Happy Gothic Halloween~~Halloween/Day of the Dead Blog Hop

Hope your Trick or Treating was fun tonight, I've been blue all day, feeling my age. My 11 year old decided he didn't want to do anything for Halloween this year, his bestest friend went as a gladiator, and was sooooo cute!  I think my son had second thoughts when he saw his friend's costume, but it was too late. We only had a few kids come by, usually there are a lot around 9pm since the church by us has a carnival of sorts going on each year, but this year, I don't know if parents are just Halloweened out or what. They did have a lot going on this past weekend, and I guess it being a school night.... more candy to eat is what I say.

The Halloween/Day of the Dead Blog Hop in my post below, I started this necklace but put it aside and did the Gothic necklace instead....
I finished the Day of the Dead necklace. It turned out cute, but not what I planned.... OK so you know by my last post that not much ends up like I start out with. i am not sure that I like it, too much gliter I think. I had a hard time with the glitter on the vinal, geting it to stick down but not be rough... I ended up using a glitter glue, making a design, then when it was dry, I used a jewelry glue, and we will see how it goes. I lightly sprayed the polymer skulls with acrylic after they were painted, and I kind of like where they ended up. I couldn't decide if I liked them or not, but.... this is  one of those necklaces that is just for fun, not for profit things!

I cut the vinyl for several other projects, a couple of bracelets and a ring, when I had this large piece left over, I knew it had to be for something big and bold! The picture doesn't show it well, but I ruffled the vinyl, which was a bit tricky to keep it even, and it came out pretty cool, gave some dimension to the piece.  I used a velvet ribbon attached with black wire, then wrapped with wire, and left it as just a tie. I think in hindsight, I might like a clasp. I had fun with the polymer and remembered that I don't make polymer beads because it takes so long. I respect everyone that works with it. Glass as well. I just don't have the patience to work with either. Every now and then it is fun to go back and make flowers or skulls! but not something that I want to do every day.  I still like to make masks, but really, I haven't been working much with them... I am trying to make a vase out of clay, I made some pieces of graduated color polymer for a project that I was working on and loved the colors so much I wanted a vase out of them.... I just haven't gotten far with the design, I thought I knew the shape I wanted, but.... I got to thinking that it needed to be taller to really use the way I want to.... and the design I started out with was too squat to be useful......... Pictures if I ever get it made.
Well, here's to the last of October 2013. May it be remembered fondly. I don't know about you, but I am so ready for Thanksgiving. I miss family and friends so much, and good food.... and cool weather....

Monday, October 28, 2013

Happy Gothic Halloween~~Halloween/Day of the Dead Blog Hop

The past few weeks have been spent dreaming of possibilities, what's possible to do, what's possible to just dream.  The Halloween/Day of the Dead Blog Hop reveal is today, and all the thoughts and dreaming of possible designs finally down to this........
Before I show you.....
I had someone ask me how I can work on jewelry if I am blind.... or in other words, they just don't get it, the concept of blindness... One time I had surgery and explained to the aid who came to help me to the facilities that I couldn't see... when I came out, by myself, I wandered to the bed, she said..."I thought you couldn't see"... well, no, I can't, it is the only big white blob in the room, I figure it is my bed....
I thought I'd share a little of my work with you, and let you see how I can work... and see... and sometimes, not see....

 Some of my jumble of tools, This isn't everything, but I've been working on the kitchen table this week (again)... I can't hear the door or the phone in my workroom, and I can't see or hear my son, and he's been sick again, so.... here I am, tools and junk on the table, and yes, I fell off the wagon again, that's a Dr Pepper sitting there. Bad for drinking a soda, and bad for having it on the table while I am working.

 moving over a bit, my tools and necklace board, I don't use this much, but love it when I do, I have one that is printed on the fuzzy velour necklace stuff that I bead on, I use that more often. More often than not, I just measure on me...
I don't always keep my tools in such a mess, but lately they have been put away, and they got dragged out, put up, dragged out.... I haven't worked much in the past 6 or so months that I don't use them as much as I need to.

 This is more often than not how I work, sometimes on a piece of paper, sometimes off the top of my head. I usually know what I want to make, then just do it, or sketch out just the parts that I need help with... sometimes I will draw and cut out a piece that I want to make, but like the bat in the picture, I don't always follow my drawings or cut outs anyway, so why bother?
I doodle more than I sketch. If given colored pencils or markers, I will draw all day and forget that I am supposed to be working!

