I decided to try something new for small Christmas gifts for family and some friends this year! I experimented with printing some of my original art from this year on regular printer paper with the thumbnail setting. It printed a whole bunch onto one page, all about an inch square or rectangle, which could then be cut into one inch round or square shapes (thinking about inchies).
Then I went to Pinterest looking for ideas and found some jewelry made from original art that I really liked, so I went to Etsy and found some kits for necklaces and key rings which included everything I needed, including Diamond Glaze glue, glass cabochons, chains, and all the metal trays and key ring parts.
I practiced by making myself a necklace and hubby a key ring, using a monoprint of the furbaby we used to have, and still miss every day, and one of my crow quirky doodles.
They turned out ok. The only thing is on the round trays, the bail is turned the wrong way and I didn't have any jump rings to match, so I improvised by threading the chain though itself and the bail so the pendent would hang flat when wearing it, instead of flopping around with the back showing as much of the time as the front.
So, I picked out some photos of my art and printed off thumbnails of them onto good matte photo paper and sprayed them with a sealer. They turned out great! Next, I looked up a tutorial online showing how to work with the cabochons and assemble the pieces so that the prints didn't smear or stick where I didn't want them to, or peel off.
Above is how the pieces looked after I cut, glued, and trimmed to fit. I ordered a one inch round hole punch specifically to cut the round ones, but I misplaced it and wound up cutting them with scissors. Hard to get a good photo with the glass domes. Assembling them on wax paper helps keep them from sticking to things you don't want them to!
After they were dry, I glued them into the metal trays, wiping as much excess glue off as I could. Glue and I do not get along well, and it was kind of messy. I wondered about sealing the back of the paper before gluing them into the tray, but didn't. I just added some extra glue to allow for the absorption into the paper. I later learned that by not sealing the tray and the paper separately, before gluing them together, the metal can oxidize and leave a bluish tint on the picture. Anyway, I didn't do that, but I can't see any bluish tint on these, so, hopefully they'll be ok.
Included are some of my painted quirky doodle sketches, a digital painting, a couple of class paintings, gelli plate prints, monoprints, and mixed-media mostly done in open media acrylics. The findings are copper, brass (or antique gold), silver, and antique silver. I ordered the kits with equal numbers of the four colors this time, but next time I will choose which colors, because most of the colors in my art really looked better in the silver. I also want some bigger plates to do original watercolor paintings for. We'll see how that goes.
Now ready to make another batch with the kits I have left! And this time I will seal everything before gluing together. The first tutorial left that part out. I found the second tutorial after I had already finished. Hopefully these will be okay, at least until they get tired of them!
A fun project and a way to share my art, since I don't sell any of it, at least not yet! Also fun to learn new things! And I actually finished these! I have a whole stack of works in progress to finish from years back. I love starting new projects, but am never quite sure how to finish them right away, so I move on to something else. Just the quirky way I work!
Keep doing the things you love! It helps make your world, and mine, a better place!😊
No comments:
Post a Comment