Images on polymer - and heeeeeeeeelp!

Hey there! I hope you are enjoying your spring. It's Koninginnedag here in the Netherlands, and the weather turned rainy last night and will apparently stay so next week, which spoils my plans a little, but oh well.

So, images in polymer - there are obviously a lot of ways that you can achieve them (caning, painting, transferring, carving, backfilling, etching) and I was experimenting a bit this past week with some of the techniques, mostly  carving and backfilling and transferring.

First, let me show you the carved pendants (they will be in the shop later today).

I love the flower one so much I almost kept it. The birdie one looks better in person than in the pic and was hard to photograph because of the varnish applied to it, but is not as pretty and vintagey looking to me as the first one. They are both carved and then antiqued with acrylic paints. But they were carved before baking though - I find it much easier (and obviously much more forgiving).

And now to transfers...

The only transfers I did before were on baking parchment with inkjet printer and those were good enough for what I wanted to achieve, but this time I wanted a proper clear transfer so I tried the toner one. I read up on it galore and then set forth to do what I thought would be a straightforward and quick process. Oh how mistaken I was! Seriously, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong and have been reading up on it afterwards as well to no avail. Let me show you my troubles:

1) Snakeskin ring

This transfer turned out the best of them all, but that is due to the fact that it's a busy pattern, so you can't really make out if there are mistakes. However, when I applied a layer of liquid FIMO and re-baked it, it bubbled up in tiny specks. In stuff that I wear I really don't mind little imperfections, but it is definitely a mistake and I can't figure out where I'm going wrong.

(I adore huge rings btw.)

  2) Fly ring

In this one you can clearly see two problems - first, there are still little hairs of paper that I couldn't get off for love nor money, and second, due to trying to @#Y^%% get rid of them I rubbed off a part of the fly's left wing. How do you get rid of all the paper!? I mean, if you leave it there, as soon as it dries it creates a milky film over the image, and if you rub more it smudges the image. Which leads me to

3) Japanese print ring

No picture since I screwed it up completely (and it was my favourite image!). Same thing as with the fly, I was trying to get rid of the paper from the black hair of the girl in the picture and at some point the black just smudged all over her porcelain face! And there was still a white paper film on the hair!

And finally

4) Liquid clay transfer (decal attempt)

Also no pic, since it was ruined.

I put Liquid Fimo onto a picture, baked it, soaked it in water, started rubbing paper off (it wouldn't peel in one go) and just straight rubbed off the whole image from the clay!

I really don't get it! Please do share your advice, if you have any, I am getting desperate!

In the meantime, I am itching to do some etching (hah!) but want to sort out this transfer rebus first! 

mememememememe!

I have been extremely productive these past few days, making jewellery for sale galore (which I will show you gradually soon). BUT! I have also decided to devote yesterday to finishing up a few things for myself and myself alone. Two of them have been waiting on the shelf for ages now and finally I got around to finishing them up:

1) Remember the jacket from boyfriend's trousers? Well, I finally finished it by adding buttons and stiffening the collar with interfacing and lining.

It was on hold because I couldn't find appropriate buttons or lining material. First I wanted red or silver buttons, but I didn't like any I saw in the shops, so I ended up buying buttons that should be covered by fabric - but still didn't have the right fabric. Then I went digging through my scraps bag (which is in a a big laundry basket which I don't often open, since it has tons of stuff on top of it) and found another pair of old trousers that my boyfriend gave me - linen and of the same colour as the corduroy! I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but I really love the difference in materials. So, the buttons got covered and stitched with red thread just for effect, and the lining (same linen) and interfacing were put on the collar (which now stands up perfectly). For the actual closing I didn't dare make button holes on the corduroy, so I ended up  putting snap buttons and have the big fabric ones just for decoration. And tadah!

2) Since I went on a sewing spree, I made myself a top (out of cotton jersey bedsheets) which turned out great (as in - I like it) and was fast to make

I normally don't wear orange since it makes my face look like a carrot and makes it featureless, but I just couldn't resist the colour combination.

3) And finally I finished a necklace - choker, which was waiting for ages (had the tubes crocheted ages ago)

 

The construction of it didn't come out perfect, but it's for myself so I don't mind much and I really like the colour combo.

So, that was my "mememememe" spree and I'll see you soon with stuff I am not keeping for myself ;)

Happy spring, I say!

Oh my!

These past few days have been really sunny and pleasant, but today tops them all - not only has the first pendant from the previous post been sold within 15 minutes of being posted, but I have been featured on Polymer Clay Daily, by wonderful Cynthia Tinapple. I couldn't be happier! 

Spring gardens blossoming

Very flowery mood over here. I have even planted some flowers on the balcony! (I have a red thumb, hence my excitement). I am truly enjoying this spring and all the sunshine. The thing I love about Holland is the time the sun sets during the warmer part of the year - we are currently at 9pm! Woohoo!

Therefore, I give you a few gardens (some of which, you can also find in the shoppe)

Here I almost went into summer - think orient, sipping cold tea under a canopy on a fresh warm summer evening...

Hope you are enjoying your spring as well!

Spring tree

Look what I got yesterday!

My boyfriend made it for me. It's made of wood and painted white and can be taken out of the base. I am loving it! It's supposed to be for this:

...but I am loving it as decoration on its own.

Woohoo! Spring is being so good to me so far (bows to the boyfriend as well :D)

Birds of sunshine

Hey there! Sunshine is here and I am so happy. I really thrive in the sunshine. It's been busy over here and there are a few little projects on the way, inspired by various colourful things out there. But more about that in some of the next posts. For now, I give you the sunshine burdie (just because the colour reminds me of the seaside):

It's a polymer clay brooch which I made just for myself because I felt sunny. Hope you like.

Happy Easter!

Hristos vaskrse! 

My eggs turned out far more pastel than they were meant to be, but I still like them.

But just look at these!

...