Wow! I’ve been a serious slacker for a while. In hibernation for the holidays I guess! haha

I had a lovely Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, and I’m ready to get back into normal sleeping, eating, and working habits. Also, planning some more serious training on my bike and some craft time. A rubber stamp store not too far away (at which I was actually employed for a while!) has a super fun altered book club! I was a member since its inception, but I had dropped out for a year or so. Anyhoo, I’m planning on getting back into that! Making altered books is such a fun, spontaneous, and unrestricted art/craft. You are nearly unlimited in your choices of subject matter, medium, size… You can paint in a book, rip it up, glue things into it, saw it into shapes, add in pop-ups and containers, collage on a favorite subject, create journal pages, scrapbooks… You give unlimited potiental, new life, to a book that might be considered obsolete, a book that someone has discarded. You can also give new life to all variety of ephemera, junk, even straight-up garbage! Nearly anything can be used as craft materials for altered books.

Here are some spreads I did in the group’s very first round-robin (we each have a book, trade books, and alter a spread or two in each others’ books). These were done maybe about 5-6 years ago… Each book had a theme for the participating artists to focus on. Don’t ask me what these were… can’t remember.

Along with getting back into altered books, I have some plans to do some more beading. Annnnd, I’m updating this blog! I’m nearly done with a new theme. Here’s a peek! The new theme will feature a wintery look (this locks me into making a new one for spring), and it has a more interesting and useful sidebar. Now you can view my latest tweets via Twitter, the last songs I’ve played via Last.fm, and some random books from my library via LibraryThing! (BTW, LibraryThing is super cool!)

Here’s what I’m making today!

I’ve been long intrigued by recycled plastic bag “yarn”, so I thought I’d make some and try out weaving with it. I was inspired by this inexpensive little Japanese craft book which features weaving, coiling, and knotting projects with hemp string.

For this project, we need: a plastic bag, some hemp or yarn, a piece of cardboard that is the length desired for your finished piece, scissors, masking tape and a large-eyed needle of some sort.

To get started, smooth the plastic bag out flat and cut off the handles and the bottom seam.

Starting at the top, cut your plastic yarn by spiraling down and around the bag. Just like peeling an apple! Keep the yarn width around 1/2 inch. If it gets too thin, it might not survive the weaving.

You’ll end up with more than you expect! One bag is quite a bit more than enough for this project.

Let’s get started on the weaving. You’ll need enough of your chosen yarn/string to wrap around the cardboard piece at least 8 times - doubled. You can add more wraps, just make sure it’s an even number. Tape one end with masking tape, and wrap the doubled yarn, keeping some space between the wraps. A centimeter or two works swell. Then tape down the loose end.

Flip to the front side and lightly add a length of masking tape to create a straight starting point that will allow room for fringe.

To keep the loose end from popping out, start your plastic yarn in the middle, weave to the end, turn and come back underneath the loose end.

Now you can turn and weave back across on top of the loose end. Then just keep on weavin’! Over and under, over and under… Make sure to keep pushing down the plastic yarn so it looks nice and tight. But be careful not to pull too tight while you’re weaving, this will pull the wrapped yarn closer together and make your final piece warped. Note that I’m using a delightful pink plastic children’s safety needle. I’m good at stabbing myself, so this is a great option for a project of this sort, where the needle doesn’t need to be stabby.

When you get towards the top, leave about the same amount of space that is at the bottom. To finish, turn and weave back halfway underneath the last full pass. It’s just like at the start, but in reverse.

Carefully peel off the long strip of tape. Turn over the board and cut the strands in half, then slowly pull off the tape on the back. Be careful not to pull on a strand too much, or you might pull it right out! That would suck.

This is one reason why you needed an even number of wraps… Now you tie square knots using the pairs.

Here’s what it looks like with the square knots. Now that the weaving is all tied down, you can cut off the loose plastic ends.

Now for some more knots to add a little more decoration! Looking at one of your square-knotted bunches, split up the groups taking one strand from the left and one from the right. Now you do an overhand knot on each new set. If you have trouble getting that knot into place, you can stick your needle in the loop and then use it to pull the knot into place as you tighten it up. Repeat the process on each group.

