Crafty Love Notes #2: Innovate!

I love texture, in case you haven't noticed. I had been thinking for a while, gee, wouldn't it be grand if I could pre-texture the backgrounds of my paintings, instead of having to add it at the end with texture pastes and the like? I had also been drooling over embossing machines for many reasons, probably ever since I played with the Vintaj Sizzix at CHA last year.

So I asked my Dad for the Anna Griffin special edition Cuttlebug for my birthday. The reason I wanted that one is because it came with 12 pretty folders, so could get started right away! So I did a sample of each folder that I have, and then I started looking around the room seeing what other flat textured items I might be able to roll through it!

I have a giant pile of punchanella, some of it interesting shapes like stars and flowers. The star piece is just the right width to go through the machine. But it's not a folder, it lacks the thickness- and these machines are calibrated to take a certain thickness or they just don't work. So- I kept searching around my room and this is what I came up with-

I used the spacer block and the two embossing plate thingies that came with the machine. I laid down a thick-ish silicone mat that is used for baking (I use it for clay), then the paper (cardstock) with the star punchanella on top. Those were sandwiched between the 2 B embossing plates. Under that sandwich, I stuck a piece of matt board that I cut to size, as a "shim." Now, you can buy shims for your machine- but WHY would you spend money on what is essentially a thin piece of cardboard????

The result of my efforts is down below, a groovy textured piece of cardstock. Moral of the story? Open your Eyes, Look around you, and TRY NEW THINGS. You never know what you might discover!

 

What did you do to your hair! On going pink....

Yesterday, I spent an absurd (!!!) amount of money in a hair salon.  My hair was double-processed, the brown parts were all returned to my natural dark brown color and I had ombre pink and purple strips put into the front. All part of my birthday present to myself :)

In the future, I will keep adding more crazy colors to the front until I am saturated- right now, I had the strips put in so I could start getting used to it- I was a little afraid to go pink because I'm always nervous to let the real me out to play. What will people say or think? Then I have to remind myself that I don't really care, do I?

I love my hair right now...although I saw a girl at the salon and I've decided I want to look more like her- hair to mid-shoulders, black with blue and aqua strips. She was wearing it in a really interesting style, part braided and part pompadour in the front. So cute. Not that I want blue hair, but once you bleach the color out of an area, you pretty much end up with a part of your hair that can be any color at any time- there are no permanent crazy colors, so every color you put in immediately starts to fade and has to be freshened up often... so it becomes easy to say, let's be pink this week! or Blue, or Turquoise....

My newest Creations

So I really enjoy doing tiny piecework with polymer clay. However, I don't really enjoy doing it over and over and over again. I love the idea of molding my own original artwork and casting it, and coloring it by hand. That way I can labor over the creation of the original until it is perfect, and mold it indefinitely  trying out different color combinations, antiquing, beading, and such.

I made several originals last weekend- three of them have a little well or frame in the center so I can change what goes there- a word, phrase, affirmation, poem, blessing, whatever.

Right now I'm on a quest to find the absolute best medium to cast them in. I tried Cool2Cast, which is a fiber infused plaster product. However, when you cast it thin, as these are, they are extremely fragile. You could snap them in half. That's why I only have 2 to show, because one of them broke into three pieces, and the other one I'm not willing to spend the time working on because it won't be sellable. Instead I'm dreaming up some new original sculpts and I really want to take it 3D as well, and make some small sculptures I can then cast and paint.

It's so fun birthing a new idea, especially since these have turned out better than I even imagined!