Wednesday, March 5, 2014

In The Studio

Another busy week In The Studio has slowed to a crawl due to a cold shared by the Little Dude I call my Grandson but there is a lot to share so let's get to it so I can head back to bed! :)

The donation for The Ronald McDonald House ABC Mosaic Mural is just about finished. I put resin on the grouted Q's and glued them in place on the mosaic.


The next step is to paint the sides and sign it. It then can sit and wait for the funds I need to gather in order to ship it on out to Portland, ME before June 1st.



I have some updated photos of Maddyson's Magical Shoe Wall Hanging. I decided to add a flower to the one section on the heel that had a piece of tempered glass fall off when I was grouting it. Ideally, it is best to try to glue the pieces that fall off back on and wait for it to dry to continue but I was on a time crunch and didn't want to take the chance of having the glue still be wet a week later since I used Weldbond.

I used a polymer clay flower my cousin made a few years ago and it makes it look even more magical.


Here's a close up of the glitter under the tempered glass. It's so pretty.


My lessons in resin use continues. I put resin on 6 pendants and 4 failed. I believe the 4 failed because they are not one thickness and it made it difficult for the resin to settle or even stick to the raised pieces of tess. That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it. ;) But seriously, it worked on the Q's, which were flat and it worked pretty well on the hearts shown below, also mostly the same thicknesses although there are some tess that was smaller.


The heart pendants turned out pretty well and I've placed them here in the blogs shop section under Art Pendants. The other 4 are the ones that failed, as you can see.


Holes settled in between the tess and bubbles formed even though I used the technique I heard would work to get rid of the bubbles. I was told if you use a straw and blow gently at the bubbles, they will pop. It didn't work for me.


As a matter of fact, I think it actually created more bubbles. I think I blew on it too hard but the sections that just didn't take the resin at all have me convinced that adding resin to different thicknesses in the pendants is a skill that will take a long, long time to hone.

I have a ridiculous amount of photos to share of the 2nd donation I'm working on for DWB/MSF Mosaic Auction. This piece is due before August 1st and will sit for a while until I get some painters tape to make grouting an easier task.

This star box measures 6-1/2 inches. I've put stained glass and mirror on the bottom, inside and sides of the base. The lid has a mosaic on top and inside the lid so far. I am thinking I might leave the sides of the lid painted which makes it even more important to get some tape to protect and cover the painted areas.


As you can see, the entire mosaic can be turned in any direction and it still looks pretty good.







I will share many more photos once it's grouted. I'm extremely proud of this star box.

Support Independent Artisans, Designers and Crafters for your gift-giving needs all throughout the year. Thank you!

Stay peaceful,
Cindy