Felting abc update

The second pair in two days! But the good one:o) officially approved by pros from felting forum:o)))) so proud of myself:o)))

 Prepare sleighs in summer, and the cart in winter:o)))

Felting abc

Felting slippers is a very very hard work, don't fool yourself that the end product is soft and cozy. It's a good workout equal to a good gym work and not one hour, but 5 or 10 if you are a new as me in this practice:o) but if you have friends that do not wear earrings and you don't want overload them with necklaces, you need to think other direction to make personal, handmade gift:o) I've got into some internet studying, asked suggestions and feedback from Lithuanian felters (I think they are the best:o) on the felting forum. So far I've made two pairs of, let's say, suitable to give as a gift:o) and made four, that keeping as secret inside the family for durability tests:o))) But to tell the truth it's very addictive and if you fail with pair one, you get kind of into "I can do it" mode and begin with another pair:o) I decided to use a  nice summery weather, to ask my friends their feet sizes, put my table in the backyard and learn how to felt properly:o) I'll keep positive attitude-free workout! can't beat that:o)))

Experiments with polymer clay

Necessity... the mother of invention. It's too hot (this week we permanently have around +30°C and more)  to bake a polymer clay, no way I would use my stove, but I needed to do some polymer clay forms/stamps to use with meal clay. So I just thought ... cup warmer, that we use for metal clay drying, runs around 120-140 F? What we need for polymer clay? 135F? Yeah! Of course it's not the solution for polymer artist, but just for small stamps?! It's perfect! after a 20 min on cup warmer my stamp was very well hardened. No stove, no big heat, not even leaving the bench :o)!

Stay cool :o)!!!

Sealing kiln patina

I'd read about Everbrite Coating at Wanaree's blog of course I couldn't keep myself from trying:o) for me most important part was sealing kiln's patina. Will it stay or not? A few days ago got my Everbrite Coating sealer. So... here are the results of my experiments. All pieces made of homemade bronze clay with natural kiln patina. Homemade bronze (opposite to copper) clay pieces are pretty coarse and porous (clay particles are 325 mesh). And sealer goes into the surface as into sponge:o) but ... so far by results it's really the best sealer I've tried. Yes, colors get dull, but not so that you totally lose the coloring. So for high traffic pieces I definitely will  use it.

I unfortunately do not have original image for the pebble, bet even now you can see the coloring that left, it's not bad at all.  As I understand - the "bad" color for sealer is a blue, as usually it dulls/became black, others more or less keep on just dull a bit.  

Here some visual.

 after sealing

 before sealing

the small details weren't sealed, just the big rings

Doggy kindergarten

Today was a Big Day for Archie- first time at doggie kindergarten and away from mommy:o) the first half an hour was hard, he was sitting at the gate, not moving and crying:o( but the lady definitely knows the dogs well, she took everything in her capable hands and in no time he was playing with other dogs making himself familiar with the surroundings, learning how to bar jump, what is the tunnel and what to do with it:o) a really really useful day !!!