convention (to the right). I recycled the stretchers from a painting that was un-salvageable, and found some fabric samples from Crate and Barrel that I picked up from the fiber lab back in my college days. I think it looks pretty. I made up a resin pour about a week ago, to protect some dried flowers and get some practice with the molds. I'm pretty happy with the results... just haven't been able to photograph the c
abochons that I made due to working during daylight hours.(to the left) Yes, that is my work station and yes it is a mess. That's my set up for the flower dipping, although at the point I
remembered to take a picture the resin was already settling (on the right). Those flowers held a lot of resin but most of it dripped out onto the cardboard... it was incredibly messy. But on the bright side, the flowers look amazing and I learned how to make fake water droplets. 
As you can all see I prefer photographing when there's sunlight for obvious reasons. Look at the flowers they're so pretty! So now that you're up to speed, yesterday I started putting those flowers to good use. I made a few necklaces and started some 
pins. I was given some really beautiful lace trimmings by Jillian, which was super sweet of her, she's Awesome! I had a third necklace but my mother claimed it for Valentines day. The necklaces are made out of individual dried rose petals dipped in resin. I thought they would harden more, but they are rather flexible, which makes me think that maybe I didn't mix the resin right. I have a few more 
petals to dip and a leaf or two as well. I already coated one leaf and it looks really great, I just need a bail to glue to it and a chain to hang it from. I'm thinking that I should add a small ribbon to the bottom of the lace and trim the stems of the roses a little bit. There are holes in the stems from where the wire was inserted to allow them to hang dry and it looks a little ugly. I'm really 
proud of them and I hope they sell. I could definitely use the cash. |
| That's me |
experiment with a few of my things. We had tried this once previously with some really great results, her origami roses took on a plastic-like quality while retaining the look of folded paper. This way the paper is protected from hand oils, weather, and being crushed by slamming your hand into a wall... or LARP-ing too hard. (Seriously, my first Katsucon I was signed up to LARP and they this disclaimer before we started that people needed to ease up on the rock-paper-scissors because the year before someone had been sent to the con-infirmary from playing rock-paper-scissors too hard and injured their hand.) We had some great surprises this time around and I hope if anyone is going to this Convention that they check out Dory's table and buy some of her 
cute stuff... or buy it online... hint hint nudge nudge. We spent most of the time prepping her pieces for the resin, and also setting up the station (on the left: me working on some resin dipping. On the right: our set up for drip drying). While we were doing this we were watching Tangled. I've never seen Tangled before and it was so cute. It bothers me that Rapunzel is rather ditzy, but she kicks some butt too. I liked how she wasn't a helpless princess (most of the time). Speaking of Tangled, that reminds me of this picture 
floating around on the internet...Anyway back on topic, I worked on two new brooches while at Dory's place. I had these half faces that came off of a door hanger... thingy. It was supposed to be a Christmas/ Mardi Gras themed door hanger but it was butt ugly. So I salvaged the little plastic faces to reuse and thought this would be the perfect opportunity for that. Since they're hollow I decided to fill the backs with hot glue, (a trick I picked up from a workshop on "How to mod out your nerf gun") so that i could give it a backing and pin. Of course nothing is that easy, and I snapped my hot glue gun in half.
Really not sure how, but it's beyond repair at this point. On the right is the copper toned one. I wanted to use fabric with this one, and I like how it turned out. Reminds me of an Illustration of Monks Hood I saw in a book once... which is a whole 'nother story on it's own. I might a
dd a flower or something but I'm not too sure. On the left, is the second face, which was supposed to be an antique gold color, but has turned green for some reason. haven't quite figured that one out yet. All I can come up with is that the metal in the pigment oxidized? Not a clue. Anyway that lace part is cut out from the background so it has a really nice shape to it. The only thing I dont like about this whole process is the glue fumes. They stink to high heaven. It's this stuff called E6000, and it's essentially an epoxy meant for crafting and jewelry making. It's really strong stuff but it smells like a two part epoxy and gives me one massive migraine.So during the week I get lazy and all I want to do is surf the net for anything remotely interesting. I stumbled across this artist, Jacek Yerka, a painter from ( I believe) Poland, and he makes some really lovely fantasy art. There's this one painting that really struck a chord in me, a painting
called Autumn (pictured to the right). I love this painting. It's what I imagine the lost boys from Peter Pan would have lived in. You know the whole "hollowed tree as a hide out... Capt. Hook will never think to find us here." I kind of wish we were able to live like this within the trees, almost a symbiotic relationship. Understandably the tree would never survive being hollowed out like that, but the romanticized notion sticks with me. One day, when I'm a rich and famous artist (lol), I'll have the ability to design and build a house that's in a tree. I never had a tree house as a kid... I'm also not a great climber, but I've always wanted a house in a tree. I don't really want the squirrels and possums that come with the territory, but the idea of waking up to see the sun rise through bright green leaves is really... calming. 
On a more random note, found this image on PoorlyDressed.com of the Disney Princesses... if they were Hipsters. I had to laugh. Honestly though, I secretly wanna wear Belle's outfit. It just looks so cozy and fluffy!
(Original Artist Here)Well that's about all that has happened recently. I'll post something else real soon... during the weekend... maybe. Yeah I'm gonna get some sleep since I have work in the morning (thank god).
See Ya'll Later!
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