Just to let anyone know who might be interested in Art Charms:
Here's the Yahoo Group - Art Charms
April 28 is International Charm Day - so make a charm & share it with a friend, family member, do a RACK, or just leave charms where people can find them.
There's a button at the bottom of my blog that will take you to all the info about it.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Art Charms & Swaps
I don't know how I got to it, but I located an Art Charm group on Yahoo. I've been busy joining & making art charms, & learning some wire work techniques.
These are from the Feather Your Nest swap. I love the little birdhouse beads which I happened to see & purchased before the swap was even announced. They were just meant to be in this swap!The bird's nest is handmade my be from wire, & found the sweetest most perfect pearls for the eggs.
I used a wire jig for the component holding the birdhouse bead.
I'll do a quick wire jig comparison. I purchased a wire jig called a Thing-a-ma-Jig. It was frustratingly badly designed. It's all metal. The pegs are too small for the holes in the jig, so the manufacturer included little plastic things that slipped on the backside of the peg when it was in the hole. That kept the peg from falling out, but it was still so wiggly in the hole it made my loops uneven.
It's much easier to add a peg as you need it instead of putting all the pegs into the jig at once. With this jig, I had to insert the peg, then turn it over & wrestle the plastic piece onto the peg bottom, turn it over, bend the wire, turn it over & place the plastic piece... You can see how slow a process it was. I could've put all the pegs in at once, but that makes winding the wire around the pegs very difficult. Anyway, it was just a huge inconvenience & really made the process slow & interrupted. The resulting components were never exactly even either.
Soooooo, I hunted down a better quality jig - I found the Wig Jig online. What a difference in the quality of the jig & the wire components that I made on it. There's the red one holding the little birdhouse bead. This jig is made from the type of plastic used in airplane construction - heavy duty stuff. The pegs are all metal, & they fit snuggly into the holes - no wobbling, no falling out. Just set the peg, wrap the wire, set another peg, wrap the wire. Wohooooooo! That was so much easier, smoother & faster a process. Every bend was perfect!
Here's where you can purchase the perfectly designed jig - plus you have choices of several different types of jigs - just scroll down. PLUS there are all kinds of tutorials on the site!
Wig Jigs
I'm not a salesperson for the makers of Wig Jig, but I'm definitely convinced it's the best jig available.
These are from the Feather Your Nest swap. I love the little birdhouse beads which I happened to see & purchased before the swap was even announced. They were just meant to be in this swap!The bird's nest is handmade my be from wire, & found the sweetest most perfect pearls for the eggs.
I used a wire jig for the component holding the birdhouse bead.
I'll do a quick wire jig comparison. I purchased a wire jig called a Thing-a-ma-Jig. It was frustratingly badly designed. It's all metal. The pegs are too small for the holes in the jig, so the manufacturer included little plastic things that slipped on the backside of the peg when it was in the hole. That kept the peg from falling out, but it was still so wiggly in the hole it made my loops uneven.
It's much easier to add a peg as you need it instead of putting all the pegs into the jig at once. With this jig, I had to insert the peg, then turn it over & wrestle the plastic piece onto the peg bottom, turn it over, bend the wire, turn it over & place the plastic piece... You can see how slow a process it was. I could've put all the pegs in at once, but that makes winding the wire around the pegs very difficult. Anyway, it was just a huge inconvenience & really made the process slow & interrupted. The resulting components were never exactly even either.
Soooooo, I hunted down a better quality jig - I found the Wig Jig online. What a difference in the quality of the jig & the wire components that I made on it. There's the red one holding the little birdhouse bead. This jig is made from the type of plastic used in airplane construction - heavy duty stuff. The pegs are all metal, & they fit snuggly into the holes - no wobbling, no falling out. Just set the peg, wrap the wire, set another peg, wrap the wire. Wohooooooo! That was so much easier, smoother & faster a process. Every bend was perfect!
Here's where you can purchase the perfectly designed jig - plus you have choices of several different types of jigs - just scroll down. PLUS there are all kinds of tutorials on the site!
Wig Jigs
I'm not a salesperson for the makers of Wig Jig, but I'm definitely convinced it's the best jig available.
Zentangle Challenge ATC Swap
The challenge was to do zentangles inside of a stamped area only, on a watercolor background. The zentangle patterns had to have shading & highlighting as well.
I used a watercolor salt technique which is sprinkling salt onto a still-wet watercolor resulting in little star-like bits on the paper.
I used a watercolor salt technique which is sprinkling salt onto a still-wet watercolor resulting in little star-like bits on the paper.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Metal Work
Metal work! OK, this is way out of my realm, but if you don't break out once in a while...
These were made for a Wearable Altered Key Swap. You could make pins or pendants, but they had to be on the small side. These are all around 1.5" on the longest side. The challenge was to to create a pin using a key as one of the elements. I'm short on found objects, so I sifted through all the metal elements I had in my stash.
Here's a list of some of the techniques & media I used:
Techniques:
embossed & punched metal blanks
hand-built charms & metal tassels
painted with Perfect Pearls powder
painted with Lumiere metallic paint
hand crafted a copper & resin object
resin work on 2 pins
Materials:
purchased & found keys
purchased metal objects
aluminum & titanium jump rings
beads
Perfect Pearls Powdered Mica
Lumiere paint
Glossy Accents
clear matt spray
Tools:
metal punch
pliers
small brushes
Here's the eye candy.
These were made for a Wearable Altered Key Swap. You could make pins or pendants, but they had to be on the small side. These are all around 1.5" on the longest side. The challenge was to to create a pin using a key as one of the elements. I'm short on found objects, so I sifted through all the metal elements I had in my stash.
Here's a list of some of the techniques & media I used:
Techniques:
embossed & punched metal blanks
hand-built charms & metal tassels
painted with Perfect Pearls powder
painted with Lumiere metallic paint
hand crafted a copper & resin object
resin work on 2 pins
Materials:
purchased & found keys
purchased metal objects
aluminum & titanium jump rings
beads
Perfect Pearls Powdered Mica
Lumiere paint
Glossy Accents
clear matt spray
Tools:
metal punch
pliers
small brushes
Here's the eye candy.
Closeup of the keyhole so you can see the little girl.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
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