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:

What to do with all those pretty little bits

In my post here, I talked about the great way the punch board envelope maker could also make boxes.  I went a little nuts making these cute handpainted boxes from 12"x12"scrapbook paper that I had scraped paint on backsides creating textures, etc. I was thinking they would be cute boxes to put the ceramic earrings I had been making ---BUT now I was left with all those bits punched out by the punch board. Here is a video showing how I am using them--

Messing around with techniques---ceramic pottery

I had this piece laying around and decided to try the bubble technique after I had drawn the cat with black underglaze, then I put a small amount of blue underglaze in a very small container, added a bit of water and a bit of Dawn dishwashing soap, inserted a straw and proceeded to blow bubble onto the piece, after drying, I clear glazed, then fired at 04 (white earthenware clay), here is the result

I like the effect and will try it again.

video on how I use a gift/key card to paint textured backgrounds

made this video on how I like to paint the white back of scrapbook papers to use for boxes.

Painted scrapbook papers making boxes with the envelope maker

Ok, I have been wanting to make cards for gifts, but wanted unique papers, I also wanted to experiment with boxes made using my Envelope Punch Board (which I love) (by We R Memory Keepers.  I could use my Silhouette Cameo, but sometimes using this inexpensive tool is quicker.  I saw this great You Tube Video which explained how to easily make boxes instead of envelopes to hold several cards to make as gifts.  Easy, just find the card size, and decide how thick you want the box, 1" seems about right and you can quickly make a box for sets of cards, or a box for cards that are thick.  She used scrapbook paper that was printed on both sides, I do not have any, but thought, I could make this much more interesting if I painted the back side of the cheap 12x12 paper I bought ages ago on clearance sale at Michaels.  I have been wanting to do some anyway.  This is the pack of paper I have:

Pretty boring papers, but I am concentrating on the white backsides here:

So I quickly grabbed some old craft paint, a gift/key card and a handful of texture sheets

Then, placing the plastic canvas under the paper squirted paint onto paper and swiped paint with the gift card, then slid some of the texture plates underneath again and did it some more until I was satisfied with the look.  Paint dries very quickly because it is so thin.  One distinct advantage to this method is it is quick and easy with very little cleanup.  I do have gelli plates and love to work with them, but it is a little more work and with more things to clean up, brayer, stencils, masks,, etc.  This method gives great results in a very short time.  Since my work table was near a window, the two sheets I did dried in minutes.

Then using the You Tube video linked above proceeded to make two boxes:

Here is another couple of shots showing the side view thickness of the boxes:

I almost had looked at ordering plain white 12 x 12 cardstock to paint like this, then to use in my Cameo, or as envelopes, didn't realize I could just repurpose the pack of that cheap scrapbook paper to do the same thing.  This is a very inexpensive and quick way to get nice background lightweight cardstock which can be embellished further, I could also run through my wide format printer and print on top of the painted side, see some of my previous experiments doing this with my painted gelli papers here.

One tip I learned making the boxes is not to score to hard on this cheap scrapbook paper, a gentle scoring works better, 

another reason I love printable full page labels

When you have done a print and cut and pulled off your flowers or whatever, save the corners showing the registration marks.  I needed them for the gold colored cardstock which wouldn't register for cutting until I added the registration marks from the print and cut label sheet

(with adhesive and perfect corner alignment).  I cut and applied those corners to this gold textured cardstock which would not register until I stuck the registration marks onto the gold cardstock

What I learned today

I have continued my "Play" with Lori Whitlock's pop up flower card which I had bought from the silhouette design store.  Only made one complete card, however, to date here"

 

 This was all about printing on deli paper but now I wanted to try to take the flowers to another whole level using the pattern pieces in different sizes "and" playing with the patterns.
Here is a screenshot of some of the ideas I worked on, had loads of fun with these as I layered patterns onto patterns, just using the basic flower shape and the wonderful tools in Silhouette Studio.  This is a nice way for me to refresh some skills using the tools available and lots of the patterns I have added to my pattern library.  No need for a huge stash of patterned papers.  I have been thinking of doing a video showing the steps I followed to create these but I am sure most of you can figure out how I got these,  tip is to make sure all cut lines "except" the outermost edge are no cut.

