Amazing Crafting Products Archives

Drinks on me! Anything But a Card Challenge #36

Good morning! Today’s project tutorial is thanks to a challenge! The talented Susan M. Brown of SBartist: Painting In The Dark Blog asked me if I would be willing to be a guest designer for the Anything But a Card Challenge blog and of course I had to say yes!

Anything But a Card Challenge Challenge #36 : Summer Lovin’ – A celebration of all things summer! Think summer weather, vacations, sunflowers, beach parties, cold drinks and barbecues… bright colors and wide open sky. Pool parties all day, then sitting in lawn chairs sipping drinks and watching the night sky. The warm summer months have me thinking of cold drinks, sunny days and BBQs with family and friends. My project for the Anything But a Card Challenge for this month played perfectly into that inspiration!

One of the aspects of having a party or BBQ is that someone is bound to spill a drink. While many find it an annoyance I decided to use it as a inspiration!

Starting with the idea of a spilled Pomegranate Martini or Cosmo, I came up with a wearable art piece called “Drinks on me!”

Supplies:
Amazing Mold Putty
Amazing Clear Cast Resin
Stampendous Multi Ultra Fine Crystal Glitter
Craft Knife
Polymer Clay
Stylus
Elastic jewelry cord
Small drill

Using a stylus and a craft knife, I shaped and carved half a martini glass and ice cubes out of polymer clay. I then baked the clay pieces on the tile to manufacturer’s instructions.

After I baked the polymer clay, I lightly sanded and trimmed the edges of the pieces with a craft knife and an emery board. Once the polymer pieces are cleaned of dust, I used Amazing Mold Putty to make molds of the pieces.

Once the molds were cured I poured Amazing Clear Cast Resin into the molds and let it set for about five hours. The pieces came out frosted by using the Mold Putty and that was the perfect look for the glass and ice cubes.

I then placed the glass upside down on *parchment paper and poured Amazing Clear Cast Resin tinted with Alumilite Red Dye in a controlled U shape. I coated the ice cube resin pieces with untinted Clear Cast and placed them gently into the tinted resin to give the illusion of melting ice. I added a few polymer clay lime cane slices, sprinkled a touch of Stampendous Multi Ultra Fine Crystal Glitter on the tinted resin to finish off the look and let it all cure.

*The resin has to be poured on parchment paper otherwise the resin will soak into any other paper.

I drilled a hole on each side of the pendant and threaded clear elastic jewelry cord on for easy wear.

One of the really fun aspects of this project is with a simple change of dye used with the resin you can create any spilled drink you would like!

What might YOU make for the Anything But a Card Challenge? CLICK HERE to link up your projects! 🙂

Until next time, safe travels!
Temple Rain, a Mixed Media Canvas

In April I had the great opportunity to receive a Frog Dog Studio kit by being part of the Amazing Crafting Products Design Team. I was so excited when I received the kit; it had so many wonderful goodies, from ink pads, pigment ink, mica, chipboard pieces, tissue paper and more! There was enough supplies to make several projects and still have things left over.

Many of the supplies in the April kit seemed to have a East Asian flair to it. It got me thinking about my trip through Asia and I was inspired to create a Mixed Media hidden story book.

The tutorial for this project can be found here: Mixed Media Book Box

With more of the supplies left over, I created a Mixed Media Canvas piece with wild tropical colors. It was so much fun that I wanted to try making another canvas piece but with a completely different feel, and I still had supplies left over from the Frog Dog Studio kit. Sadly, I got busy with home improvement projects and had to wait until the end of May to start my new canvas.

With a portion of the extras from the kit, miscellaneous supplies from my collection and canvas, I started to lay out the project, figuring out which direction to go. I wanted to use the chipboard from the Stampendous Mini Clipboard Canvas pack, the Tim Holtz Clear Fragments and Pearlized Stampendous Mica Fragments. I placed them this way and that on the canvas and suddenly I got an idea. What if I were to try making a abstract ruins in the rain?

