanks.  I have one of a dotted heart, and when I used it on the necklace I made (next photo) only the dots showed up.  The overall heart was too large, and the round blank I used just nestled inside it.  Not a problem; I like the dots, but that is just an example of the design differences between these two (at first glance identical) Sizzix products.

For this one, I punched three extra holes on the bottom to attach the charms and the key.  All were colored with verdigris, moss, jade, and onyx (that would be black) patinas, with just a touch of ochre.  Easy peasy, and a great way to unify metals that you might not normally put together.  And it's a totally different look than what you get with alcohol inks, so I consider these products to be a good addition to my (ever growing) stash.





The 12 Tags of Christmas -- Day 12

So, it's the 12th and final tag of Christmas for 2011.  Kinda sad, but I think Tim and Mario need those 6+ hours back each day, not to mention running all over Prescott looking for a signal when their internet goes down.  Thanks for the fun, guys.  Your generosity is beyond measure.

Today's tag features one of Tim's little faux frozen Charlottas.  You know, those bizarre porcelain dolls with missing limbs.  I don't have any of his version, but I knew I had a bag full of some I'd gotten on the internet, but when I looked......no bodies, just heads.  Even more bizarre.  So, that caused me to change up my design quite a bit.  One head would have looked a bit lost sitting on top of the artful dwelling that Tim used.  So I did a rosette instead.  Which would lead to another change, and another......well, before I go into all that, here is my tag:

First, I should mention that I did use the background technique with Tim's tissue paper.  What I added after the stickles was some weathered wood distress stain.  And under the tissue paper I used the background stamp from the Papillon set.  Much of this is covered with the tag's embellishments, but it is a really lovely background.

I don't have the decorative strip die that Tim used to make the faux German scrap, so I thought I'd try one of my border punches.  Varied success.  The first one I tried, a Martha Steward punch, didn't cut through the metal tape all the way.  My second choice, also one of Martha's, worked perfectly.  Go figure.   If you don't have any decorative punches, maybe you still have one of these oldies but goodies lying around:

That's right, decorative scissors work like a charm.  And if you want more detail, you can pair them with a decorative hole punch.  Here are some examples.  The first is the border punch I wound up using; all the edges of the ones that follow were done with scissors.  The one in the middle also has my tiny flower shaped hole punch.

A closer view of my faux German scrap (the metal tape I used was glaringly bright so I toned it down just a bit with some black archival ink):

For the letters, I did use Tim's tip of cutting them twice; once from the cardstock covered with metal tape, and once from black cardstock.  They really do pop.   And I discovered that if you attach your metal to textured cardstock, when you run it through your die cut machine the letters take on that texture.  How cool is that!  Good way to use up those pieces of paper with nice texture but hideous color.  You know, like that neon paper pack that was such a big bargain.  :))









I made a tissue paper flower, following Tim's easy directions, and it is so sweet:

Too bad I couldn't find a use for it on this tag.  Remember, I opted for the rosette, and it and the flower were just too close in size and shape, and looked terrible together.  So, I adapted another of Tim's tissue paper techniques, and using my trusty fringe scissors (yes, I really do have a pair), I followed the pom pom directions, but stopped just shy of  making the pom pom and popped the fringe behind the rosette.

I haven't figured out yet what will occupy my early mornings now.  Sleep, maybe?????







Grungy Monday and Showin' Some Metal

Today's challenges:   Grungy Monday #12 refers back to a technique Tim demoed in April of 2008.  Click HERE to see it from the man himself.  Click HERE to see what Linda L. and her guest designers did for the challenge.   Over at Simon Says Stamp and Show.....the show part is metal.  Click HERE to go to that blog and see all the projects the team did.  The third challenge, a personal one, was to create something that strikes fear in the heart of most card makers.....a masculine card.  I think I've scored a threefer here:

The background, which is the technique from Tim's blog, was done on the vintage license plate paper from Lost and Found.  I used Wendy's houndstooth background stamp and Ranger's hazelnut paint dabber.  