All done! Here it is being useful under a nice cold soda.

I’m excited by this use of plastic bags! Perhaps I’ll embark on a larger weaving project one of these days.

Hellooo everybody! Long time no see! haha I have a fun tutorial coming up this evening, but in the meantime, I’d like to share this neato website I accidentally found while conducting a Google image search.

http://www.3dpapermodel.com.tw/

This site compiles free paper models from sites around the world and organizes them into categories by topic. There are so many great models to make. My only qualm with the site is that there is no search function, but I suppose that would be tricky, as there are multiple languages involved. The site is in Chinese and a smattering of English, and many of the featured models are on Japanese sites.
Aren’t they sweeet!?

How about this guy!? Cool!

Check out the detail on this amazing model! Looks like a lot of hard work…

If you enjoy making soldered pendants from glass slides, or want to add another dimension to stained glass art, try adding shapes cut from copper sheet and copper mesh!

I made this pendant using recycled watch crystals, prints of antique photo postcards, tinned copper wire, copper sheet, and copper mesh. I used regular copper tape around the watch crystals (the images sandwiched inside), and fluxed and soldered normally. I added a jump ring for hanging too. Then I first added the copper mesh layer. Cut this stuff with metal cutters, don’t wreck your scissors. Flux only needs to be added to the mesh pieces right where they will join the ornament. Wherever flux is added, that’s where solder will flow. Too much flux makes a mess of it!

After I added the mesh pieces, then I did the same steps to add the cut copper pieces. Then I added squiggles of tinned copper wire that I shaped with jewelry pliers. Added on a string to hang it, and it was ready to go! If you take care not to add too much flux, the back will end up looking nice too!

The wire mesh comes in a flat package like this. I usually find it near the clay/sculpting supplies, but it might be near scrapbooking goods too. The copper sheet comes rolled in a tube, and it won’t be far away. It is usually used for metal embossing. The tinned copper wire was purchased from a stained-glass supply shop. You can find it online too.

It would be fun to use photos of your favorite kids and pets for this project. I love to use antique photo postcard images for these sort of projects too. I’ve been acquiring them inexpensively at antique shops and flea markets. If you don’t have any images handy, you can use this one for your project!

If you haven’t attempted soldering yet, you may want to check out this tutorial at StarLitStudio. Cindy goes through the steps and tools you need to complete a basic soldered pendant. You’ll also want to look at the Art-E-Zine Collage Pendants page. Lots of inspiration and instruction there too!

Remember the Crystletts I found at the flea market on June 2nd? I took them for a trial run this evening. Here’s how it went:

First, I made a mold out of aluminum foil. I think the mold material needs to be glass or metal since the oven needs to be 350-400 degrees for the Crystletts to melt. The back of the box talks about using copper or aluminum to make a shape that you place on a pan. I suppose the surface tension keeps the melted plastic from leaking out of the bottom. I was too chicken to try that this time, so I made a mold with a closed bottom.

I put a thin layer of the crystals in the bottom, added a piece of colored foil, and then another thin layer on top. Then it went into the oven on a baking sheet. This stuff isn’t like shrink plastic! It took a while to melt. Maybe a good 15 minutes… I didn’t think to time it. It didn’t give off any smell at all.

When it seemed smooth enough, I took it out. On the box it says that you can pull it out sooner if you want a rippled look. It has a lot of bubbles in it. I think they may be reduced by using lower temperature for a longer time period. This feels lighter and harder than a pendant made of resin.

On the box, it says you can hold the piece to a flame to smooth the edges. I figured that I could use my dremel tool to grind off some of the excess (outside!) and then “fire-polished” it over the gas cooktop. That worked out swell. I didn’t smell anything even then, but I turned on the exhaust fan to be a bit safer. Then I used a tiny drill bit to drill the hole.

It’s not perfect, but I’m happy with this first result. I think next time I will try making a proper mold out of heavier metal. I’d also like to try some different inclusions.