Just like with my previous canvas piece, I pulled out what I call my resin “save for later” bin. This bin is populated with all kinds of resin pieces, some finished, uneven pourings or even pieces I just didn’t know what to do with. I picked out resin cabs that had the look of abstract water droplets.

I applied water and acrylic paint to the canvas and tilted it so all the paint and water ran down to the bottom. Once dry, I painted a base dark layer for my ruins. I glued the chipboard pieces to the canvas using Nine Lives Products Glu6 Paste and let dry.

I applied a second layer of water and paint to give a look of rain falling. On went the crackle medium to the dark paint layer and once dry I added a gray-blue paint top layer that then crackled giving it the look of ancient stone. I wasn’t completely happy with the look so using a black permanent marker I drew in small bricks and shading to give detail to the ruins.

Using Nine Lives Products Glu6 Nonporous glue I glued the mica flakes to the back of the resin cabs and while the glue was still wet pressed them onto the canvas. The glue has to dry overnight but it is well worth the wait for a great bond on the resin cabs. I applied little paper leaves to look like plant overgrowth and Liquitex Gloss Varnish to seal the paper leaves and paint in place. I added some acrylic paint in blue and purple as highlights on the ruins and brown on the paper plants to give an earthy hue. A second layer of varnish in drops and dribbles gave the illusion of water to the finished canvas.

I added some acrylic paint in blue and purple as highlights on the ruins and brown on the paper plants to give an earthy hue. A second layer of varnish in drops and dribbles gave the illusion of water to the finished canvas.

Frog Dog Studio’s available kits change every month but the great variety offered in each kit is a great inspiration. What might you make with their next kit?Until next time, safe travels!
Craft & Hobby Association Mega Show 2014

It is that time of year again: my CHA Trade Show recap! CHA, otherwise know as the Craft and Hobby Association, decided to change it a bit this year by not having a Winter and Summer show but one big mega show! There were so many vendors, new products, demos, make n takes and networking opportunities at this show! I had a great time and met so many wonderful talented people but it was a very busy show! While this is not by far covering everything and everyone I saw at CHA, the following is some of the highlights I was able to take photos of.

This year I was asked to do demonstrations at the Amazing Crafting Products/Alumilite Booth, showing people how to make their own Art Themed Lapel Pins. I finally got to meet, in person, some of the other members of the Amazing Crafting Products design team.

Here is President of Alumilite Mike Faupel, Design Team Leader Susan M. Brown {sbartist}, staff member Carolyn Daly, and I at the Amazing Crafting Products booth.

Here I am demoing Amazing Mold Putty. It was wonderful to find so many people with interests in molding and casting their own artwork.

Artwork from the talented design team was on display at the Amazing Crafting Products booth, showcasing the detail and beautiful pieces they were able to make with the products.

Here is one of the demo tables at the Amazing Crafting Products booth, highlighting products and their many uses.

I got to see again the talented and ever gracious Mark Montano. He was signing his book line at the Eclectic Products booth and doing demos of crackle art frames at the DecoArt booth. I now have all of his books!

At the iLoveToCreate booth showcased several artists’ work in “Creativity Changes Everything” display. Mark Montano’s work was part of this display. He had created a lovely vignette, representing his creative career in home decor and fashion, along with a diary about his creative life printed directly on a dip-dyed dress.

ILoveToCreate booth also had this lovely decopauge piece made from rolled magazines. The lantern was made using Tulip One-Step Tie-Dye, Aleene’s Tacky Glue, and tissue paper!

I stumbled across the Nine Lives Products glue booth and was I glad I did! They make glue out of recycling styrofoam waste. They create three types of glue: Glu6 Nonporous, Glu6 Paste and Nine Live School Glue.

The Glu6 Non-Porous Glue is made from all-natural ingredients that non-toxically dissolve styrofoam waste, shrinking it by more than 30x its original size. The goo left over from this process they turn into non-toxic glue! Styrofoam piece shown in the photo is what goes into one tiny bottle of their glue.

