Stupid Stuff I Do Sometimes

Sometimes I go off and do stupid things and buy stupid stuff but don't realise it's stupid till I get home and try to use it. Case in point is the black chain below. Went to Bunnings because I've been trying, without a great deal of success I might add, to get coloured chain. I should have realised when I saw this chain on a huge roll and the sales girl using some great big chain cutter things to cut it with that it would be completely inapropriate for jewelery. Not only was it too heavy but it was impossible to cut with my normal jewelry tools. Lord...if I had a brain I'd be dangerous.
So anyway, waste not want not I thought, and tried to think of some way to use at least some of the chain (I bought black and white). Then I remembered seeing over at Creative Junkies site a gorgeous jewelry board that she had made awhile ago. Andrea tries to pretend that she's not the least bit arty, farty, crafty but I know different, she's very talented and creative.

Her's is much prettier than mine. I wanted to make it straight away but that meant going through all my scrapbook paper, measuring and cutting and glueing and waiting for things to dry and I was too impatient to wait. Then I remembered I had some 30 cm x 30 cm canvases that I had covered in wallpaper. They used to adorn my family room walls until I replaced them with my own (snicker) artwork (snicker).
Below is the chain, I only had gold coloured push pins so I quickly coloured them with black alcohol ink and pinned the chain to the board. Now I can hang earings from it.
Then I screwed small silver cup hooks across the bottom. I would have preferred black or white ones but Big W has a limited range of hardware stuff and as I said before I was too impatient to wait. Now I can hang some of my chains from them.
When I saw Andrea's post about the one she made I left a comment about being a copycat and that I would hang it next to my faded dusky pink sheets that are masquerading as curtains in my bedroom , which is exactly where it hangs now. (But your not going to see my sheets/curtains, that's for real).
So if anyone has some ideas of what to do with 2 metres of black and white chain, please let me know.
Or if anyone wants to make their own jewelry board and needs chain....... I'm ya girl!

ATC's and some kitsch.

Had a class last night with Kelsey. It was called spotlighting and as the name suggests it's all about highlighting an area of a stamp. We were supposed to do 3 ATC's, two on gloss card and one on cardstock. As usual I only finished one (I'm as slow as a wet week). It's quite an effective technique and the idea is to stamp 2 of the same image, cut out the part or parts you want to highlight from one of the images and leave the background black and white and colour the highlighted part or vice versa. The part of the image that is highlighted is then glued to a black background with a slight border all the way around and raised off the image with foam tape. Photo is a bit blurry but hopefully you get the idea.
I hadn't been to class for a couple of months so it was lovely to catch up with some of the girls namely Svetlana, Charmaine and Nicole......hi girls......waving!

I've been op shopping lately and on the look out for kitchsy jewelery that I can pull apart and re-purpose. Here's my latest stash. I have great plans for these. (I think).

This is a partly re-purposed necklace I made yesterday. The black plastic coated chain was an op shop find but the beads aren't. Wanted to buy some that would co-ordinate with the opals pendant I made that has green, orange, pink and black swirls through it. Sounds quite vile I know but I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out.
And this is just a pretty ordinary pendant that I put together yesterday as well. You might remember this. I had made it into a bracelet but I wasn't happy with the way it sat on the wrist, so I pulled it apart and just added a few beads. It's plain and simple and if I may be so bold as to suggest......classic?
Well I should go and do something constructive I suppose, washing, vacuuming, cleaning cooking, or I could just sit at my desk and play.....mmmm....big decision.

More Memory Frames and Sly Dreams

Just thought I'd show you the process of making one of the memory frame charms. I was reading Tim Holtz blog the other day and he had used clear UTEE mixed with Distress Embossing Powders with what he said were fantastic results. So thought I'd give it a try and use up some of my DEP (not that keen on them anyway) and see what happens. It's quite a thick mixture once it's melted and the distress bits sink to the bottom, so a bit of a stir is in order. I used "Shabby Shutters" because as you know green is my favourite colour. I used a mold from Krafty Lady, 5 different sizes of domino shapes.A little trick I gleaned from reading Margot Potters blog and watching one of her Youtube videos. Saves having to drill a hole in the utee/opals after it's set. Bend a piece of wire and after the uteee/opals has been poured and before it starts to set lay the piece of wire into the mold and hold it (with tweezers, it gets hot!) until the utee/opals starts to set. That way you have a ready made bail.
It's a bit difficult to see, but round about where the blob is on the mold is where I've laid the wire.
Here I've laid a memory frame over a stamp.
Poured the utee.
Let it set then gently pulled the stamp off.

