The Triumphant Return!

So, while I haven't been able to blog lately, I have been busy making lots of fun things - much of it with resin. It is some of the resin items I will be showcasing today.

First, we have my favorite piece I have done in resin so far. This pendant was originally created using polymer clay. I rolled the clay out, stamped it, and then cut it to shape. Once the clay was baked and sanded, I used 2 part mold putty to make a mold of it. I actually made two molds - the first one wrapped around the edge of the piece and made the resin reproduction come out needing a LOT of finishing. So, I did it again making sure that the mold putty stopped level with the back of the piece and no wrapping. This helped my resin pieces come out much better!

Once I had a mold, I did two pours of resin to get the multi colored look. I have made several of these in different shades (you can see them on my etsy shop) but the combination I like best so far is this white and black version. I liked it so much I didn't even do a final coat of resin to make it glossy, as the matte look was awesome!



Next I did a similar process to make this butterfly pendant. Not completely happy with my color combos yet, but I will keep working on it.



Now, I have found that when you mix resin to make a pendant or two, you almost always end up with several drops left over. I could just throw these away. Instead, I am making small items with them, like these leaf beads and small earrings.





Ok, I am gonna cut this post here for now, but I have lots more to share, so be sure to come back later in the week!

What I made Monday

So, I worked on more resin this weekend, but I am still not ready to show any of it. Instead, you get to see some silliness I made for my niece.



You may have seen the Alien Abduction lamp, or this DIY for making your own. This weekend I decided to make a nightlight version.

The green base is a pearler bead peg board. The spaceship is a bead container painted silver (the kind that screw together in a stack, I used the top one with the lid). The beam is a plastic shot glass picked up at the Dollar Store. I lit it with an electric tea light. It has a nice flickery effect. And finally the cow... a pencil topper my niece already had.



I carefully drilled holes in the bead container and the shot glass big enough for the "flame" on the tealight to fit through. I then glued them together and painted the bead container. The tea light fits inside the bead container, with the "flame" going down through the hole. I did not connect the ship and beam to the base because I wanted my niece to be able to take the cow in and out of the beam. Night light and play scene (she keeps abducting the cow but leaving his tiny shampoo behind... no idea why, but this amuses her greatly). All in all, I am very happy with how this project turned out! The Aliens are coming! And they are stealing our cows!!!!

What I Made Monday

I am really happy that I completed an entry for the Etsy Beadweaver's Challenge this month - the theme was Mystery. For my entry, I was inspired by the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo. I made a ring (duh!) in the colors from that classic van with a fun orange flower on it.



I am very happy with the result. It can be found in my Etsy shop here.

I also did some stack rings, one gold and one silver. I am testing out the durability of the finish on the Toho Galvanized gold. I made the gold ring first, and I love it, but when I wore it alone I decided it looked too much like a wedding ring, so I made a silver one to wear with it.



I also took some time to work on resin, but none of it is done yet. Resin takes days... blah.



I will take individual pics of the resin when it is all done. So, not a bad week in all. Not bad.

What I made Tuesday

Well, I don't know about you, but I had a very wonderful holiday weekend. Got to spend some time with the family watching some movies and doing some beading. Also got to work on a couple of resin projects that have been hovering in the back of my mind.

Beading first I think. Last week I posted a pattern and some pics of my "Diamond" Ring, and I mentioned that I thought this design would be fun in some gem colors. Well, it is!



Here you can see the original with a silver "diamond" as well as two variations. One red, one blue. Hmmmm, just realized that all together, these are red, white, and blue.... Below, you will see my favorite variation of this pattern. I switched the original, so now you have a silver band and a black "diamond"! I love how striking this one turned out. Definitely an attention getter!



On the resin front - when a co-worker found out I was into steampunk/gears she gave me a bag of old/non-working watches to take apart. As it turns out, none of them were old enough to actually have any metal gears inside, but some of them had really great bands/bezels. So, I decided that they would be cool to use with resin. My experiments this weekend were flawed, but I have lots more watches to play with!
Here are the watches before. The one with the leather band reminded me of a boat's porthole. The metal band seemed kind of 1970's futuristic.



The leather band watch became a porthole to an undersea world, with a lovely sticker fish. I think if I try to recreate this, I will go with more realistic stickers. Maybe even see if I can cut pictures from National Geographic or something. This turned out just a little more cartoony than my original vision.



