Extreme crafting - resin jewellery

Usually the holidays give me time to catch up with crafty friends- we like to plan a whole crafting day and often try something new that one or a few of us are keen on. We have tried all sorts of things in the past.

This holidays- led by the art teacher from school, we were all set to try our hand at hand casting some resin jewellery.

In her haste and excitement to join the Fat Quarters for a crafting day, on her way to the car with a box of supplies for us, the art teacher promptly fell down, broke her leg and her ankle and ripped her tendons in the other ankle ! YIKES.


Of course, we didn't know this on the day , we simply proceeded without her , by reading the instructions on the tin and using what we had each gleaned from our favourite source , the Internet.


Don't let this stuff fool you. I know it is the colour of champagne and it has bubbles like champagne - but boy oh boy it stinks. (We wore masks and worked outside-I told you it was extreme).
We used a variety of moulds, some specific to resin casting ( available from spotlight) and some were flexible ice-cube trays or small flexible cake tins.

We popped all sorts of things in after the first layer of resin had been poured....... You have to wait till it is set enough to take the weight of the object and the carefully pop your weeny little object in.

This is a little shell that a friend gave me and a bit of old broken watch machinery.They are resting on the first layer of resin and waiting to be filled up.
Our pieces took longer to set than suggested (like 2 days) but that could be because it has been really cold here lately. Also, we found that the ones that had resin dye in them took longer than the others to set.
The watch machinery in clear resin

Some beads A piece of tape measure.

These are my favourite , I had it in mind to make some handles for a new (very very ugly) set of drawers I have under my sewing table. These were the experiment set. I bought this mould at spotlight as well and the "doings" to turn them into knobs.

Verdict: We had loads of smelly fun doing this. I have a new respect for all those resin artists out there - it is not easy to do this tidily at all. I will do it again because I already have the moulds and am keen to make some drawer knobs for the ugly drawers. I can't see myself ever making jewellery but slightly chunkier things like fridge magnets would be great !

We visited the art teacher in hospital today - she is feeling much better but kind of bedridden until she can walk on the least bad foot. Then it is probably 6 weeks at home "resting". She is worried she will get bored................................really ! ...........hasn't she ever heard of blogging?

We have promised to teach her all about it!

Who said anything about cleaning.

I have dealt with the room.

I did not vacuum.

I did not dust.

I did not pick up, refold or put away.

I did however, seek to reassure any future visitors.

I am slightly in love with is - Is it OK to say that ? I mean it is not perfect by any means but I smile every time I walk into the sewing room. Yes its fabric , in a frame and there were probably a thousand easier ways to do it but I love it anyway.

How to:
I used Copperplate Gothic font and the letters range from 300 down to 50 in size. I just printed them out and cut them from fabric that I had adhered vliesofix (wunder under) to. You will need to use the sharpest scissors you have for nice clean letters.
I already had the frame , so using disappearing pen I marked the frame size on the white fabric and then fiddled the letters into place . Then I just peeled off the vliesofix from the back of the letters and ironed it to the fabric.
To get it looking nice and white I put a layer of thin wadding (batting) under the white fabric before I put it into the frame.
I left the fabric little too big for the frame so that after I had the back on, the fabric stuck out and I could pull at it to stretch it a bit.

The Boo Boo- My letters were nice and crisp and just before I attempted to put it in the frame , I rolled a lint roller over it to clean up bits of fluff and stuff and of course it picked up the edges of the letters and fuzzed them a bit.

So if you ever pop in to my sewing room , remember:

DO NOT PANIC ITS OFTEN WORSE

Desperate times.

Some days everything just goes to hell in a hand basket doesn't it.

A friend recently asked me if I ever blogged my Boo-Boo's. I replied (and it was a joke) but I don't ever have any Boo-Boo's.

Ha ha ha Joke is totally on me. I do not know how many of these little buckets I have made over time - ( there is even a tutorial in the sidebar) so really whipping these up could be done blindfolded - OR NOT !!!!

These were sewn and unpicked and jiggled and wriggled to within an inch of their life. The only thing that saved them from being tossed in the bin was the little pictures that I really love, so I struggled on through. The problem , apart from me being too cocky was probably the linen. It is beautiful but such a loose weave just gave it a bit too much give.


I was initially unsure of these little stitchies on the front. I wasn't sure they would look offset. I thought they might just look like I couldn't sew straight so thanks to Muralimanohar whose comment made me think I was on the right track. This little offset thing could turn into a new obsession.

If you want to see the Rolls Royce of fabric containers get on over to Moogsmum- hers are great and I bet she didn't swear at them either.

I had a recent visitor to whom I quite excitedly explained these little buckets and my plan to reorganise the sewing room. Now, I did warn her before entering that the room may be a little untidy.............................. her reaction was more akin to, lets say, witnessing a nuclear explosion. Even after we left the room she couldn't stop talking about it - I didn't think it was that bad.

Note: This photo shows the tidiest part of the room: The actual workspace

So I have decided to deal with it !!! that's right , now you all know. I will not start a new project, in fact I will not blog again until I have done something about this room.

It's back !!

After a recent email asking for instructions for the green quilt and some persistent, lets call it encouragement, from others, I dragged it out yesterday.

This quilt goes back a bit of way, and has been one the blog once or twice before.

A quilter I am not.

But yesterday with the crafty gods smiling and numerous cups of tea and trips to the ironing board, cutting mat, sewing machine , floor and back again, I have finally pieced the last third.

So now I guess I should be banging on about a sense of achievement and renewed excitement to tackle the quilting part. I should be excitedly pinning it together and draping it artistically over the bed.

Well it is true, I am very excited............................... and I have renewed crafty energy.

After all, finishing that quilt top means I get to add all these "extra" greens to my stash !

I get by with a little help from my friends

My dearest friends John and Betty came over today. They're not married, in fact I am not even sure they knew each other before today, they are just the sweetest most selfless people, not to mention versatile and good for you.

As a result , the impending visitors will be greeted with muffins

Mr Ric-rac has marinated calamari for dinner

and I got to spend an inordinate amount of time fiddling with this

and experimenting with the worst kept secret in blogland.

I wonder if I can convince them to visit everyday?

I faffed.

Yep, that's right after a post about not having enough time - what did I do all day?

I faffed ! I spent some quality time looking out the sewing room window watching the across-the-road-cat having a sleep in the weeds. (We grow them specially for the cat to sleep in)

I fiddled with fabric, plugged in the iron, cooked some soup. Spent a lot of time blog reading and Etsying and bought some stuff and looked for more stuff - you know faffing, noodling, fardarckling....... whatever it is called at your place I managed to do it most of the day.

This is as productive as it got today and they are about 2 inches tall. Little friends for

Milly

and Pickle.

The best thing about doing very little is that at least it is easy to improve on - stay tuned!

This is ....My demon

My biggest demon (apart from my own strange self) is time.


I never feel like I have enough time to do everything I want. I'm not sure three lifetimes would be enough to get through everything on my "to do" list.