Just a quicky..

Couple of projects to share that were birthday gifts I now know have been received.

First a little hanger made with digital images fomr my polkadoodles Studio12 Picknix CD. Kind of obvious who that was for!!

And another little hanger made from an inverted canvas and using one of my clearly for art faux metal flowers. and a Tim Holtz inspired mosaic butterfly.

That's all!! Must get on. Cindyx

 

21 at last.

Boy am I tired. So will keep this short. Soooo busy at work, stupidly put my hand up for extra hours, am running two kids activities every week plus bounce and rhyme and story times......craft room full of half finished commissions....a million birthdays looming....BBQ Saturday...  holiday next weekend..........don't even mention the ironing.... ................

and my darling Chelsey was 21 yesterday.

 

 Here she is with her bessie mate when we out for dinner last night. Aren't they beautiful? She still looked this beautiful when she got in at 3 in the morning after celebrating a little harder than planned. (Was supposed to be a quiet night then a big blow out on Saturday). Not quite so good at 5am when she had to get up for work with just an hour's sleep but still pretty gorgeous. How do I know? Well I was there both times, which probably isn't helping with the general level of tiredness!!

But of course there was a card -

and another one I had to rustle up for her brother (who, by the way, is perfectly capable of making a pretty neat card himself) because men are absolutely hopeless even when tasked with one simple job - buy a card for your sister's 21st. Still at least he took the time to to write something suitably annoyingly younger brotherish inside.

Thannk goodness for those Octopode digis is all I can say!!

Finally, a quick reminder that you have three more days to join in with the giveaway which will be drawn on Sunday so that I have time to get it in the post before my hols as I am working most of next week. Not many entries, so  the chances of winning are pretty good......

Still got loads to do, including preparing for a crazy kids event tomorrow. Right, off to find out how to make a paper plane.....

Cindy x

Faux Metal Flowers - this is NOT a tutorial.... but it might help.

You may recall I tried out 'Clearly for Art' to make flowers for April's Art Draw and that I said although I followed a Wendy Vecchi Tutorial which I found on 'Scraptime' (do check this out if you haven't already) my flowers didn't really look like Wendy's. LOL, I suspect she had had a little more practice than me, who always expects to get it right first time.
Anyhoo, I don't do tutorials when they are out there already from much more experienced people than moi (and it also implies a sort of logical thought process which I am often, sadly, lacking) but I thought I would watch the video again, have another go and post a few photos and make a few (hopefully helpful) observations. I think that there are some of you out there who have bought this product and given up, but honestly, even if you only ever make these flowers do have a go, they are seriously COOL. (Actually they get quite HOT but more about that later).

I am going to paraphrase the initial steps - go watch Wendy's vid for the full 101.
BUT, here is how I did this.
Firstly I  have used clearly for art - Wendy uses the blackout one on her video so right from the word go we are expecting a different effect. I used regular pva to provide a key because I haven't got the other stuff. Just splosh it all over and leave to dry. When it's dry get some Ranger Clear Rock Candy crackle paint and splosh that all over too. The thicker you do it, the thicker cracks you will get. Leave to dry. Then get out your alcohol inks. You really need the metal  mixative ones to give a metallic effect, I don't know what it will look like if you just use ordinary alcohol inks, but it probably wouldn't look that bad.
So I just used Gold and Copper because that is what I have. Pounce it all over (you know this) with your applicator. Then I added all sorts of other colours, more metallics, etc etc until I was happy with the colour. Watch the vid.

'dull' side up

OK so that is all pretty easy. Here is where I might add a few helpful hints. I cut my basic flower shapes out using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. (Don't throw those little bits that are left away - see what I did with them here. Tip, if you have put a sheet through the die cutter, there is space to cut out the two smaller dies again from the waste between the flowers. Waste not want not.)

Shiny side up

Some of them I decided to use shiny side up, some of them the dull side (I only alcohol inked one side, you could do both but it does take the edge off that nice shiny surface).

embossed dots

I stamped some of them using archival ink with my dotty stamp on the 'rough' side'.

That was kind of subtle so I stamped some others and embossed with black embossing powder. Now it was more in my face, but OK.

Now I wanted to shape the flowers. To do this you need to heat the CFA with a heat gun and it will go all floppy. You have about10-15 seconds after you stop heating before it goes rock hard again. The good news is if you don't like it you can re-heat it again and again until you are happy. The bad news is it gets very HOT, making it hard to mould unless you have asbestos hands together with an extra hand to hang onto everything and deal with the heat gun. To help with this I found a few little containers to use to help me mould the flowers. Lids etc. Things that won't melt. Like this.

I had a pokey tool with a flat end to push down on the centre. The other thing I found was that it was easier to mould heating the 'rough' (pva'd and rockcandied) side than the shiny. Just something about the way it wanted to curl. Still works, but different. And if you are using this die, cut into the second smallest flower before you heat it so you have more room for manouevre. For the larger flowers you can try and shape each petal at a time, but if you inadvertently heat the one you've just done it will collapse again. So if you have a choice don't use the hairdryer type heat gun as it is harder to direct the heat.

I highlighted the edges with my gold paint dabber. A krylon pen would be good too but can't find mine. It's fairly subtle but finishes it off I think.


Now you have your shaped petals you just have to stick them together as  normal. I tried pinflair and glossy accents. Both worked OK.

Finally don't worry if anything bubbles up when you are heating, it doesn't seem to have any lasting effect. But if you are working in a confined space and making a few flowers at one time DO open the window. Just in case. I went out to use the facilities and when I came back in to my room it seemed a little 'fumey'. Probably heat and alcohol inks don't ya think? So be careful.

I think I can see a future giveaway.........

Cool Huh?

May Art Draw

and of course, just a reminder that if you haven't done so already, you can join in this month's giveaway here to win this little trinket box complete with faux metal flower.

Back soon, Cindy