I knew I wanted to print the desired flowers onto my large format full page labels that I got here:

100 full page labels at $.36 apiece can go a long way, of course there is the printer ink and I don't know how to cost factor that in, but still an inexpensive way to go.  

My thought was to create stickers for the printed designs and add them to either plain copy paper or cardstock cut using the basic flower pattern.

I could have done a regular print and cut, but only 4 or 5 will fit on page since I do not have wide copy paper, and once I put the registration area onto 8.5 x 11 paper, it limits how many I can print and cut.   I do have white 12"cardstock but not with a smooth finish and I wasn't sure the cardstock would be too heavy.   Plus, I have the 12" x 18" printable labels which seemed ideal.  I wanted a card with a blue chinoiserie look, so here is a pic of the sheet of labels fresh out of the printer:

You can see I have a lot more space on the page to play with so threw in another flower pattern and some labels and still had room for more, so off to print.  NOW this is what I learned today, I must be careful putting the side to be printed correctly in my printer and this picture shows the printing that took place on the backing sheet that has no adhesive!! I didn't realize it until the whole sheet was fed through Cameo and cut.   Waaa, but making lemonade out of lemons and not minding a reprint, I just put another sheet of labels into the printer (I do have 100 of them) then fed through Cameo and this time got the right side printed.  Then I decided to put both pieces together for the flower card design which will show both sides printed.  Here are a couple of pictures showing two of them.  I think they would make cute little parasols too.  The back sides are the printed backing sheet adhered to the sticky label print.  The printing on the backing sheet is not quite and vivid as the "right" printable side of the label, but obviously both can be printed, now to see how they assemble into the pop up card.  

Next step gluing together to create pop up insert

and here is a little video of finished card:

Printing on deli paper, cutting and designing with Cameo and "almost" finished project

Since I have my new 12 wide format Epson printer, I wanted to revisit printing on deli paper, I am mad for the stuff, love the translucency and have painted on it in the past, plus printed on top of painted deli papers.  Before I had the 12" format printer, I posted this method of printing on the deli papers --Well, I wanted to try something different.  I love the pop up card by Lori Whitlock
see video here.  And I "love" using the pattern function of the Cameo Software.  See some past experiments and tutorials here http://paulinesstuff.blogspot.com/2015/04/changing-pattern-colors-in-silhouette.html  and here, and washi tape here

There is a really soft pattern that I have found, don't know where, but I am drawn to it and wanted to use it in a card.  So, I decided to do a print and cut on the flowers using this favorite pattern.  Here is a photo of my screen--card takes 7 of these flowers so I would have to print two pages and end up with a spare. this shot shows cut lines, I had done an external offset for print bleed purposes, by creating a light blue area extending beyond the cut lines.

here is a picture of the screen without the cut lines showing, you can see the pattern better:

Here is what I learned:

First I tried full page label paper as backing sheet to run through printer, -------way too sticky, deli paper tore --so I put the printed deli paper without the backing sheet onto mat for cutting.  Do not use new mat, too sticky, however, due to translucency of paper, registration marks could not be detected, so I had to slip some white paper with the marks directly beneath the deli paper on the corners, this worked once, finally, got flowers to cut using Cameo

Second, I ironed around edges only on freezer paper and used back feeder of my printer making a user defined sheet of paper to match full size of deli paper which is 12x10.5" 

To summarize, I recommend:

Use Silhouette Cameo Software, it is great, esp for sizing things and adding patterns

Use Freezer paper as backer for deli paper in printer (use wrap method if you don't have a 12" wide format printer), iron edges of full size deli paper onto sized to fit freezer paper seems to work best for me

Use a not so sticky mat if you insist on cutting, keep freezer paper on and maybe the Cameo will detect registration marks, BUT, for this project, I could have cut out the flowers by hand and avoided all this.

Here are some more photos of flowers and project (almost finished--I need a front page with printed sentiment and it will be done).  As you can see, I did print out pattern onto deli paper 8.5" square to make an envelope too.