Pages 05/31/08

I bought these cool little mini flip-top pendant frames from ARTChix Studio.

The size of the frame is approximately .5 H X .25 W. They were super easy to make. I picked out some artwork, sized it in Photoshop and printed out some quality copies onto heavyweight watercolor paper. Each of the frames pop open and there are two acrylic pieces that you sandwich the artwork between. I slid the image between the acrylic and closed the top. I noticed the tops flipped open really easily, which would not be good if you were wearing them, so I put a tiny dab of superglue on to hold them in place. I attached a sterling silver shepard's hook to the top - and that was it! Two pairs of super cool earrings without much work. This is a really good, quick gift for someone and fairly inexpensive to make.

Pages 05/26/08 (Part B)

Oh! Here's a picture of the raised bed we put in this weekend. It's artistic in its own way and merits an entry! *lol* This was the third of four backbreaking tiers of bricks. We had to dig down about 8 inches, pour gravel and sand and hand place each of the brick and glue each one in. Oh, and carry them from the front of the house to the back! Now it's time for a nap. *lol*

Pages 05/26/08

Hey! Thanks for all the comments. It was fun to see that people actually *do* stop by and read what I've been up to. *Waving* So, it's a long weekend and my husband and I spent alot of it building a raised bed in the back garden. Man-oh-man was it alot of work. It between that (and recovering because we are BOTH so out of shape) I managed to finish up some bottlecap magnets I'd been working on. A couple weeks ago I played around with my first batch of 2 part resin. I read the instructions, prepared everything and anxiously went to work. A few things I learned: 1. Make sure you GLUE down your images inside the bottlecaps because the will LIFT as the resin settles. 2. Make sure to mix your resin more even though you think you mixed enough. Under mixed resin NEVER dries and your pieces will be useless. I learned the hard way. 3. Put a cover or something over the drying bottlecaps. You'd be surprised at how much crap floats in the air and settles on the wet resin. 4. Have a good long handled lighter ready to heat the tops and pop the air bubbles (it's really cool how easy this is) 5. Be sure and go back to make sure the air bubbles are all gone because they will magically reappear if you aren't vigilant in popping them.

Resin, part two! This time I'll nail it! Last week I pre-punched some images and glued them into the bottlecaps. (Those puppies are not going to float ANYWHERE now.) My puncher isn't too precise and there was alot of white paper showing so I covered and sealed the edges with some glitter glue. I let these dry really well. This time I mixed the resin VERY well and was really carefule with the measurements. I let them settle and waved a lighter over the tops to pop the bubbles. After about 4 rounds of popping, I covered them with a large pot lid and let them dry 24 hours. The next day, I superglued on some heavy duty magnets. Overall, I am very happy with the results this time. Next resin adventure will be some molded jewelry.

Pages 05/17/08

Wow, where did the time go? I've been up to my ears in work drama and not much time to be creative or to blog. Apologies to my readers (if there are any readers. lol.) Hopefully I will be back at it. I have several swaps in the works and several new projects.

I got a chance to work on my first set of 'inchies'. So, what's an inchie? It's a 1" X 1" collage. When i signed up, I thought - cool - I can make some of those in NO time. Boy, was wrong. Working small is a huge challenge. Finding small items to add to the collage was tough, and making something tell a story in a one inch space was equally tough. The theme was 'Circus, or Circus Freaks'. Check mine out. I found and resized a bunch of vintage images in photoshop, printed them on to heavyweight watercolor paper. I've added various ephemera items, beads, charms, glitter, vintage German scrap.

Not sure I will do another batch of inchies or sign up for another inchie swap, because honestly ... I have no idea what I am going to do with them. lol. Anyone have any ideas?