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.

The Thrill of the Hunt

Jan and I just spent the weekend painting and mark making at a class led by a surface design artist. So, having been inspired by all kinds of mark marking, what better time to host a giveaway of a set of  funky clear cling stamps? I mentioned in the March Thrill of the Hunt Giveaway that Jan and I like the serendipity of making a great find, especially at a great price. 

This month’s serendipitous buy is a set of stamps from Autumn Leaves by Rhonna Farrer called scribbles alphabet (a – z). The value of this set is $15.00 - $29.99 depending on the source. We were lucky to score this set at a drastically reduced price at HomeSense in Calgary, Canada.

If you are an avid scrapbooker or love to use alternate media in your artistic endeavours, HomeSense and Winners stores have been carrying an ever-changing stock of brand name supplies at a very discounted price for some time now. Cardstock, stickers, pens and embellishments from a variety of companies, Spellbinder’s dies ™, Martha Stewart ™ and Fiskars ™ products are but a few of the brand name items available. Stock changes constantly so you need to go often. 

If you live in the US, stores such as Big Lots, Overstock.com and Ross have similar great finds.

I am sure your mind is already thinking about how you could use these stamps in your next project, and some lucky reader will get their very own set this month. To qualify for the draw for this May giveaway, you need to send in your best tip or trick for using alphabet stamps in a mixed media or fibre arts project.

Our group of elves will pick the winner, which we will announce here on the blog on June 1. Please don’t forget to leave us your email address so we can contact the winner to arrange mailing the prize.

Earth Day

I know that Earth Day is about being green and striving to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle in all aspects of your life, but I just "attended" my first online webinar hosted by Michelle Brown from Mixed Media Art in Australia and Earth Day became something more global for me.

How much more part of Earth Day can you be when someone from "down under" can talk and interact with you from a time zone, far, far away on a topic of great interest to you?

Michelle's free, online tutorial Creating Layers was a great primer on the techniques and supplies needed and the fun you can have when creating layers in mixed media.

I especially appreciated her use of found objects and we share a passion for thrift when it comes to making use of items that you already have in your stash. This is surely in keeping with the spirit of Earth Day.     Thanks Michelle!

Fools & Their Tools

Since the last posting about our excellent adventure with the needle felting machine, we have each bought ourselves a new tool for our fibre arts arsenal. 

Jan did the initial test drive and found the Pfaff Smart 350P to be a quiet little machine with lots of potential. It is referred to on the box, not as an embellisher or needle felter, but a punching machine.

Pfaff Smart 350P

I got mine out of the box today to give it a test run and broke one needle within minutes. The key is to take your foot off the foot pedal and let the needle mechanism raise to its highest point before you try to remove your piece.

The good news is that the needles are very easy to replace, the bad news is that they are about $3.75 each.

So Jan and I are ready to roll with the punches and we've promised each other that we need to use this new tool frequently in our fibre arts projects. I'm sure that the potential is limitless. Stay tuned...

Embellishing / Needle Felting Machines

Following our introduction to 3-D needle felting in March we decided to continue with that theme and do some form of flat felting in April. For those of you who are not aware, (and I was one of them) there is a machine, similar to a sewing machine, called an Embellishing Machine (Needle Felting Machine,) that makes life a whole lot easier to do needle felting over a large area. Many companies make them and the main difference between models seems to be the number of needles they use – some have 5 needles and others have 12. They use no thread, have no bobbin and have about the same amount of space inside the arm of machine. You can see in this picture of Jan at the machine what it looks like.

Diane has a HuskyStar by Husqvarna Viking and she brought hers along to FOG on Tuesday for us to try. After having used it I can’t imagine doing this by hand, even as small as a piece of felt.

Using a backing piece of felt or other fabric, you design your piece by lying down and overlapping almost any items that you can think of – as long as the needles can penetrate the item. We used yarns, paper napkins, silk flower petals, wool roving, thread waste, ribbon, lace and all types of fabrics. Once your design is completed you overlay the entire piece with organza, tulle, netting – something that you can still see your items through, but will enhance the piece. We used an article by Rebekah Meier from an issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine as a general guideline.

Then you take it to the machine and start to move the piece around under the needles that are moving up and down quite quickly. For those of you who free motion quilt, the process is about the same. We found that with some of the overlays that it was helpful to lay down wisps of wool roving to help the needles penetrate and hold all the layers together.

Now that our base pieces are completed we will spend time doing some hand stitching and embellishing with thread, beads, sequins and other items. As our pieces are completed we'll post them on the blog.

Arts Club at the Library

What do you get when you mix a group of women with a morning away from home, kids and chores, a gray day and a bag filled with colourful supplies? You get intense stitching, bursts of laughter and a wonderful floral memory.

Our Fibre Arts Frenzy day at the Central Library in Calgary was to make a Soft Collage using a Fibre Optics Kit consisting of a piece of heat distressed felt, dyed cheesecloth, silk petals and leaves, embroidery thread and some wire to hang the finished project.

Jan and I had made several samples as inspiration for the group, but their own creativity took over and the results were awe-inspiring!

While their projects were nearly finished in the session I’m certain that there will be some additional finishing touches and a few embroidery stitches put into place for final inspection and completion. 

Thanks to the gals and to the library for another great session!                     Jan and Meredith

April Fool's Day Giveaway Winner - No Foolin'

Well, it's April 1 and time to announce the winner of our first "Thrill of the Hunt" giveaway in March.

We had a friend look at the three entries and she chose Phyllis for the variety of uses from her thrifty purchase of a bag of buttons. Phyllis, please send us your snail mail address and we'll put the non stick craft mat into the mail to you.

Thanks for participating and watch for another giveaway soon...