Polymer Frenzy!!!!

I'm pleased to announce to the world that I have been officially cured of my sanding-and-buffing-only polymer clay snobbery. Oh, my goodness... When I first started working with the clay, absolutely NOTHING would do for me but to sand and buff every single one of my pieces. I hate to admit it, but I did feel a bit smug and superior about it. Ugh, I hate my inner jerk, especially when I come face to face with her.

But, I can punch her in the face today because I have discovered the joys of varnishing!!!! YAY! Things get so pretty and so nice and you don't even have to work that hard at it. Sometimes, not really at all. It's sent me on a polymer frenzy. All of these old things I've made, waiting in their crowded spaces for the day when I would finally get around to sanding and finishing them all, have suddenly seen the light once more! I did sand many of the beads, with a medium sanding block and then a fine one (I also have discovered the rapturous joy that sanding sponges can bring!), then coated them with a varnish. They sparkle. They're gorgeous. I love them. And I think I love them even more because they're finally FINISHED.

I still love sanding and buffing. That's the absolute truth. And on some things, still, the varnish just won't do. But to be able to feel like I can breathe again--like I don't have to wait to create until I have enough time to finish everything... That's a huge relief. It makes me feel like doing nothing but polymer for the next 17 days at least.

Here is a huge pile of stuff I've recently made/finished (in the last two days!):


You can see, starting from the left top area, and going roughly counter clockwise around: Cane beads and slices (sanded, varnished with thick gloss), mini sushi trays (varnished with satin varnish), jointed (JOINTED!) oyster with pearl inside (varnished with gloss), totally cute octopus bead (varnished with gloss), layered stamped and alcohol inked silver leaf beads (sanded and varnished with thick gloss), tube of "jade" to be made into heishi beads (sanded and varnished with thick gloss), coffee bean beads (left plain, but so cute!), shaving cream beads (varnished with satin).


Here's an up close shot of the octopus bead which may just be the cutest thing I have made thus far. I LOVE it. I know I could sell it, but I don't think I want to.


And here is the oyster opening his mouth to reveal the pearl! That's a freshwater pearl that I wired into the inner area. The backs of both shell pieces were cut so that this piece can actually be hinged. I haven't entirely decided yet how I'm going to display/attach this to something. But I'm really excited about it! Basically, I formed everything, then pierced and cut the back hinge pieces. While the clay was uncured, I bent the hinge part so that they matched and slipped that part onto a bead pin. Lightly coated the inside of both shell pieces with Kato Repel Gel and then reformed the lid and bottom piece together. When they were baked and cooled, the two pieces came apart very easily and I rinsed off the insides to get rid of the repel gel and now I have a totally cute hinged oyster that, as I said, I don't know what I'm going to do with as of yet... I can't wait to figure it out, though. With the octopus and the oyster, I'm thinking of creating an entire little charm set of under-the-sea things and turning it into a charm bracelet with one of my fine silver chains. We'll see.

Oh, and on an awesome side note... I am actually mailing my contract with Polymer Cafe out tomorrow! The article is actually getting printed! It's actually happening! Ack! I still almost can't believe it! God is so good!

CRAP. Now I'm interested in miniatures!

That was pretty much it. ^_~

Hand Stitching on Scrapbook Pages

I promised on the http://scrapbooking.about.com forum that I'd post a tutorial on how to hand stitch, and so here I go... ^_^

Start by piercing your desired stitches. You can mark this first or do it free hand like I'm doing in the photo below. If I'm doing decorative stuff, I usually mark it first. But here I'm using my stitching to hold down this piece of vellum on my LO (layout), and the entire LO is somewhat haphazard and a bit random, so I'm doing my stitching the same way.

To pierce, lay your scrapbook page on some kind of spongey thing (I'm using my sanding block.). Poke holes where desired. Continue moving the page around until all your holes are pierced.


Here is the PIP (page in progress) with all of the holes pierced:

Thread your tapestry needle with two strands of embroidery floss (I use DMC size 22 tapestry needles and, just in case you didn't know, embroidery floss has six strands in it which you separate into three two ply strands, thereby tripling the life of your embroidery floss.). To help with separating the strands, keep in mind that you shouldn't allow the end of your floss to get too twisted as you separate the strands. I hold the strand so that the bottom of it is hanging free the entire time I'm separating. I pull two strands away for a bit, then transfer these two strands to between my lips. Clamping these two strands in my lips, I pull gently on the four (or two, if this is your second go 'round) remaining strands and untwist the freely hanging tail with my other hand at the same time. It's a bit of a process, but you eventually figure out the trick to it.