 Here's a peek into my junk box. I love this thing. I keep it full of pieces that I either messed up working on or spare parts that I didn't use. Sometimes it overflows into a bowl or even into a box. These are just polymer clay that has been cooked and some are even painted.  I say they are polymer, but I see a piece of glass peeking out from the box as well.

These are the most important items in my toolbox now. I have a number of magnifying glasses, but these two are my favorite. I also have a pair of jewelers lenses that I clip onto my glasses, they are for when I am putting in a small screw or threading a needle, not for normal use... though the doctor told me to get a pair of the glasses to use for regular work, I don't like wearing them for everything though. It is difficult to look at anything but close up items, so, I use the little flip down pair.

I love this one, it clips on to what you are working on and you can move it. It also has another base that has a strong magnet on it. I sometimes like that better when I work on a metal tv tray. Yes, I do have a few of those. I bought my son and I the divided plastic trays and love those, You can sit and work and have little copartments for everything you are using, though mine is always running over.
They make these with lights, but I haven't found one that really lights up enough to really help

This is the magnifier that I wear around my neck. It is necessary now to use this one in conjunction with the clip on. It has a light but I don't like it either. Not bright enough. Funny, I need a lot of light, but the mix of medications makes it almost impossible to have a light on. Some days (most everyday from late May to mid-October) I spent in a darkened room, laying down most of the day. I am off four of the medications now and my cornea is almost healed, the retina is stable, Yipee!

Day of the Dead sketch

Now the blog post, I removed a lot of this, I had kind of made fun of myself for being ADHD, changing the plans and welllll... I thought instead of scaring everyone with the way my brain works, I'd pare this down a bit... I fumbled with several ideas; Day of the Dead, Halloween, scary, Gothic, fun....  Several sketches and ideas later....

head for Spiderus

Spiderus necklace idea

Another Halloween idea... I like this one

 
I had bounced a few ideas off my son, and he likes that goth look, and I have made a few pieces that everyone loved, I thought OK, so here's the opportunity to do something a bit different, what could I use, since I am not going to cut out anymore vinyl, and I don't have any latex, and..... well.... I thought about using the vinyl tape as the base to build up resin and make a pendant, embedding a bat and maybe a moon, or....
 You can call me crazy if you want, but I had fun making this, and I really had forgotten how fun it is to make bats.
I made a rough sketch and then cut out the drawing and used it behind some parchment paper to a roughed out bat, it turned out cute?

There was only one change that I made. The eyes were just kind of cartoonish when I put in the white eyeballs, I kept them for a minute until I put the lids on and... ewww, they just looked pretty bad, so I cut them off and built up the face again and hollowed out the sockets for some glass.  I smoothed it before I stuck it into the oven, and when it came out, I just had to do a bit of sanding here and there,  and voila, I had a bat. Just to add the eyes, that in hindsight, would have been cool to just imbed a couple of glass beads into the clay instead of having to glue them in, but...
I wanted something gothic, but not all in clay, and I don't want to do a lot of metal, so I decided to try using resin on paper, since I have this cool scrapbooking paper that is pretty and I love the blue color, and... well, the first attempt was ok, but I didn't use the vinyl tape on the sides and I kind of had a mess, then I found a squeeze bottle that had a really great small tip, and that helped get the resin in just the places that I wanted it to be, and I made some pretty cutouts, inked them, backed them with sticky, black card stock and inked the sides, then resin-ed them and glittered them, and stuck in some stuff and decided I like the purple beads that I have.... hahahah So I cut out a few more pieces and got out the purple ink and did the magic all over again. after I cut out he holes I went back and reinforced the back and put more resin over the glitter, and poked through the hole again, so it would be stronger.
There was a slight hiccough with the bead portion of the necklace. I thought that I could use Fireline, but the bigger cut stone that I used chewed right through it, so I used a black plastic covered wire to string them
 added a few extra bangles and so forth, I used the pigment and then gave it a light spritz of acrylic sealant, and with the pretty clasp (that I stumbled onto, it was marked 'charms' and was on clearance)...I like how it turned out.

By the way, I did make the vinyl with polymer clay flowers and skulls, a picture of it is in the blog above this one.  I love flowery skulls :)

 Go by and give a visit to the other participants in the Halloween/Day of the Dead Blog Hop, they can be found here Blog Hop  or by clicking on the names below.
Have a Boooooootiful week!

 Participants for the Blog Hop

Diana Ptaszynski  http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com

Staci Smith  http://www.stacilouiseoriginals.com/