amazing what hot glue ceramic bits and gold/silver leaf can produce

Some time ago, I had made a whole bunch of disc beads from ceramic, low fire clay which I then colored using several colors of Gilders Wax to produce the pretty disc beads you see with a hole in the middle --I didn't use them all so you can see what they looked like at the bottom of the top picture

above.  They have been hanging around for quite a while and I did not feel like making the necklace I had originally planned on making with these.  Then recently, I went back to making some wider silver and gold bangle type bracelets, see pics below. 

Then I thought some of the plain earrings could use a little gold and started adding it to earrings I already made (and of course using my hand colored papers for boxes and leftover bits to decorate card:

 Also I had experimented with using some of my painted deli paper to make bangles with hot glue as well, see this posting and this one. and this one too.  I did several videos showing how I made the bracelets here. 

Since I have been making lots of ceramic bits and they are piling up waiting for me to do something with them, 

it was only a matter of time til I integrated them into the glue/silver/gold foil techniques.   

Here are some pics showing some of the ceramic earrings, etc with gold/silver embellishments, now my brain is working to use more of these in interesting bracelet ideas.  I like the bracelets with the glue as bangles, so easy to put them on just before heading out the door, they are lightweight, and don't bang on tables or hurt your arm.  

Sketching in Pencil on Watercolor Paper using Silhouette Cameo

I have been wanting to try this and it works!  I am trying to improve my watercolor skills, these designs are not my own, I regret I cannot provide originators, but I was able to pull into Silhouette program, convert to cut lines, then sketch with #2 pencil on watercolor paper.  The birds have been colored by hand (no brainer really), but will work on the foxes later as an exercise to improve my techniques.  I had started making a list of the reasons one would use the Cameo sketch function instead of just printing designs with printer.  It wasn't until recently that I discovered thanks to the thread on silhouetteusers@yahoogroups.com which triggered the addition of using erasable pencil, which you couldn't get with an inkjet printer, anyway, here is my list of when/why one would use the sketch function instead of a printer,

here are just some of the reasons to use the sketch function:

--You can use metallic inked pens/pencils (something you can't do with printer) If not metallic, printer does just as well producing colors, etc

--You can use 12" wide media, which most printers (Unless you have a wide format printer) can't do--also you can use longer media in the Cameo as well.

--You can use a wet embossing pen to sketch onto stuff, then add embossing powder and heat with heat gun to get interesting raised effects/colors.  Don't think a printer can do this.

See my experiences doing this here: 

http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2014/10/more-experiments-with-those-ranger.html   

--Now I can add sketching with pencil!  which can be erased later, unlike a printed image.

And here are some videos showing machine sketching on watercolor paper

And here is the Cameo sketching very detailed design of foxes (again, not my design), which I will work on in the next few days, really impressed with ability of Cameo t do this:

and here is a picture of the finished sketch:

A tank top with just too many stains----I love it now

This tank top just had too many stains, and I just saw a you tube video on circles, so with my inktense blocks, some water and some textile medium I went to town, black circles came from end of a TP roll dipped in textile paint, smaller dots from the wooden end of a foam brush,  I will be able to wear it under any color shirt.  I love it, and had fun making it.

Inspiration and combination of ideas

I just watched Ceramic Arts Daily video featured today showing Liz Zlot Summerfield's  technique of making templates which include the bottoms.  I just remembered that after watching it last year, I created a similar template, only I used a foam template made on my Silhouette Cameo machine which "also" included a design which would be in bas relief (out, raised design rather than in), and thus created a box which when cut and rolled onto with foam template had designs on all four sides. I use packing tape to keep the design bits in alignment so they create a raised rather than indented design. Thought I would share that today,

The following picture is the piece drying.

This is box after glazing:

The tiny Xyron sticker maker makes easy work of getting adhesive on those tiny bits

Thanks to Amazon's speedy delivery, I didn't have to wait long to achieve the ideal solution to organizing those tiny bits with adhesive ready to use at any time.  Here is a quick video showing how it works: