Truly, truly evil.
So many ideas... I need to stop aging just so I'll have time to do it all... and by the time I get all THAT done, I'll have a whole new list of things to do and try and make and visit and cook and... and...
Okay... wine has been consumed. Calm should follow, right?
So... Pinterest. Have you seen my Pinterest boards? I have A LOT of them.
Here, take a look:
Doni's Pinterest
It's a rabbit warren, really. Once you start clicking and Pinning, you can't stop till you're either blind, you break the internet, or your husband threatens DEEEEVORCE! Yeah, I know he's kidding. And he didn't say it so much as I imagined that it will someday come to that.
A word of advice for those just starting their Pinterest journeys: If, once you've Pinned something, a picture comes up where someone else has pinned the same thing, there might be something even more intriguing on that board. Do yourself a favor: Middle click to open it in a new tab. If you don't have that feature, right click, scroll down to 'open in new tab', then go check it out later. See, leaving the original trail is where you get into trouble. IF you can keep to one board without getting distracted, well, please go to the nearest psychiatrist and report the phenomenon. They'll probably want to study your amazing brain. (You think I'm kidding?? Just ask anyone you know who's been Pinning for awhile...)
Okay, so yeah. I had a really down day and sat here making with the clicky on lots of Pins and pics. I came across so many up-cycled crafts that my head spun. I think I should get carbon credits just for the things I WANT to do, the number is so vast. But one in particular struck me, since I had almost all the necessary items and it uses eggshells.
We eat a lot of eggs. We have a lot of eggshells. Now I have a purpose for them, besides the obvious garden-related ones. Whoot!
I found a few neat sites and videos that showed how to make eggshell jewelry and I thought, hey, that looks easy.
I started with a small bag of pre-cut wooden rectangles in three sizes (not counting the 7 or so 'extras' that didn't match anything else in the bag.) I had a 40% off coupon, so it cost a whopping $2 for the bag. Score! Since I had enough stuff to make do to start with, I headed home and immediately began playing.
Here are the results of the first efforts:
Friday, June 6, 2014
Gathering the supplies:
Glue, paints, floating medium, a little mixing tray, brushes, Tacky Glue, and egg shells, properly de-membraned.
A note about the paints:
The examples I found used alcohol inks. Me, being me, decided to try it first with what I had on hand. The nearest thing I could think to do was mix the acrylic paint with the floating medium and hope it flowed enough for the effects I was finding on Pinterest.
For the record, it didn't, but hey, it still looked okay. I will do more of that, but will experiment a bit more first.
Also, if you already have some wood shapes, you can use them. I mean, really... it's whatever will hold glue, eggshells, paint/ink, and sealer. Knock yourself out!
Prepare the blanks:
This part is REALLY hard.
Okay, it's not, but it can be messy. But then again, anything crafty worth doing is worth doing messy, right?? I mean, how can it be that much fun if you don't have to pull tye-died glue from your hands at the end?
So yeah: Aleene's Tacky Glue. Spread it on the boards. I recommend doing no more than three at a time, since the glue could dry out as you're cussing at the eggshells and trying to force them to your will.
Ahem. I mean, as you're carefully aligning each little piece of shell perfectly. *cackle* I can't even keep a straight face through that.
These are eggshells. They're going to break, slide, and get stuck to your fingertips, your palm, your t-shirt, and the cat. Just... be patient. Wine is a good patience-inducing coping mechanism for me. Your mileage may vary.
So slather the glue...
This doesn't have to be the neatest job in the world. Just make sure to have enough to help hold the curvy bits of shell to your board. Keep in mind that the larger you want the pieces, the more glue you'll need underneath them, since they'll dome more. It seems like it's perfectly logical, but I like to give instructions as if 'duh' is your favorite word in the whole English language. And it just plain doesn't occur to people who've never worked with curved shells before. Like me. yeah. I learned a lot as I went, here. ;)
Now start laying on the egg shells. I didn't get a pic of this because I only have two hands and I needed four to make this work the first time. That, and I didn't want to get gluey eggshells on my husband's camera. He would be grumpy about that and sigh really hard, I'd feel guilty, he'd play off that just for funsies... it would escalate from there and end up with me not working on anything else for a bit while watching Dexter or something. ;)
Basically, you're going to want to pinch off bits of shell that will lay nicely over the 'board'. When you have your pieces chosen, rest them over the board and then press down gently but firmly with your thumb or whatever. If you want to smoosh the hell out of the shells, use another piece of wood and flatten those sharp little bits down as hard as you can. It will only create a different texture, which you might like. Oh, and it will squeeze excess glue onto the pressing board, which will grab any bits of shell not nailed down, and you'll end up with a rather mangy looking board. Don't try too hard to cover up the holes, if you choose this method. That will only end in tears. And maybe more wine.
Once you have smooshed the shells down, it should look something like this:
Yeah... looks like art in the making, huh?
The shells that are hanging off the edge will be broken off carefully once the glue has dried a bit.
Here's one with the edges broken off...
Don't worry about the raggedy edges. You'll take care of those later.
This one was my first try and you can see that there are massive holes in the coverage. Now that it's been painted and everything, it's fine, so don't worry too much about it.
If you're using alcohol inks for this, those holes will actually be really cool-looking when the ink pools and the different colors mix. I promise. :)
Here are my first few boards, smooshed and drying:
Note that the first set, on the left, looks holey and there are more layers of shell here and there. Those were the first efforts.
The second set, on the right, I was much more careful about what I was doing and managed to make it look somewhat more like the ones in the various videos and tutorials I was watching.
Yay!
Next step is to let these thoroughly dry.
Now's the time to fill in any gaps you think you should.
I don't recall what I did while letting the glue dry. Probably did some gardening or played with my new baby kitten. But I did end up back at it, unable to stay away! I was ready to paint these suckers! :D
First paint:
I love shades of blue and green. I love shades of purple. I love teal and aqua and pink and lavender and I especially love the colors of the world I write about, Ishira. (Teal, turquoise, purples... those are the colors of the foliage on my world)
So I tried for that at first. It didn't turn out quite like I wanted. Either set. Bummer, but hey, it's just paint. That can be changed quite easily.
The third 'set' of pendants I painted turned out MUCH nicer, in my opinion:
Carribean Sea in the middle, lilac outside of that, and rose-petal pink on the edges.
And since this set had the much smoother surface and larger pieces, I think the colors blended a bit better.
The thought here is that the biggest piece will be a pendant, the two smaller ones will become earrings, and the midde-size one will either become another pendant or I'll drill two holes in it and make it into a bracelet. Not really sure yet.
Clear-coat:
For this last step, I used a decoupage sealer. I'm not too thrilled with how it coated, so I'm going to use something different for the final sealing coat.
Yeah, not too happy with this one. It's just too washed-out for my tastes. I know it looks like beach glass in the picture, but in real life, it just looked like dirty beach glass.
Kinda liked how these turned out, kinda didn't. But I decided to sleep on it while these guys hung out and dried.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Had a few places we needed to go later in the day, and after sleeping on the colors I wasn't too happy with, I decided to just play and see what I could do to salvage them, if anything.
This time I brought out the big guns: NAIL POLISH!
Yup, if you're going to do sparkly, do it right, huh?
So the green-blue ones turned into this with one thin wash of turquoise nail polish:
It looks like a mermaid's tail. That makes me happy. :)
The washed-out, dirty beach glass one got a complete new paint job and turned into this:
This was with one coat of a purple/teal dimensional polish, then a light wash of the same turquoise as the set above.
To me, it now looks more like beach glass beneath enchanted, sparkling waters.
I think my next book needs to have mermaids in it. I'm apparently leaning in that direction...
Ahem. I digress.
So, thrilled with these two sets and the lone pendant, we headed out for a day of laundry and visiting at Mom's, rapier practice for my husband (for those who don't know, we do medieval re-creation and he's a 16th century German rapier fighter. Yeah, YUM, right???)
Well, practice ended up not happening, so once we were done with laundry and visiting, we headed back home, but stopped at Michael's on the way. I had a 50% off coupon and REALLY wanted to try the alcohol inks, like the ones used in the original videos I watched. I came home with those and an itty-bitty hand drill for making the holes for the jewelry findings, hemp, wire, or whatever else I use to make them into pieces of artsy-fartsy jewelry. :)
And of course, I couldn't wait to get started on other stuff, but alas, it was late and I just wanted to curl up with the kitten, who was a bit perturbed that we left him ALL ALONE, ALL DAY LONG!!! (It was actually only about 5-6 hours, but to a baby kitty, that must be like a MILLION ZILLION years.)
Oh, the horror!
He ended up chewing on my hand and clawing me to death as my penance, then decided to fall asleep on me, thus redeeming himself for the blood-letting. He's lucky he's cute...
