Nothing much to see here.......

......except this. Can't decide if it's the ugliest thing I've made or it's just quirky, or strange.The naked torso's are opals poured into a mold. She's got cellulite too! The black discs with the African lady are shrink plastic charms I made awhile ago.
Little silver charms that I beat the heck out of with a hammer to distress them. They were a bit too shiny and then I glued a tiny picture of a Japanese lady and covered them with glossy accents.
And just a lot of bits and bobs from my scrapbooking days. i.e ribbon charms that I also distressed and some recycled glass beads from an old pair of earings.
I bought the chain on line a few weeks ago and it wasn't quite what I had in mind. Thought it would be black as in a true black, not antique silver. Also it's quite short so I need to add more chain to it. I should name it Ethnic, what with Greek torso's, African heads and Japanese ladies, it's certainly a mixture of countries.
Can't really imagine anyone wearing it to be truthful. Unless they're a combination of Lady Ga Ga, Marilyn Manson and Grace Jones.
Feedback people, please. Be truthful, I can take it. I won't cry if you say it's ugly (well, only a little bit).

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.

No Housework Get's Done

Here's some Leandra beads I made yesterday, still pretty wonky but if you clump them together it's not quite so noticeable. I've attached them to various lengths of chain then attached that to a large jump ring which I attached to an even larger ring with a hole in it. Added another large jump ring that I threaded some small beads onto then put the whole thing on a chain. Fun to make but I'm suffering with RSI in my wrist and my shoulders are killing me from being hunched over the desk for a few hours. Who says you don't need to be fit to craft. Think I need to go to a gym and do some sort of muscle strengthening exercises.......me.....gym.....nah!
Another memory frame. Black gold and silver Opals and I laid some opal scraps over it when it was set then blasted them with the heat gun to attach them to the base.
This is the reverse side. After it was set I sprinkled on some silver and green Opals granules and heat seat them with the gun.
The small memory frames I made the other day have now become a bracelet with come small beads between the frames.
The reverse side.
In between all this jewellry making I have made some ATC's but I'll post them another day.
The pest control guy is here to do the annual termite inspection. Nice guy but I always dread his visit in case he finds some huge infestation and the roof is about to fall in. So far so good.

You can Laugh.........

........we all did. Wednesday nights class with Mel was melt art beads. This is the "leandra bead" that Suzie Weinberg demos on you tube. She makes it look easy and so does Mel, but it's tricky and some of our beads were hilarious. We had alien heads, mushrooms, bobble heads and numerous other strange and twisted shapes.

It's a long pin with a small pearl bead on the top. The idea is to dip the bead in melted UTEE or opals, twirl it around until it sets and then keep repeating until you have a reasonable size bead. In between layers you can add glitter or perfect pearls if so desired.
Once the bead is set, snip most of the wire off and using needle nose pliers bend the remaining wire into a small loop, then they can be attached to a chain and turned into bracelets, necklaces or whatever your heart desires. My heart desires them to be put away in drawer somewhere never to be seen again! The bead below was made using silver opals and then brushed with perfect pearls.
These are some more of the trinkets that Svetlana and I made last week with Opals and Krafty Ladey Molds. I love the torsos she made.
The most annoying part of the whole bead making class was the interloper. Natalie the store owner brought along her partner Michael. The only man in the class and guess who made the best beads? Well I'd like to know how he explained to his blokey workmates the next day all the glitter in his hair and on his face. Doesn't matter how well you think you've washed it off Michael, some glitter still remains!

Opals "play Date"

Had a fantastic day on Monday. The art world is a wonderful place to meet lovely people and my friend Svetlana is one of them. We spent the day at her place and played with Opals embossing powders. I've had a melt pot on order for about 6 weeks and Opals for a bout 3 weeks that I haven't been able to play with much without the melt pot. So Svetlana gave me her unused one (it's been sitting in her drawer for about 2 years) and when mine finally arrives I'll pass it on to her. So we tentatively melted and poured and these are some of our results. Below are a couple of molds that I had made with the 'mold & pour' stuff. The one on the left is a cameo and on the right is a piece of jewellry I'd picked up in a second hand shop. I've brushed the cameo with perfect pearls just to highlight it a bit and the left one is a combination of colours swirled together.
These little trinkets are Ranger memory frames about an inch square. Laid them over a patterned stamp then poured a combination of silver, gold and black opals into the frames let them harden then lifted them off. Gorgeous patterns and colours, but the beauty of them is the back looks just as incredible as the front.
The two long frames at the top of this post (sometimes blogger plays mind games with me, could have sworn I uploaded that photo, now everything is out of sequence) are the same technique as the little ones, just different colours, clear on the left with perfect pearls and a combination of green, black and silver.
So tonight I'm taking a class with Mel on how to make melt art beads and I'm really looking forward to that, so get ready for another post on my bead successes or failures (whichever the case may be) in a day or two.
I'm off to have lunch, vacuuming and washing four floors is exhausting and hunger inducing!

The Postman Only Rang Once.........

.......and I ran to answer the door and there was my package of Opals embossing powders and the book. The most luscious colours and when you open the jar it's very tempting to lick your finger and and scoop up the powder to taste it because they look just like Aeroplane Jelly jelly chrystals. But I wouldn't advise doing that.They have wonderful evocative names like Currawong (black), Daintree (lime green), Mango (orangey apricot) Wild Hibiscus (dark pink) and Zeehan (silver) all in 90g jars and I bought a 150g jar of clear. It's a shame the photos don't show the colours well, but trust me they are gorgeous.

I also bought a pack of Opalettes 5 x 9g jars of the Warm palette just to see what some of the other colours are like. Aurora, Mountain Berry, Valentine, Fool's Gold and Sunburst.Their book is very informative with lots of instructions and photos and many examples of the different ways you can use them. Now I just have to wait patiently for my melt pot to arrive at Scraptivate. I badgered them into carrying the opals in their shop seeing as how Mel is going to be doing some classes on melt art. So keep a look out for them if you are in Perth.

I found it very strange that none of the LSS stores in the metro area of Perth carry the Opals. It's an Australian product made in Tasmania so it's good to support local product. Here's a link to their site.

Just some more bracelets I made. Silver beads with dingly, dangly, baubley things hanging off them. Threaded the beads onto stretchy elastic, tied it off and added the baubles and gave them to Brighita and she's worn them everyday since.

Well I'm off to make Moroccan Meat Balls and Lime Impossible pie. It was Michael's girlfriend Erin's birthday yesterday and I foolishly said "Come for dinner" (and she foolishly accepted). You know how much I looooove cooking...not, and her mum is a fantastic cook. Erin always eats like a little bird when she comes over and I somehow suspect it has a lot to do with my cooking!