The talented Suzann Sladcik Wilson, book author and CEO of Beadphoria, Inc. was at the Buttons Galore and More booth debuting her beautiful new button jewelry line. Her line of button jewelry kits come in all kinds of different themes, and include everything you need to make lovely rings and pendants.

Suzann was doing some demos at the booth. Here is just a small sample of what she made with her wonderful kits.

Buttons Galore and More also had a great line of miniature buttons for your mini crafting needs. I just had to buy some samples of to play with!

Lion Brand Yarn had a stunning “7 Wonders of the Yarn World” installation created by fiber-artist Nathan Vincent. I only got photos of 6 of the 7 wonders because of the crowds. You can go to the Lion Brand Yarn Blog to see more photos!

The installations that represent the “7 Wonders of the Yarn World” theme stand about 5 feet high or taller!

While doing resin demos I met a very nice lady, Fiona Lin of Linpeng International Inc. Her family’s company Fiona Accessories (named after her) had a bead booth with a wide selection of both loose beads and finished beaded accessories. Their specialty line is a series of hand painted beads and bracelets. While they often sell to museums, gift shops and supply beads for craft stores Fiona was more than willing to sell beads to me for my artwork.

I bought quite few strands of beads from Fiona to make new jewelry with. They had a wide variety of shapes, patterns and cuts of beads I had not seen elsewhere.

While wandering around the CHA show floor I came across this darling polar bear sculpture at the Activa booth. While they had this sculpture displayed at past shows I never got a chance to stop and see the detail. I was glad I did and I found out about all the different clay and sculpting materials they carry. I even ended up realizing I had been using some of their products while in college and had no idea! When they heard I did sculpture and mold work they gave me samples of Hearty, a non toxic air dry modeling clay and CelluClay, a non-toxic papier mache recycled paper medium to try out.

Seeing demos of making perfectly torn paper for paper crafting made me stop by the Perfect Paper Crafting booth. While marketed mostly towards paper crafting I see their tools having wonderful uses in mixed media art. My two favorite tools they carry is the Perfect Airbrush, that turns almost any marker into an airbrush and the Perfect Tears, that helps you make controlled, beautiful, soft, torn-paper-edges.

I saw so much more that I didn’t get to photograph but in the next few months I hope to test out and show you all the new products I found.

Until next time, safe travels!
Amazing Crafting Products Design Team!

Things have been a whirlwind lately! So many new things happening and so many changes! I was contacted by the talented Susan M. Brown, Design Team leader for Amazing Crafting Products to see if I was interested in joining their design team since in the past I had used their product and enjoyed working with it. Of course I said yes and I am now a proud part of the Amazing Crafting Products design team blog! The photo above is of my first design team shipment and it was so full of awesome goodies to try out.

Not only do I enjoy using their products as I have noted in past blog posts, I was introduced to resin as wearable art by my parents many years ago. Here is a photo of some of my mother’s work. All of the pieces in the above photo are over 35+ years old. Amazing Crafting Products even graciously allowed me to showcase her work and vintage molds in an Inspiration post.

Entranced at an early age by the idea of encapsulating objects I was inspired to use one of my mother’s vintage polyurethane molds to make a retro trivet piece and tutorial!

Now I am on a roll and I just can’t help but want to test out how the products perform. I am starting to get back into my polymer clay work so I tried my hand at a faux coral necklace and tutorial. I used polymer clay pieces for the originals to make the resin coral pieces.

For years now I have been trying to mimic the perfect faux amber, I blame a certain dinosaur movie for me always wanting the perfect piece of amber with an insect inside. While I have gotten close in the past there was always an issue with durability and/or clarity. Well, after trying some test with Amazing Clear Cast I was finally able to get the look I have wanted. You can find my inspirations post here talking about these new pieces.