The day was sufficiently trying that once we left Michaels and saw the Krispy Kreme sign on, we had to stop. My dinner was a huge glass of milk and about half a dozen doughnuts. I think I was PMSing. Hard. Hey, don't knock it... I'm a fat woman and the sign was on. How could I just drive past that??? If you're saying 'will power', you've obviously never had a hot, soft Krispy Kreme Original Glazed, fresh off the conveyor, and a tall, ice-cold glass of milk. Will power has nothing to do with that combo. That is a gift from the gods and must be accorded the appropriate homage. It's good for the soul. Proof is that I felt much better after nomming them. :D It's the scientific method, you see. If you don't believe me, I bet I can duplicate the results. I'd be happy to. Anything to further scientific understanding.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Took the hubster to work. It was his last Monday of his first year of teaching high school. Whoot! Tuesday will be the last day with students, then it's all over but the packing of the room and closing it up for the summer. :)
Anyhow, with him at work, I set out on what I thought would be a simple quest: acquire one black ink pad. You know, like they sell in office supply aisles EVERYWHERE. They're like, $1. Well, they are everywhere but at Michael's and my Walmart. Actually, it turned out that Walmart let me down with four different things. I did, however, bring home a set of acrylic paints in colors so bright, they reminded me of the sunrises/sunsets I Pinned to my eggshell crafts board for color inspiration. SCORE!
Came home, ate some breakfast, caffeinated appropriately, then started work.
I got 5 sets of boards glued and shelled, with two more painted black before I try to do the shelling. I highly recommend pre-painting your pieces, if you know what color you want for them. Trying to paint them after the eggs are on and you have paint all over your hands, shirt, desk, and the cat, is an effort in frustration.
I got them done about the time my hubby called me to come pick him up from work. He's got such good timing! ;)
Once home again, I broke out the nifty new inks and started boldly dripping drops here and there, blending them, watching as some of them turned into murky pools of ick... dabbed those clear and added a few more drops here and there...
IF YOU ARE A CONTROL FREAK, THIS CRAFT MIGHT NOT BE FOR YOU!
You have been warned.
The alcohol inks have incredible color, but the capillary action on the nozzles is... unpredictable. Either it wasn't planned out well or I'm deficient. I don't dismiss the latter possibility. I will be practicing. :P
Here are the results of my adventures tonight, with color (HAH! See what I did there?) commentary:
The final page for today's work... It's messy, but it was fun.
My hands look like a 60s tie-dye fest happened on them. Seriously. It's like a unicorn threw up all over my fingers. If I had glitter on them, it'd be perfect.
The 'mess' up in the right corner is the detritus from sanding the edges and making the pendants generally nice and finished-looking.
I used a metal nail file to sand down the edges and make them taper a bit into the edges of the wood. It was tedious, but mind-numbing enough that I could do facebook at the same time. That gave my hands a break, as well, since sanding stuff that's so little can really cramp your muscles.
Then it was time to play!!!
I know, I'm FINALLY getting to the good stuff, right??
Well, here ya go:
NOTE: these have not been sealed yet, nor were their backs and sides painted at the time of these pics. When I'm done with them and they're in their final form, I'll post those pics. :)
I call this one Loki's Dream, since it has shades of Loki's outfit from The Avengers. God, I'm such a geek! LOL
This was the first effort with the inks, which is why it's so dark and murky, but once it was almost dry, I went back and added a few extra drops of yellow, which is where that brilliant green popped from.
Second attempt (I think. I really need to number these!)
I was still figuring out the capillary action, so some areas are brilliant while others are murky and deep. Not what I was hoping for, but I like it, so we'll keep it.
Third attempt
Learning control, of sorts. At the very least, I'm learning the spacing of drops so that things blend kinda-sorta where I want them to, rather than running rampant like a herd of kittens after the Red Dot of Doom.
And here...
*happy sigh*
THIS.
This was what I was hoping to see by the end of the evening!
Color was decently controlled, I was able to make each piece similar enough to work as a 'set', and the colors are incredible, IMHO.
Yup. Think this set will be a keeper for me. I even know exactly which outfit I'll wear it with. If I'm feeling froggy when these are done, I'll doll myself up and show ya.
Tomorrow:
Hopefully will see me finishing the painting and sealing, drilling and attaching various bits of jewelry hardware, once I know what I want to do with each piece.
For the record, these pieces measure:
Large pendant: 2" x 1"
Medium pendant: 1.5" x .75"
Small pendants/earrings: 1" x .5"
Those are approximate measurements. I didn't get out the ruler or anything, just guessed based on the size of my knuckle held up to the boards. I'm not really an 'exact' kinda girl for most things.
There you have it. Yet one more reason Pinterest is evil. I now have more wood blanks (hearts, circles, and letters!) and those bright acrylics to try out.
I'm wondering if I might be able to sell these? Hmm... I guess I'll see how they go, once I've gotten the hang of it all. :)
Okay... going to go work on my writing now. Time to switch 'hats' and do my paying job for a bit. :)
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Let me know what you think! I love feedback!! Okay... gonna publish this so I can Pin a few of these to my 'Pinterest success' board. :) Or maybe I should wait till I have actual FINISHED pieces before I do that... rats! LOL
(all images copyright Donya B. Frontauria, 2014)