Metal shows up in two places.  First Ten Seconds Studio rock star black metal was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.....a houndstooth design to echo the background stamp.  It was then cut with Tim's Hanging Sign die.  You'll notice that I trimmed the hanger part to fit this somewhat smaller than standard card.  The metal was lightly sanded and then rubbed with archival ink in sepia.  Some leftover bits of chain connect the sign to the hanger.  The other metal comes from the brads in the four corners....they are actually very glittery, and come from Stampin' Up.

Speaking of SU, I used a punch of theirs that is a very similar shape to the hanging sign to cut the cardstock that the birthday greeting (also from SU) is on.

BTW, the background technique is one of my favorites.  Although I used a really nice looking paper to stamp on, what I love about this technique is how it can totally transform the appearance of patterned paper you don't much care for, turning it into something special.  Try it.



What Do Soap, Metal, and Shoulder Bags Have In Common?

Absolutely nothing, but you'll see some of each right here. (I told you last time, catchy titles aren't easy to come by).

First things, first.  Although I am going away early tomorrow (more on that in a bit), somehow in my mind, creating something for this week's CCC and SSSS challenges seemed like more of a priority than, oh, packing.

Today marks the end of the Compendium of Curiosities challenges.  We've done every technique in Tim's book.  Linda saved a really great one for last....design details.  As usual, I can't divulge the details, but much piercing was involved.  At the same time, Simon Says, show us metal.   No problem combining the two:

This is a very small piece, done on a 4x4" coaster.  The base is covered with TSS rock star black, which was first embossed with Tim's collage folder.  I then embossed some of their cabin red metal on the silver side as well as the red side, with Tim's patchwork folder.   I cut them up, arranged them on the coaster, did some sanding and inking with stazon, and then went on to the techniques.  Don't know if you can see the stitching I did....I probably should have used something other than black wire.

I thought the piece at that point looked a little empty, so I added the ideaology flower, the bottlecap and the Wendy Vecchi butterfly.  In the interest of full disclosure, the bottlecap with the shrink plastic bird was a leftover from last year's cruise charm swap.

On Saturday, I attended a spa workshop at my friend Heidi's place, with Corris as the teacher.  I don't know what was going on with me when this picture was taken, but apparently something was very funny:

That's Kahena on the left and Corris on the right, waiting for the soap to melt.

In addition to the soap, we made a wonderful body scrub and some perfume in a roller top bottle:

At this time tomorrow, barring any delays, I'll be in the Miami airport meeting up with a whole bunch of my art friends for Keys4Art2011.  From there we head to Key Largo and 6 wonderful days of creativity and friendship and great food and a few mojitos as well.  I decorated small canvas shoulder bags for everyone.  Each is a different color, hopefully the recipient's favorite, but I asked that question ages ago, and artists can be quite changeable when it comes to things like that.  They all have our retreat logo, but each is embellished differently.  Of course, I missed a great photo op when I packed up all 18 and shipped them down to Florida without taking any pictures.   But....I do have the one I made for myself, so this will give you an idea of what they look like:

I'll be back with a full report on Sunday.  Stay well, and make art!



From Perfect Stamping to Perfect Lathering

Just so you know, it sometimes really hurts my head to try to come up with a catchy title.  I'm workin' hard here!  Anyway......this is week 4 of the Making Art! challenge on the Wendy Vecchi yahoo group.  Much like the Compendium of Curiosities weekly challenges where we make art inspired by techniques in Tim Holtz's book, we are basing our creations here on projects from any of Wendy's three (the fourth is due out any minute now) books.  This week, we are to make a tag, and use Wendy's perfect stamping technique.  Now, she calls it perfect stamping, not because she's an egomanic, but because it involves Perfect Pearls.  Check it out on page 10 of Book 1, or.....click here to learn about it on her blog.

This is a super cool technique, and involves a way to stamp that I don't think I would have thought up on my own.  That is one of the things I most admire about Wendy.  She is so good at figuring out new ways to use the products we already have.  So, here is my tag:

The tag was first inked with these distress inks:  peeled paint, shabby shutters, and broken china.  For the perfect stamping, I used black soot and chipped sapphire with turquoise perfect pearls, and the background stamp from Well Worn Art.