Though don’t just take my word for it, please go to the Amazing Crafting Products design team blog to see all of the talented artists on the team! From model car makers, food artists, mixed media artist, paper crafters and so much more you will not be at a loss for ideas and inspiration. 🙂

Until next time safe travels!
Family of Pumpkins

I have pumpkins on the brain lately (sounds like a condition doesn’t it? LOL). I am trying to grow a pumpkin patch, wanting to make pumpkin pie, finding vintage ads of pumpkins and creating pumpkins out of polymer clay. I have always had fond memories of carving pumpkins, making pumpkin cakes and cookies with my family. To me they are what Fall, Halloween and harvest festivals are about.

This year I am making all kinds of Fall crafts but I wanted to make something showcasing pumpkins and the happy feeling of family together for the seasons. I started with making a cute little family of pumpkins out of polymer clay. I really liked how they came out but felt I could use them on so many projects such as cards, magnets, jewelry and wall decor. So I decided to make a mold of them so I could do all the projects I thought of and more.

For the pumpkin family mold I used:

Polymer clay (any brand or color will do since I made a mold from the original polymer piece)
Amazing Mold Putty
Amazing Casting Resin
Martha Stewart Crafts 2oz Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Craft Paint Carrot, Jonquil and Beetle Black

Here is the original pumpkin family made out of poly clay. I gave them deep smiles and happy faces, I don’t have to worry about any detail being lost since the Amazing Mold Putty does wonderful with anything with high detail.

I mixed the putty according to the manufacture’s instructions, though the Amazing Mold Putty is rather forgiving if there is not exact amounts used. I do not attempt to remove the mold for at least 20 minutes to make sure the mold has set.

While the cure time for the molds is 20 minutes I like to leave the orignal in the molding putty for longer, making sure the mold is a rigid as possible (but keep in mind it is silicon and very flexible once cured) before trying to make any replicas. The mold can be cleaned with mild soap and water before you make any replicas to remove any loose particles left by the original.

When mixing the Amazing Casting Resin I have to be careful about stirring too fast and for too long. Once the two parts are combined stir carefully until clear, scraping sides, about 15-20 seconds. I then immediately start to pour the resin into the mold; be careful not to pour too quick as you will increase the amount of air bubbles. It will set in 10 minutes, but keep in mind that the thicker the piece the faster the cure time. In this case the pumpkin family is a thick piece and set in about 8 minutes.

Here the resin copy is next to the original and the mold. Once the piece is cured I demold, trim any rough edges, sand and started painting.

Here I show the 3 stages of painting. I have found that the Martha Stewart Crafts Multi-Surface acrylic paint bonds well with the resin replicas. I start with the Carrot, then a color wash of Beetle Black and then paint the Jonquil paint only in the eyes, noses and mouths of the pumpkin family.

The first project I wanted to make with a pumpkin family was a home decor piece for my mother. She loves the holidays and always likes to have the family home to celebrate.

For the home decor piece I used:

Globecraft Memories Classic Fancy Rectangle
Globecraft Memories Glastique Gloss Finishing Glaze
Globecraft Memories Enamel powders 24K Gold and Mossy Glen
Globecraft Memories Piccolo Accents
Cardstock (any color or brand will work, I used orange, metallic white and black)
Mini Fall Leaves (most local craft stores carry small bags of fabric or paper leaves in the scrapbooking or floral sections)

Using one of the finished pumpkin resin pieces, I placed it in the middle of the Classic Fancy Rectangle and traced along the inside of the oval to make sure the background paper, pumpkins and a leaf embellishments fit inside the globe.

Once I decorated the outer layers of the frame with the paper, enamel and Piccolos, I coated the outside layers with two coats Glastique Gloss glaze. Once completely dry I glued the layers and globe with Glastique together. I then glued the pumpkin resin piece to the backplate of the frame with a thick layer of Glastique. I carefully added the mini leaves around the bottom of the pumpkin family to give them a “bed” of leaves to be on.

Glue the top layers of the the frame to the backplate with Glastique and once dry it is now ready to hang on the wall! 🙂

Until next time, Safe Travels!