The domino tiles have been stamped with black Stazon ink and I also, after I had taken the photos, smooshed the stamp pad over the memory frames with black just to colour the raised pattern.
By mixing the DEP with clear utee/opals you are supposed to get this grainy, flecky kind of effect which to me isn't all that evident. But I do love the colour and I've managed to use up some of the DEP which probably would have languished in a drawer of my desk for ever and a day.
I'm feeling pretty chuffed today. The black and ivory necklace in the post below is SOLD. One of the ladies I work with has bought it as birthday gift for a friend.
Totally unrelated, but do you ever wake up from a dream and just wonder why on earth you dreamt that particular dream. Well I had one of those last night. I was on Dancing with the Stars and my partner was Sylvester Stallone...I know.....what can I say! I was all frocked up in satin and glitter and fake tan with a lovely tiara and we swanned around that dance floor like Fred and Ginger. I tell ya, that Sly, he's light on his feet (must be all that boxing) but the weird thing was, he was dressed as Rambo! Someone psychoanalyse me please! Did we win?.......don't know, woke up for one of my numerous visits to the toilet. Damn my bladder to hell!

....and the winner is.......

......I've just called out to Brighita who is sitting in the lounge trying to wake herself up with a coffee, "Angel, pick a number between one and seven" she mumbled four and so number 4 is the winner of my giveaway. Kerin send me your details so I can get the ATC's and pendant out to you. Or I can bring it to the next Journal Junkies get together.
Below is another jewelry piece I just finished. It's a combination of shrink plastic, opals, purchased charms and black chain which I love by the way.

The round disc with the stamping is shrink plastic. I stamped on frosted pre-sanded plastic and shrunk them in the oven. Have much more success shrinking in the oven than with a heat gun.
The cream coloured shell looking thing is clear opals mixed with pearl utee poured into a Krafty Lady mold. It came out looking almost like mother of pearl and I'm really pleased with how it looks. Getting much better at pouring molds, sometimes if they are quite shallow they're a bit tricky and knowing when to stop pouring before they over fill is the tricky bit.
I did have another necklace to show but blogger is going stupid again and somehow the photos got deleted so I'll save that for another day.
Thank you to all you lovely ladies that posted a comment. Your comments and feedback are really appreciated and it makes it all worth while. Till next time..... when I bore you with more of my creations, have a great Sunday.

Blog Post 101.......giveaway.

Edited to note, 12th August: Extending my giveaway until the weekend. I've been out and about shopping (I might have been in the bead store when you rang Carmen) and I'm exhausted. I'll give you the tip....bead shopping is a bit of head spin, so much variety, so much to choose from, so many beads! Working for the next two days (have to pay for the beads) so I'll draw the winner on Sunday. Till then, happy arting, crafting or beading my bloggy friends.

Are you sick of these yet? Sorry but I'm a bit addicted to these, don't worry it will eventually wear off. These are some memory frames I did in class on Wednesday night . Poured over a stamp and then smeared with a bit of rub n buff. Decided to try normal heat embossing on the backs of them so stamped an image with embossing ink, covered with normal embossing power and gently heat set with the gun being careful not to melt the whole thing in the process.

Now the one in the middle went a bit pecurliar. Someone, and I won't mention who Jenny, was very impatient and just couldn't wait for the black UTEE to melt so she stirred it up like it was a pan of scrambled eggs and consequently when I heat set it with the gun, a million tiny bubbles came up to the surface, so now it looks like a moon scape.

The Sheila's

The set of 3 ATC's and the memory frame pendant pictured at the very top of the post are giveaway's. I missed my 100th post by about one or two I think so if you would like to leave a comment you're in the draw. I'll pull a name out of the hat on Wednesday.

This is a blurry view of the back of the pendant. Or you could turn it into a key chain, it's 1" square with some beads and a small metal charm added to the bottom.

Stuff

Here's a couple of ATC's I made last week, just so you don't think I've completely abandoned my mixed media work for beading. The one above is a background technique I did in a Kelsey workshop but I can't remember what it is. Black texture paste around the edges and an image glued to some chipboard. Oriental letter stickers above and the image was glazed with Craft Smart Glaze Paste.

This one was made from scraps of magazine images and the wording was from an Ikea catalogue. I think I should keep it on my desk to remind me to keep my desk clear and tidy. It's conducive to being more creative when you have a clear space. Doesn't happen that often though.
Another memory frame filled with a mixture of clear, black and Mango opals.

And another bracelet with the same mixture. The black beads are embossed with a similar colour combination and glazed with Glossy Accents. Sorry about the glare, used the flash which I don't normally do, but they were very dark and it was hard to see the pattern. Should have scanned them I suppose.
Finding it hard to get motivated this morning, well harder than normal. I need to vacuum, should do a couple of loads of washing, think about what to cook for dinner tonight...blech.....go to Office Works to get some labels, fill the car with petrol before the 15cent per litre price hike tomorrow and a million other things. And here I still sit and it's already 10.40 am. I'm a time waster today.......I'll just have another cup of coffee then kick myself up the backside and tell myself to get moving and not be such a lazy cow.