Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Injured thumb projects

Here are last week's small (literally small) projects - a felt bag and a dress.



Thursday, March 22, 2012

Wigs

I spent a good few hours last week trying a few wigs on Candice. I went for the gray one for everyday wear.


Friday, March 9, 2012

Supplies: Gilders Paste

I've had my eye on Baroque Art's Gilders Paste for some time but only purchased a pot recently from Artbeads. It comes in a 1.5oz tin and sort of looks and smells like shoe polish. But what is it actually? It's a waxy tinted adhesive that you can use to add color or highlights to a variety of materials such as metal, wood, resin, ceramics, etc.

I got a pot of Guilders Paste in Patina because I love that turquoise oxidized look. You can use a rag or a brush or your fingers to apply it. I opted for a dried-up wet wipe.


I used a sweater guard I made a while back for this experiment. Ok time to try this stuff on the bee brass stampings. Just a light smudge...


I was supposed to put some on just the wings but eager fingers weren't so careful. I ended up getting it all over. :(


The bee on the right is my second attempt. Now that's better. I'm really liking Gilders Paste. Just a little goes a loooong way. It takes just a few minutes to become dry to the touch and 12 hours to completely cure. Beautiful effect too. The finish adds more interest to the stampings, like I unearthed this sweater guard from my grandma's chest of vintage goodies. Will definitely be trying out some other colors of this product too.



Thursday, March 8, 2012

This week's loot

A few packages arrived the other day, mostly of beading supplies. I really really need to get started on my beading projects now. The doll wigs I ordered from CanCan also arrived. But I don't want to attack the task of changing Candice's wig with my thumb still not fully functional. Or maybe I will because I can't wait that long.

{supplies and a couple of doll wigs thrown in the mix}

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Stitched

A carpentry accident has left my left thumb unusable for the past week. I finally got to start working on Wally's toy fridge, and I thought it would be a good idea to salvage the wood from my old closet. So after sawing up the wood to toy-fridge size, I was prepping it for sanding. Then I accidentally slashed my thumb with a putty knife while scraping off some extra stubborn 13 year old dried wood putty on one of the panels. Funny thing is, I didn't even feel a thing. It was the massive bleeding that freaked me out. Apparently it was a pretty deep (1.5 cm) arterial laceration - my finger was peeing blood. It had to get stitched. And a 1.5 inch section of a wooden tongue depressor was bandaged to my thumb to keep it from bending. Boo.

So today marks the first week of my stitched-up thumb. I haven't washed the dishes in a week. Hooray for that! But at the same time it's been pretty challenging to do a lot of menial tasks like opening a bottle or cutting the fingernails on my right hand. Needless to say, the toy fridge project has been put on hold indefinitely. Well, this has been a very unproductive week for me. And with that I'll leave you with a picture of our room. Because a picture of my mangled finger would be really gross.