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More Mosaic Fun

More Mosaic Fun

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Hi Everyone

Well by now I guess you know what I would have been doing this last week, yep more mosaic fun, I really love it

We did have one hiccup at the end of last week and that was another flood in the house, so with 5 of us and about 12  hours of mopping and cleaning there was no damage, with my floors and all at least this time we didn’t have to rip up carpet or  floor boards , just washing and steam cleaning after, huge mess but all clean now. This island ended up having about 64ml of water in one night and im sure about 50 of it landed in this house lol  alls well that ends well 🙂

So I didn’t get in as much mosaics finished as I had planned but I still finished one piece at least

This one is before grouting

before grouting

and after, sorry about the pics I should have taken them outside but this was just finished and still setting

after grouting

I should have had this one finished to but didn’t make it, it will be done in the next day or so

wip

Im actually making these smaller panels to sell at our local craft market in a couple of weeks and really looking forward to it.  Its the first time I’ve been really excited about making things to sell so I cant wait to see how I go.  Having said that I received a nice surprise in the mail last week , a cheque from the Gallery as they sold one of my mixed media books so that made me very happy.

I also thought i’d show you a piece I did about 8 yrs ago for our friend. It was meant to be a table top but he absolutely refuse to get it dirty or put even 1 glass or cup on it, so its been hung on the wall in his garage in pride of place amongst his other footy memorabilia ever since lol  I don’t think I’ve even even shown this to my sibblings as being their team as well I think they’d hold me to ramsom for at least 3 more lol  All very one eyed supporters, including me 🙂

the pies

So I hope your all enjoying your week and lots and lots accomplished, Keep your fingers crossed for me that we get NO more torrential rain xo

My new blog is  www.Karensmosaicing.blogspot.com.au  and I hope to see you there xoxoxo

Polymer Clay

Polymer Clay

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Does anyone use Polymer Clay in their felting or fibre arts? I know I’ve mentioned using Fimo buttons a few times, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I make my own. I first tried Fimo about 20 years ago, I managed to make a few marbley incense stick holders and snake type things 🙂 I just couldn’t get the stuff soft enough to use, my hands would ache, they’d be caked in Fimo and I’d give in! About 6 years ago, I started to get interested again and was happy to find that not only did the Fimo seem softer, but they also did a ‘soft’ version. I mostly made mosaic tiles back then, but after spending weeks making batches of different sizes to make a couple of mosaic mirrors, I hadn’t imagined just how hard it would be or how long it would take to laboriously lay out all the tiles and cut slices to fill gaps in, and that was before I then I had to glue them into place. And then my cooker broke. I didn’t realise it was so hard to find one with a very low heat setting these days. And by the time I did, I didn’t have the same enthusiasm for Fimo any more.

Then I discovered felting and never really went back to making Polymer clay…until one day I needed the perfect button for a textured felt bag I made. I realised my old stash of Fimo buttons and embellishments was practically non existent. I’d used a few pieces on felt pieces before and liked how it looked so I decided to get all my Fimo tools out again to make a few buttons and other embellishments. I kind of got a bit carried away…

pile of buttonsIt was nice to be working with polymer clay again, and good to find that it was all still workable after being left in a drawer for a few years.

brownsI mostly made buttons in a variety of sizes in a few different colour schemes.

comp 4But I also made a few fancy ones, and larger/different ones for more unique projects that might crop up (such as covering a magnetic clasp!)

differentAnd I also made a few brooches, pendants and fridge magnets since I had all the stuff out anyway 🙂

broochesI’d love to see your photos if you use polymer clay, it doesn’t necessarily have to be fibre related 🙂

Nuno Felt and Abstracts

Nuno Felt and Abstracts

Comments 12 comments

I’ve been doing a lot of nuno felting recently, mostly a lot of samples for reference, but also quite a few pieces for using to make into things at a later stage. One thing I like to do with nuno felting is use different types of silk together. I think the differences in thickness, sheen and texture work well together and highlight each others’ properties. These two pieces use hand dyed silk ponge 5mm, which is floaty and shiny, and also silk chiffon 3.5mm which, though lighter, almost seems heavier than the ponge because of its ‘rough’ texture. For this first piece I used strips of silk in roughly equal widths.

This close up shows the difference in the textures of the two types of silk, and also the differences in the way they felt. The silk chiffon seems to sink into the felt, becoming more a part of it than an embellishment or surface texture.

For the second piece, I used smaller pieces of silk to create a kind of mosaic effect.

Close up:

Another thing I’ve been working on lately is Ann’s 2nd Quarter Studio Challenge. I’ve been looking through photos for inspiration, taking photos, editing, altering… trying to think what technique would work best with different pictures etc. One of my favourite photos is of a bunch of tulips in the snow. I tried a few different techniques in Photoshop to alter the photo and make it more abstract. This is a collection of the original (top left) and 3 abstract versions.

Thinking about the simplest way to achieve all the different shades of pink, I thought about organza and how using 3 pieces of the same colour can give 3 shades when layered. So I got out my organza collection to have a look through the shades. I hadn’t realised I had so many until they were all out together!

Seeing all the shades brought me back to one of the first pieces I started working on, a photo of a Mahonia bush. My first thought was to make different colours of prefelt, cut the shapes out then felt together, but I think this could be achieved more effectively with a combination of fabrics and organza.

Have you thought about joining in with the Abstract Challenge? It doesn’t have to be figurative. Do you often make abstract pieces from fabric, fibres or felt? Do you have any good tips to share? We’d love to see your work if you’d like to share with us 🙂

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