For my futuristic band, I was so mad at this. I had some great planet stickers, and got the Earth in nicely. But, when putting in my sparkly black background, I got an air bubble. It was hiding behind the Earth, so I didn't see it. However, as the piece set curing, it moved and became visible just to the upper left of the planet. Grrrr.... However, I did find that if your watch bezel has scratches, you can paint a thin layer of resin on top and the scratches vanish! I will be redoing this one in another watch for sure!



Finally, with the leftover resin, I tinted it with some oil paints, added some pearlex in micropearl to make it sparkly and then poured it into star and heart molds. With July Fourth coming, these will be perfect! (They are much more sparkly in person, my lighting just sucks. This is what I get for taking pictures at 6 AM!)

What I Made Monday

So, I haven't made anything recently that I am willing to show yet, but one of my rings was featured over at Geek Crafts! Woo Linkage!

Did I mention I sold this necklace a couple of weeks ago? My first real jewelry sale on Etsy! (by real I mean not to someone I know and not a pattern)



Life is good. Enjoy it.

What I Made Monday

Ok, getting back on track this week. This weekend I made three rings, and came up with a great way to double my beading space!

Rings first, I think. For my niece, I made a Guardian Angel ring. You may recognize the pattern from when I posted it back around Christmas. I had made one before, but it had been a while. There are some minor flaws in this one when the brick stitch was added (for some reason I forgot the trick of starting a row with two beads to hide the thread... no idea where my mind was...), but my niece was THRILLED! One of the great things about this ring, is that it is so easy to change the colors of hair/skin/dress to personalize it for the recipient.



Next we have a Super Mario Brothers 1 Up Mushroom ring. This one will be for my personal wearing only, as I am pretty sure this mushroom is covered by either copyright or trade marks... or both! But, some days you just need an extra life!



Time to admit the truth. I do not always bead up a ring before I post the pattern. Sometimes, it is days, weeks, even months later that I finally get around to making one. There are a couple I have never made, either because I don't have beads in the color I want, or because I just got distracted. Sad but true. This weekend I did bead up the butterfly ring that was posted earlier this spring. I love the way it turned out.



And finally, how I doubled my beading space... First let me explain that I bead mostly on a small table in front of a recliner. If I need to have my laptop open while beading (to see a pattern or to watch Netflix) the table can get very crowded, and the safety of the laptop is a little iffy. On Friday, I made a run to the Habitat Re-Store (Habitat for Humanity Resale Store - if you haven't been to one in your area definately go!) to get a tile for baking polymer clay on. Since the Re-Store I go to is in a college town, it tends to have a lot of office stuff in it - desks, chairs, file cabinets - in on Friday it had an old monitor stand/keyboard tray. This thing is made out of really heavy steel - to hold the old giant monitors! And it was only $3! So I grabbed it and brought it home. I cleared off my table, added the monitor stand/keyboard tray and suddenly I can bead and have my laptop open! YAY!





As stated before, this thing is heavy, so there is no risk of it tipping when I have the tray out. And, it gets the beading a little closer to me, so I no longer require a giant pillow in the chair to support my back while beading! Did I mention yay? 'Cause - YAY!

What I Made.... Thursday

So, it was a busy weekend with 2 viewings of Avengers - which is AWESOME! - and then a busy start to my work week, so my "What I Made" post is a little late this week. However, it is packed full of stuff to make up for it!

Up first, after seeing some of these online, the small person and I made our own Monster Picture from a thrift store landscape! She designed her monsters on note paper, her father sketched them into the painting, and then she and I painted them in with acrylic paints. Lots of fun!



Next, I was inspired by this post to make some macrame bracelets. The tutorial says to use gold or silver rings, but, come on? really? with macrame? This is cotton or hemp cord, it doesn't really last all that long. So, mine have some base metal bits, and a hexagon I made with seed beads. There is also one where I just did some simple braiding with beads. All of them were fairly simple to make. The site above has instructions, but I already knew how, so I may have strayed from their method.











These are a great way to get the stack bracelet look that seems to be so popular right now. I just wear one at a time, cause I'm not cool like that. I do love the light, summery feel of them!