Go back through your paper in your next desired stitch.


Come back up at your next desired point. (I always, always look at the back of the paper before pushing my needle through. It's just way faster and easier to see the hole you need to poke the needle through from the direction that you're poking it, if that makes sense.)


Hopefully with the beginning of the second stitch, you can catch the tail of your floss on the back of your page and not have to worry about holding the tail anymore.


At the end of your stitching line, pull the floss back through your stitches. If you're doing straight stitching, just weave back and forth between the stitches for a bit. Cut the floss, leaving a short tail.


For added security, I like to cut a piece of scratch cardstock or paper to glue onto the back of my stitches. Make sure it's acid free if this is for a scrapbook!


If you'll be using your stitching at all, like I did, to hold another piece of paper down, make sure you're coming up through the back just to the side of the paper you're stitching down. It just makes it so much easier, since your needle will have the tendency to go under the edge of the paper on top. Stitching down through this edge is the faster way to do it.


Here's the finished page with all the stitching and a whole bunch of new crap put in place.


Quick note on the vellum: I was inspired by a LO I saw in Elizabeth Kartchner's new book, "52 More Scrapbook Challenges". The beautiful LO on page 41 by Keisha Campbell had a few vellum covered photos in it. I had just printed this 5x7 of my son eating the snowcone, only to see that it was ridiculously pixelated because it was from an old photo (2005) back when I didn't know about setting my camera resolution high to get better photos. I printed a 6x4 of the same photo to replace it, but felt guilty about wasting the 5x7. I was wondering how I was going to use the photo without the square-ness of the pixels ruining the whole LO. I found my answer about 2 minutes later while flipping through the book (waiting for the printed pictures to dry the recommended 15 minutes before handling) and thought I'd try covering it in vellum. It worked great!!!! I love the background quality the photo has now in the LO.

Hubby's Valentine's Day Cards 2-6

Ever ripe with ideas to torture myself beyond what is necessary, I came up with the idea to make fourteen cards for my husband for Valentine's Day--one for each day in February leading up to the big day.

So far I've done six. I need to get a move on. One of the best ways to motivate myself is to post stuff on my blog, so here goes. These are cards 2-6, since the first card was actually posted yesterday.


I did layering on this one (above). I used one stamp, stamped three times in three different colors: red, brown, and blue. I left the original stamp on one paper, then cut out only the words in the brown and mounted with 1/16" dimensional adhesive. I cut out only the "crush" from the blue and mounted that over the brown with the same dimensional adhesive. I inked all the edges... And this card is 3x6.


This one I was relatively proud of until I ran out of jewels. :( Ah, well, I still like the idea a lot! I noticed these birds on this Basic Grey paper looking like they were kissing. And I thought of love birds. Awwww.... Anyway, I wanted them set apart, so I used a circular piece of plastic canvas material to mark stitch points along one corner, then pierced and stitched the circles. I inked and chalked the rest of the paper to make the two birds at the bottom really stand out. I added jewels and the "love", which isn't very prominent because I was trying to color clear letters. *sigh* I still like the idea, even if I'm not too happy with the way it turned out.


This was the card made at a Stampin' Up! party I went to on Sunday. I changed it up a bit, but it's basically the same. I wrote on the inside, "My love for you just and grows. (Like a tree. Get it?)"


This one and the next one are the ones I'm happiest with. I cut out the Chinese word for "love" from my Cricut, but instead of sticking it on the card, I ended up using the negative to stencil the character with dark brown paint. While the paint was still wet, I dumped glitter over it. I really love the way this one turned out!


And this one is just great... I made it with those Damask stamps I picked up from the clearance at Michael's yesterday. The images were all stamped with StazOn. I then aged the paper with the Eucalyptus colored Walnut Ink by Tim Holtz. I painted the ink onto gray cardstock, then dripped water on it in various spots to distress a bit. Once everything dried, I inked the edges with the Vintage Photo Distress Ink also by Tim Holtz. I really, really love this card! And I'm getting obsessed with those walnut inks, too! This is all thanks to our card exchange hostess, Jan, who gave me a book called "Vintage Greeting Cards" by MaryJo McGraw. I went to help her learn how to work her Cricut machine for a couple of hours last week. Fun times, AND I got a book out of it!

