Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Vintage Buttons?!!

After the wonderful transformation of the rather ordinary-looking cameo that I found in my box of resin casts on Sunday, I decided that I should see what else is hiding in that container. I'm sure there are some other treasures to be found in there if I dig deep enough. I have so many to select from - literally hundreds - and the box weighs over a kilo. That's a lot of potential! So dig I did! And what I noticed was all the button shapes I've cast over the years. They had never caught my attention before. I certainly hadn't realised that I'd cast SO many of them - there were blues, greens, pinks, corals, fluoro pink, creams, bright yellows, and glittery ones too. But this pile here caught my eye - colours which had a bit of a vintage look about them. I remembered having some lovely lucite flower beads in a similar tone in my stash. So that was my starting point. I picked out a nice mix of buttons in different colours and shapes and glued them onto the pads of ...
Monday, November 29, 2010

Precious Metal?!!,

Can anyone guess what metal this is? Is it: A - Brass B - Copper C - Bronze? The answer is at the bottom of the post. But I hope you'll read on to learn the story behind this cameo. I found this beautiful piece whilst digging around in my studio this afternoon. Only, when I found it, it didn't look anything like this. You see, it started out life looking much more like resin.... clear resin which I'd marbled with red pigment. It was actually quite hideous. I'd already attempted to alter it's appearance once before by coating it with black alcohol ink and Krylon Gold Leafing Pen. It was a huge improvement but something had reactivated the alcohol ink and it was bleeding everywhere. So I gave it a good clean up with methylated spirits to return it to it's original colour. With a clean slate I started again. This time I brushed on a coat of antiquing solution to give it a bit of definition. And then, out came the Rub 'n Buff. Firstly Amethyst, followe...
Saturday, November 27, 2010

Merry and Bright!

With Christmas now less that one month away, it's time to turn our attention to Christmas crafting. I'm starting off my Christmas crafting with a resin pendant filled with a festive image from a bygone era. The vintage look is so popular at the moment and it is often teamed with soft, aged looking brass, and whilst I love that look, I have a real problem working with the muted tones associated with vintage. You see, I like colour way too much and my version of vintage is usually much brighter than vintage is supposed to be. But there is no reason why these lovely nostalgic images can't be teamed with bright and shiny things too. Here, I've used a silver word tag from Plaid's Fresh range and bright red Czech glass beads. To tie in the "bright and shiny" with the "old and vintage" , I've used red velour tubing for the necklace - it has that lovely soft velvety look and feel to it - and to complete the look it just needed a vintage looking...
Thursday, November 18, 2010

Emergency Jewellery

We had a bit of a medical scare in our household recently. Our eldest son suffered an allergic reaction to something he'd come into contact with and his face and neck were swollen and itchy. It was enough of an emergency to warrant calling an ambulance. The paramedics arrived and checked all his vital signs. They attached electrodes from the heart rate monitor to his chest and monitored his heart rate. They also checked his blood pressure and breathing. They declared his condition was not life-threatening but decided he should enjoy a ride in the ambulance and receive further treatment in hospital. And I'm happy to report that he was released from hospital in the wee small hours of the morning. The paramedics left behind the coolest little plastic patches which they'd peeled off the electrodes when they were monitoring his heart. The patches contain conductive gel and attach the electrodes from the heart rate monitor to the skin. But I like to think of them more in cra...
Monday, November 15, 2010

FaveCrafts Blog Hop

Each month, FaveCrafts hold a blog hop featuring the blogs of some of their regular contributors and what they've been up to in their studios during the past month. Well, here in Australia, November means Melbourne Cup time, so my crafting has centred around "Fashions on the Field" this month. The Spring Racing Carnival is the one time of the year when ladies can wear the most outrageous hats and fascinators they can lay their hands on and no one bats an eyelid. And whilst there are plenty of exquisite pieces of millinery to choose from in the boutiques, there's nothing quite like making one that suits your outfit to a T yet doesn't break the bank. Here's my tutorial on how I put together my fascinator the easy way. But what would a hat be without accessories? A girl simply must have jewellery to match! And mine came in the form of a gemstone donut which I teamed up with black glass pearls and Swarovski crystals with earrings to match! There are more det...
Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Beauty from the Earth's Core - Winner

I don't know where today has gone! Or perhaps I should say yesterday because it's now after midnight and I have blog candy to give away. But before announcing the winners of the two gemstone donuts I would like to thank all of you, my listeners, who stay awhile and take the time to read about what goes on in my studio - I really appreciate that you stop by and leave comments. My thanks also go to Rings & Things for sending me the donuts to play with. I really did enjoy using them once I got past my initial fear of working with gemstones. I have a much better appreciation of gemstones now that I can see how easy they are to work with and I hope that the winners will enjoy them too. So without any further ado, let's get on with drawing some winners. Random Integer Generator Here are your random numbers: 1 8 Timestamp: 2010-11-09 14:16:30 UTC Congratulations to Silky Chick (Sara) and Sue G. You have each won a Rings & Things Gemstone Donut. Send me an e...
Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Beauty from the Earth's Core - Reminder

Just a quick note this morning to remind you that I will be drawing the winners of the gemstone donuts tonight. With two pieces being given away your chances of winning are really good. Just leave a short comment on the bottom of this post to be in the draw. Good luck to you all! If you can't get enough of My Tutorials and you want even more inspiration,  click here to find my books and printable pdfs ...
Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Sydney Paper Crafts Festival - demos and workshops

The countdown to Sydney Papercrafts Festival is well continuing with just two days to go and I am so excited to be going. I'll be doing daily Friendly Plastic demos at both the Stamp Antics stand as well as on the Live Stage. If you haven't seen Friendly Plastic before then why not stop by the stand to see what all the fuss is about. You'll be amazed at the wonderful things you can do with Friendly Plastic, plus you can pick up some great tips and ideas. I'll have lots of eye candy for you feast your eyes on at the Live Stage. But if you'd really like to get hands on, then why not join me in one of my afternoon classes. There are still some spaces left in the Christmas Card classes so if you'd like to get a start on your Christmas cards then this just might be the thing for you. Each of the three classes I'm teaching is different. On Friday it's "Christmas, Kutalicious Style ". You'll make a card where the embellishments on the card f...
Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Beauty from the Earth's Core

A couple of weeks back I was pleasantly surprised to have a comment left by Dave of Rings & Things telling me that I was one of the winners in their Blog Partner program for September. Yippee! That meant goodies from their current catalogue release were on their way to me. And just a week or so later here's what arrived on my doorstep all the way from the US: some really pretty gemstone donuts. Before showing you what I did with them, I've got to say that I was quite apprehensive when I saw that the package contained gemstone donuts. If you scroll through the jewellery on my blog and website you'll see a complete absence of gemstones and there's a good reason for that: as much as I am fascinated by the earth's ability to produce these wonderful stones, I am completely intimidated by them and have to admit that I know very little about them. Not only that, but I have absolutely nothing in my stash that would work with them. Or so I thought! Once I started...