What I Made Monday

This weekend I was working with some of the goodies I received from my swap partner, Jessica Klaaren. I tried my hand and some freeform, but I suck at it. I tried my hand at some netting, but it didn't do what I wanted. So I ended up doing a beaded bead. Specifically, the one from the March/April issue of Beadwork mag. I did make some changes, in that I didn't have the right size of beads so I improvised. This was easier than I had thought it would be. I was all worried about making the right selections on sizes to make the proportions still work, but it all just sort of... worked. I also varied from the pattern in that I did not cover all sides of the bead with the embellishments. I left 2 sides plain. The reason for this was that I knew I wanted to thread the bead on the silk ribbon, and so I didn't want to block the holes with the embellishments. Overall, I like the bead, but I really wish I could have found a way to work in the green beads from my swap kit.





I also spent some time this weekend doing some bead organization. I ended up adding 3 new boxes to my bead stacks (the boxes were swiped from my Hero Clix storage... poor Hero's having to share boxes....). Here you will see the stacks of big divided boxes, some with beads and some with finished items, as well as the small boxes that hold all my flip tops. I should mention, this is just the portion of my jewelry making supplies that live in the living room. There is more - power tools and chemicals and such, that live in the work space in the basement. There is also more hiding on the floor down between the chair and the cabinet. And more beside the cabinet(including some knitting supplies). And more behind the chair.... Starting to wonder if some of this doesn't need to migrate back downstairs.... Anyway, I tend to do most of my beading, polymer clay work, and shrinky dinks (new obsession!) in a recliner in the living room on a personal sized folding table (slightly bigger than a TV tray, but not much). Someday, I will have some well organized beading studio, and when I do... well, I will probably still haul it all to the living room and bead with the family in front of the TV. Oh well.

What I Made Monday: Shrinky Dinks!

So, I want to start by apologizing for the really bad photos this week. I have been battling a cold and taking things downstairs to the light box just didn't happen. Anyway....

This weekend I got to play with some Shrinky Dink paper. You remember Shrinky Dinks right? You color on plastic and then it shrinks down in the oven and you have a charm or pendant? Yeah, that stuff. You can buy unprinted sheets of it in clear, white, black, brown... Then you can cut out shapes and stamp, draw, or color on them. They shrink in the oven or with a heat gun. They even make some sheets that will go through your inkjet printer (though they cost twice as much!).

So, I bought a pack of multiple colors and had some fun this weekend. I mostly used stamps, though I did color one in with gel pens before shrinking. I tried shrinking in the oven (works well) and shrinking with a heat gun(problematic as those suckers will blow right away!) when I didn't want to wait for the oven to heat. I am really loving the silver ink on the black shrinky dink paper, I will have to make more of that!.

Things to consider if you want to try this: 1) The paper shrinks to about 1/3 it's original size. So, the circle one below was traced from a 125yrd roll of fireline and shrank to just over an inch. The black one, I traced one of my ink pads, again just over an inch. I used a 1.5 inch circle punch on the small ones in the group shot and they turned out tiny... but that is ok, I will make earrings!. 2) You may need to seal them. With the stamped images I used a black Stayzon ink and a silver/gold pigment ink, and both of those seem pretty well permanent. But I noticed that the one I colored with gel pens wants to rub off. I will seal with a coat of clear glaze. 3) The children in your house WILL steal your shrink paper. Buy extra. 4) If you are in a recycling mood, don't buy the paper at all! Instead, collect the plastic food containers that the local grocery deli uses for salads and such (it will be marked with a number 6) and lightly sand it. You can then use it just like you would the purchased paper!

What I Made Monday

So, it was a busy week for me. I had to make and mail out Terri's ring for winning my give-a-way (congrats!), I had to gather and mail out some beads for a swap, and I had to do all my normal life stuff - laundry, dishes, more laundry.

But I did manage to get a few things made to show you. First, we have another ring made by beadweaving around a resin cab. This cab was also made from a vintage button I molded. I tried to do the band a little differently this time, not completely happy, but not completely unhappy...




I was also experimenting with polymer clay this week. Nothing too hard, just roll it out, stamp on it, cut a circle and paint with Pearlex powder. I then gave it a layer of resin to protect the Pearlex. I found the resin also added some wonderful depth to the stampings. I will say, looking at the charms closely in these pictures, I definately need to work on my finishing. Lots of rough edges showing! Notes on size: the small charms are about the size of a nickel.