So there it is... eight more cards to go. Yikes! What the heck is wrong with me?

New Journal and Spice Bottle Stamping!

I've been really busy for the last couple of days creating the posters for my two new card making classes at JoAnn. Any local people should go check them out at the Mesa Riverview store. The first class, Intro to Cardmaking is for beginners. The second class, Cardmaking 2, is all about distressing and creating vintage looking cards. My classes are priced at $15, too, which is dirt cheap.

But, enough of the commercial... LoL. ^_~ I was figuring out what to do with my latest empty spice jar (basil again... can't ever have too much basil!) and as I was staring at all of the parts, I realized that the lid, that little plastic cover, and the jar itself all had different sized circles at their ends. I thought... "Nesting circle stamps!" And here we go...

You need an empty spice bottle (or baby food jar or whatever... ANY jar that has a lid is applicable here because obviously the lip of the lid is bigger than the lip of the jar, right?), a sanding block, and a hot glue gun. Exercise caution, don't hot glue your lip, yadda, yadda, yadda. I say this with just a bit of sadness, recalling the day that my sweet boy, Thad, who was 3 or 4 at the time, touched the tip of my hot glue gun to his lip after I had told him about 17,000,000 times not to touch it because it would hurt him. I was sad about it, but I DID tell him and I know he understood me. Why he had to push the limits with a hot glue gun and his LIP, I'll never know. But other than that, I haven't had a single accident with all of my dangerous crafting supplies and my kids. And Thad knows way better now... But, as usual, I digress...


Sand all of the edges that will be your stamping edges. The jar opening, the lip of the lid, and the lip of the little shaker piece, if you have it. Sand the top of the lid and the top of the shaker piece (since you're gluing them together--this makes the join better). Hot glue the shaker piece upside down to the top of the lid of the jar. Turn the whole thing upside down to let the shaker piece set on the lid.


Use the assembly as a stamp. The shaker piece:


The lid:


And the jar:


This paper shows the stamped circles from the shaker piece, the lid, and the jar. My desk is so old and torn up and uneven (I'm sure you've noticed my ugly desk before.) that the jar one didn't come out right. When I put a cutting mat underneath my paper, ensuring a perfectly flat surface, I had much more success.


Here's one of the Valentine's Day cards I made for my hubby using the "stamps". I nested the circles for the part that spins.


And here is the journal I just made today!!!!!! I LOVE this Japanese binding technique. It lays flat no matter what page you're opened to.




I found some huge damask clear stamps on clearance at Michael's today and had to get them. I love how the covers are mirrored to each other. I'm really quite proud of this thing. It's one of those times, as an artist, where you know you just made the thing, but it's so cool, you don't feel like you made it. Why we have that feeling, I don't know. Maybe there's just this part of all of us that can't seem to admit when we're awesome even though it's staring us right in the face.

I aged the covers with walnut ink (they both started as textured white cardstock) and stamped cute collage and stuff...

And I think I'm done. I'm so tired right now, I don't know how I'll go on. That stupid one night of camping with one hour of sleep might be catching up with me. Elliott and not wearing "mittens for Ay-yot"... *grumble, grumble* You know, I actually want to knit this little punk some socks? What is it? What is the sickness? No matter how little they appreciate me, I just want to keep giving. I think God and I are going to bond a bit over this.

"Simon's Belt and Mittens Once Worn"

This is the title of my next scrapbook page. We just went camping. It was freezing and really kind of miserable. The fire and the s'mores were great, of course, but next time I think we'll just do the fire and then come home and sleep in our own beds.

One funny thing that happened, besides us (my husband and I) forgetting our backpack at home with all of our essentials (flashlights, warm pajamas, and pads [sorry if that's TMI, but, yeah... I was horrified]), and also besides us forgetting the forks for roasting the marshmallows: while Adam was off at the store with Elliott to buy some things (minus the flashlight because Thad was brilliant enough to pack one for himself which was commandeered as the family flashlight [he felt very proud]), Thad and I sat back at the camp and did a bit of stargazing.

"Look, Mom! I see Simon's belt!"

"What?"

"Simon's belt! Right there! Those three stars!"

I said, "Oooooh, you mean Orion's belt."

"Yeah. Orion."