When that was dry, I added the swirly flowers from Botanical Art, stamped with olive archival ink.  The alphabet along the right side is from Lower Case Art, and was stamped with black archival ink.  The phrase dare to be unique is from Seriously Art.  Yep, I have LOTS of Wendy's stamps.

The rosette was leftover from a previous project, and I topped it with a butterfly using Wendy's latest genius technique.....combining her Clearly For Art plastic with a sheet of metal.  To find out more about this, and why I think it's genius (or magic), click here.  The butterfly stamp and the little spider (stamped with black soot and embossed with black EP) are both also from Botanical Art.

What else?  Oh, the scallop trim on the bottom was cut with Tim's on the edge die and it is tissue tape over cardstock, inked with fired brick.  And yes, that is a pen nib I used as the body of the butterfly.  Speaking of which, did I ever score big on the nib.  Last Saturday when I trekked to Brooklyn to visit the Sketchbook Project, I found, amongst the various paper products, old books, etc. they were selling to earn some $$, an unopened box, original packaging.....containing a gross (that's 144 for those of you who were as bad in math as I was) of the nibs for $12.  Perfect (that word again) condition, and I'd say at least 50 years old.

And my segue into the perfect lathering portion of this program.....another cool thing I did last weekend was attend a workshop in felted soap.  Right here in my building.  We have a large community room and often one of us will share a skill by giving a class.  I occasionally do something with paper, but this time my neighbor Theresa showed us how to cover a bar of soap with unspun wool.  It was wet, it was easy, it was fun, and I love my soap (which, by the way, is lavender scented and heavenly):

Why cover a bar of soap with wool?  1) it makes the soap last longer  2) it is very pretty   3) the soap is no longer slippery  and
4) it is like having soap and washcloth in one.

Theresa asked for $6 to cover the cost of materials, and just so you know, Anthropologie sells felted soap for $14 a bar.  I'd send you to Theresa's blog, if only she had one.  She also makes gorgeous hats, scarves, wall hangings, and even boots with the wet felt method.  If you'd like to see a DIY on felted soap just put that in your search engine and you'll see lots of examples, even one from Martha.





Showing Some Love With Painted Metal

Wow, it's getting harder and harder to be clever combining the weekly challenges into a snappy blog title. 

So, the Compendium of Curiosities challenge is Tim's altered metal with paint technique, and over at Simon Says Stamp and Show, the topic is LOVE.  That's it.  Just  LOVE. 

If you read my pal Lori's blog (she's on the Simon Says design team) you know that she struggled with the topic.  We share the same aversion to things that are too pink, too girly, too lovey dovey.  But I think I managed to circumvent all that with my own interpretation of the theme.   But enough about that.  Here's my piece.....a mini magnet board with an altered metal with paint frame.  The purpose of this board, which sits on an easel, is to hold your love letters and other expressions of adoration.  See how I managed to make it fit the theme?  I'm not sure how Director Linda E. and Co. will feel about it, but I say it does.  That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

The frame measures 5"x7" and I used Ten Seconds Studio rock star black metal to make it.  It was cut and embossed with a stunning Cuttlebug folder called Brocade Window.  I glued it onto a piece of magnet board, and then attached the whole thing to chipboard (covered with nice paper so the back looks finished).

Here's a bit of a close up so you can see how cool the paint looks on the metal:

                                                       
The paint I used for the technique is Lake Mist (an Adirondack paint dabber).  I also used the technique on the little binder clip, the word sticks, and the embossed heart (also TSS metal), though on those I used Snow Cap and Red Pepper dabbers.

Oh, and to answer your unasked question, yes, there is an actual love letter in that tiny envelope.  Yep.  Sure is.  Prove otherwise.

And, if you haven't already visited my OWOH blog post, please do, leave a comment and maybe win something.  And that does it for the self  promotion portion of this program.  LOL!  (If I have a mission in this stage of my life, it's a two-fold one.  First, to not take myself too seriously, and second, to encourage the same in everyone else).