I have some more of these in the works right now, so I will try to get the edges looking better. I have also been trying to work with some of the crystals I won, but I keep tearing things apart.... blah.

Quote: Children are born true scientists. They spontaneously experiment and experience and reexperience again. They select, combine, and test, seeking to find order in their experiences - "which is the mostest? which is the leastest?" They smell, taste, bite, and touch-test for hardness, softness, springiness, roughness, smoothness, coldness, warmness: they heft, shake, punch, squeeze, push, crush, rub, and try to pull things apart.
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)

What I Made Monday

This week I finally made the Seedbeadersters (yahoo group I belong to) bead along project for January! The project is the Vanguard Ribbon Bracelet by CSD Designs. I made mine with black and silver seed beads and a clasp I got a while back at Michael's. After putting the whole thing together, I am thinking the clasp is actually too big, but I am not sure. Then of course the question becomes: "Do I really doubt that the clasp is too big, or do I just not want to take the whole thing apart?" Have you ever done that? Left a design you aren't quite happy with, because you aren't unhappy enough to redo it?





Quote: Every success is built on the ability to do better than good enough.
Author Unknown

What I Made Wednesday

As promised, today I shall brag about something I made this past week. You have actually already seen it, in the group shot of most of my rings. (which I will repost, as I love this picture!)



There in the middle on the black ring stand is a small ring made from last week's pattern. I delayed the post because I wanted to take a separate picture of it alone, but that just didn't happen. So, here is a close up from the picture above.



I am really happy with the look of this ring, but I was having a few issues with the feel. Let me start this by explaining that I have learned to choose my beads very carefully when making a ring. I have learned the hard way to avoid any bead that has an applied finish to it. This unfortunately includes most metallic seed beads. I avoid these beads because rings take a lot of abuse. A lot of rubbing on the finger and on everything your hand comes into contact with. I have found that the applied finishes very quickly wear off on a ring, and your ring ends up looking like it has mange... lots of bare spots.

However, I really wanted this ring in silver so I did some looking and some research. I read some very good things about the Duracoat finishes. So, I ordered some Delicas with a silver Duracoat finish and made this ring. And the finish seems to be sticking! I have been wearing the ring nearly continously for a week (including during hand washing!) and have not seen any wear. However... when I first completed the ring, I noticed some scritchy bits. The Duracoat beads, some of them anyway, were not as smooth as I am used to. There were little bits where the coating had wrinkles and pointy bits (this was why I wanted the better picture - to try to capture this). I couldn't really feel these pointy bits while wearing the ring, but if I rubbed my other finger over the ring, it was there. Scritchiness.

My very hesitant solution was to rub the ring with some denim to lightly sand away the scritchy bits. I was hesitant because I was afraid of sanding away the whole finish! But, after some careful rubbing and inspecting, the ring is now much less scritchy and the finish seems to be intact. Woo and/or hoo!

So, my final impression of the Duracoat Delicas? This batch at least required a little extra finishing you don't normally see with beadwork, but if the finish lasts I say it is totally worth it!

Quote: When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)

What I Made Monday

So this week I made some rings that I am EXTREMELY happy about!

First, we have a cab ring. The cab used is resin. I took a small plastic button, made a mold of it using some two part putty, then did a resin pour with silver PearlEx mixed in. Next I used some stamp ink and a paint brush to highlight the design. Then I painted on a layer of clear resin to seal. Once cured, I did a closed back peyote bezel for the cab using some silver beads. Then I added a band using black beads.







The second ring I created has actually been in my head for a while. I am completely in love with the concept of spinner rings, but I don't have the setup to make one for myself out of metal. So, I have been playing with the idea of making one out of beads for a while. I was having a lot of trouble getting the flair or lip right, so that it would keep the inner ring on, but not stick too much into your finger. Well, this weekend I was contemplating making a Core Beaded Bead using a pattern I purchased a while back from Kerrie Slade. In the pattern she shows how to make a small core using tubular herringbone that flairs to lock into the center of the bead. EUREKA! with some minor changes, I finally had my beaded spinner ring! YAY! I was so thrilled, I even did my first video.... enjoy!