FOG Tuesday - Bead-azzled

Our December FOG session was a wonderfully calm warm day for December, which turned out to be a great help as we had a lot of people making beads with the heat guns and we were able to do that outside.

We started as usual with our embroidery stitch warm up. Our stitch for the day was the Danish Knot Stitch. This is an easy knot and thoughts were percolating around which project to use it on by using it to create some texture, particularly when it stitched in groups.

Next we started making beads. There was a plethora of materials provided for those who got kits and no one was able to use everything!  

The basic process is to wrap your material around a knitting needle or bamboo skewer. Depending on the material, you can glue it, or use a heat gun to bind the materials together. Possibilities abound, limited only by one’s imagination. As you can see from the photos, many different types of beads were created.

Once completed, the bead was coated with Triple Thick by Americana to add a glossy finish to the bead. This product is a thick varnish which can also be used like glue. After the first coat the bead can be rolled in seed beads, or micro beads, while the coating is still wet. Once the first coat is dry, another top coat can be added to really seal in the beads. Another finishing touch was to wrap around the bead, by itself or with seed beads threaded onto the wire.

Some of the materials used to make our beads included: Tyvek, plastic film, plastic sheet protectors, shrink film (in clear and matte), security envelopes, origami paper, newsprint, abaca mesh and paper, angelina (or Textiva) film, Angelina fibres, polyester fabric, wire, dryer sheets, needle felted organza, sequin waste, organza fabric, painted Lutradur, painted fusible web, tissue paper, felt sewn with a decorative stitch, and corrugated paper.

These will be great to use on mixed media or fibre art pieces or in jewellery.

 

The possibilities are endless and we really only scratched the surface, in spite of the quantities of beads created.

We finished off the day with a present to everyone of an organza ribbon necklace for that special bead!

FOG Tuesday - FOG Gets Heated Up

Our May session of FOG started off as usual with our warm up collage exercise - materials supplied and only a 1/2 hour to complete it. This month we created collages based upon the design principle of Scale and Proportion.

Our collages

Scale refers to the relationship between two or more objects, one that has a commonly known size (usually compared to our own human scale). Proportion has a subtle distinction to scale. It refers to the relative size and scale of the various elements in a design. The issue is the relationship between objects, or parts, of a whole. (How wide it is compared to how tall it is.)

Next we moved on to using our heat guns to melt and distress Tyvek®, Tyvek® fabric, chip bags that had foil linings, Evolon, Organza, Lutradur (a spunbond web material manufactured by Pellon), other spunbond fabrics and various miscellaneous materials people brought to try. Some of us were very meticulous in making notes on their results, while others of us just winged it and trusted their memories.  We even had some Tyvek® beads being made, although we have posted on these previously when we did our bead making day last year.

Tyvek - one side painted

Tyvek with soldering iron craters

One of the really interesting things about Tyvek is that the bubbling occurs on the opposite side to the side being heated. So, painting it green on one side and then heating that side results in some white bubbling with green background. If you then take a soldering iron to the bubbles, you create some interesting craters. Combining the Tyvek and organza also produced an interesting result.

Tyvek beads

Lutradur (face) and Evolon

Tyvek with Organza

Mystery material

As you will see there were lots of marvellous results.  It was a wonderful day, and the weather co-operated so that we could do our heating outside....no fear of causing the fire/smoke alarm to go off.  We have done that a few too many times!!

Chip bag inked with alcohol
inks,plus the reverse
of the Tyvek with craters

Another mystery

Several examples, including chip bags

Look at these notes!!

FOG Tuesday + Tyvek Bead Tutorial

At our FOG session Tuesday, we spent most of the day making beads. If you could roll it, paint it, glue it or melt it, we tried it - paper, Tyvek™, fabric, magazine pages, paste paper, organza, plastic bags and wool. 

One of the very easy ways to make a very interesting bead is to use Tyvek. Tyvek is a product used to wrap houses during construction and is also made into very durable, non-rip envelopes. We bought a box of Tyvek envelopes at Staples and they worked out to about 75 cents each. You can get a lot of beads from one envelope.

Tyvek™ Bead Tutorial

• Paint both sides of the Tyvek using metallic finish acrylic or Light Body Metallic Acrylic Lumiere™ paints by Jacquard™. Tyvek dries very fast and takes very little paint to cover it. Lumiere paints were especially wonderful as they combine a colour with gold, so you get a big bang for your buck, so to speak.
• Cut a piece of the painted Tyvek in a long triangle, about 1 ½" wide at one end and narrowing to a point at the other, or straight edge rectangle, about 4” – 5” by 1”.
• Snip along the sides of the triangle, putting 1/4 inch slashes either straight toward the middle or on an angle.
• Roll the Tyvek around a bamboo skewer, or knitting needle, starting with the wide end first and finishing with the pointed end. Pin the end with a straight pin to hold it together.
  
• Using the heat gun, heat the bead. You will see that the Tyvek quickly melts to attach itself together, so you can remove the pin right away or wait until the bead is completely finished. The slashes you made along the Tyvek curl up and melt and create a really interesting texture to the bead.
• Wait until the bead cools, then remove it from the bamboo skewer by simply sliding it off.

Wow!  Aren’t these great? They are a perfect addition to your next jewellery or mixed media piece.