I went on to point out the Pleiades and Cassiopeia, which are the only other two constellations I can positively identify. This may sound strange, but the little and big dippers are hard for me because I never can tell which rectangle in the sky is the dipper part. I don't know if that makes sense. But the sky is full of rectangles!

And little Elliott, the punk that he is, flatly refused to wear the mittens I knitted just for him just for this trip. I was so concerned about his little hands and tried to get him to wear them, but he wouldn't. I bought a brand new ball of Lion Organic Cotton yarn in Khaki (absolutely BEAUTIFUL yarn, by the way) to knit them. As I was knitting them, he kept saying, "Mittens for AY-YOT!" But when it came time to wear them, all he said was, "Don't want mittens for Ay-yot!"

I managed to get only a few very bad pictures of him wearing them one time this morning. Apparently his dislike of the whole thing led him to be unwilling to pose while wearing them, too.

I don't know why I try to make things for my children. I really don't. At least he loves the blanket I crocheted for him while I was pregnant. But that's probably because he got attached to it before he realized what it meant--that he was appreciating something I spent a TON of time on.

Oh, well. Now he's fighting with me because he wants the letter stamps in the bottom drawer of the storage tower on my desk. It's a battle he will not win.

Craft or art? Who cares?

This is something I used to think about (read: OBSESS about) quite a bit. Is what I'm doing a craft or is it art?

It's something that is thrown around so often that it seems almost pointless to post my new thoughts about it, and I wouldn't, except that this is my blog and I figure, why not?

The modern craft movement ("modern" being translated as "super tolerant and overly inclusive") seems to have embraced the idea that everything handmade is art. God forbid we should offend anyone, from scrapbookers to plastic canvas stitchers, by saying that they're "doing crafts". This would seem to be the same modern thinking that has labeled everyone from kids who look both ways before crossing the street to the firefighters who gave their lives on September 11, 2001, as "heroes".

Why is it that we are so obsessed with overusing words until they no longer hold any meaning? Or of trying not to offend to the point that we label the mundane as incredible, lifting up what is common so that what is truly exceptional is no longer admirable?

Lately, maybe just as I've been going through a lot of personal growth in the past couple of years, in my art and in my personal life, I find myself wondering why it matters so much. Does it matter that what I'm doing might not actually be "art"? Do I need for what I produce to have that label to feel good about what I make? Or am I really wanting it to feel good about myself? I've long connected my obsession with creating to a need within me to prove that I am somehow worthwhile, as though each piece I produce is yet another tangible proof that I deserve the air I breathe. At times, failing at any point in the creative process was so overwhelming to me, I'd enter into something of a depression. It wasn't just sticking something in the wrong place, or breaking a bead, or whatever--it was like a cruel confirmation of what I had always secretly suspected: that I wasn't good enough.

Learning to rise above all of this has been difficult. I'm going to say without shame that without the healing work of Jesus Christ in my life, it wouldn't have been possible. All you people out there groaning right now or clicking the "x" up at the top of your screen, go right ahead. I'm not preaching. I'm saying point blank that without this relationship in my life, I wouldn't have made it. If it were my husband or my friend, I would share the same information in the same tone and with the same motive--just to share.

But, based on my own beliefs, especially that we were all created, and not just some cosmic accident, I can say that my breakthrough came in this thought: that my existence proves my worth. As in, I wouldn't be here unless God wanted me. Not just, "I think, therefore I am," but, "I think, therefore I have value."

So the question of whether or not what I make is craft or art seems to fade away. Maybe art has to do with the intent. If there's a real expression there, as in, the artist trying to say something, then I think it's art. If I'm putting together a scrapbook page, no matter how beautiful it is, or how artistic it may be, I'm not sure it's art. I think art can also be based upon skill. I mean, artists used to work for their entire lives to reach a level of mastery that few of us in the modern age who have learned most of our techniques in a few hours spent browsing Google or Youtube will ever know. What is art? Skill, expression, purpose... Maybe all of these things, and maybe more. I've come to the conclusion that most of what I do is crafts. And that's okay with me. Knowing who I am, and recognizing my own value, has freed me to create without the pressure of always having to make "art" to somehow prove myself. I can make mistakes now, and I even use them.

I don't know if any of this makes sense. But it's maybe something to think about. I think, therefore I have value. That's all the "proof" I need. Now the stuff I make is just stuff I make. And it's fun!