Head over heels in creativity

I am invited to a special Bernina presentation called Head over Heels and we are invited to wear fancy shoes.  So...  These 'dancing' pumps look wonderful but for staying on my feet, they are not so great.  I think I need a bit more support so I was happy to give paint pens a whirl.  The perfect stripes leaked under the tape. Free hand has its issues as well. And just when you feel you have dots licked the paint makes a blob and makes its own dance trail!  But they shall make their debut and then be retired to the dress up trunk.  No I haven't got one but this could be the start!  lol

I have the grand kiddies. This new art supply isn't exactly in the same category as Peerless water colours but I was impressed.  Not much mess.

We gave polymer clay another try with a sampling of the cookie cutters I got at the thrift store.  They had a huge selection and 10 cents a piece!  My namesake didn't make it all the way through this session.  Attitude issues!  That reminds me, I need to find where her clay ball rolled off to!  edit:  she took it to bed with her!  LOL

And she totally missed the new washable stamp pads!  I think I'll put a lock on my archival permanent blacks! Looks like Josh needs a bit more muscle for my tag punch!

By golly, I may have to get some more polymer clay. This is much less fattening than cookies!  We are head over heels in luv with creativity!

Wow, more polymer clay

On Monday I rolled out the polymer clay for my Altered Book tutorial.  I was happy with my leaves but knew I needed to do some more.

Jenn joins me Wednesdays for Creativity 101 and we did some scrapbooking and magazine journal prep. We could use some embellishments for our projects.  Jenn is all about hearts and I figured we could freehand these as we had no cookie cutters.  The polymer clay hearts will go on the blue, red, pink painted page.  We didn't have the pink so we did a lot of kneading to get the red and white to turn pink.  I liked the striped effect but Jenn wanted pure pink.

One commenter from Monday suggested the clay was too soft so I throttled back and it was easier to work with and not so sticky.

We dusted them with some Perfect Pearls powder and it does add a nice shine when baked.  It also covered my  heart's candy cane effect. :0  The rosy powder did add a nice blush to the blue heart which will help it blend into the page.  Quality control is still wanting.  Finger prints and less than smooth edges are only enhanced by baking!  :(

I baked these in the bigger oven at 265 degrees F and the thermometer read 10 degrees lower so I bumped it up and then cooked them in the covered tin for 20 minutes.  They seem fine!  I was surprised at how light these hearts were after baking.  This was a concern for adhering them to the page but I'm not worried at all now although E-6000 is still recommended.

We had a busy fun day and no pressure creativity is what was on my worktable this Wednesday.

I'm linking to my fellow Needle and Thread Networkers.  Check it out for cross country creativity!

Polymer leaves

This Monday's Internet assignment Lesson 17 was for my Altered Book class with Bleubeard and Elizabeth over at Altered Book Lover.  She added a bit more on a later post.  I've appreciated how much effort she has put into all of this.

I have made beads from the polymer clay and rather liked that but for my Leaves altered book I wanted to do- leaves.  I found some cool leaf shapes in the cake section at Michael's.  They were fondant leaves.  My favourite leaf shape!

Now beads are a whole lot easier.  Roll, poke and position on the edge of a pan. I did think rolling the bead on a stamp for added texture was a great idea. Adding Pearl-Ex or other mica powders was another good idea.  The stamps work but trimming and knowing where to trim is tricky!

Then cutting the leaves from the polymer clay needs a different skill.  They don't exactly shake out and pushing makes a mark. I decided no big deal, the other side works and I even added a nice mark for a vein.

But I also got some letters and numbers and they need to be right side up!  :~

I did try a mold, at least the closest I had to a mold.  That is easier I think.

Baking them in a closed tin is brilliant because the fumes are all inside.  Of course, taking the lid off too soon is, cough, cough, hazardous!  ;^)

But good thing I did as they were kinda soft so I got the Rooster's handy dandy oven thermometer and there is a good reason why there is a new element waiting to be installed. hmmm?  So I diddled around some and then it got too hot and so I just turned things off to await the outcome. ???

Brushing the stamp with a dusting of Pearl Ex powder gave a nice effect.  I can shine them up with some Mod Poge also.

I think I will use some on the cover for sure.  I'm not sure exactly where I'll add the rest.  The book has loose pages and some pages I want to rework.  I'll have them for options when I do the final organizing of everything.

I also think that I'll be revisiting this on Wednesday for Creativity 101.