Three-Day Weekend Project
I spent most of Friday night, all day Saturday, and a good part of Sunday fiddling with silicon molds and plastic. I made me a couple pins, which I wish were in metal, but I could claim that these are plastic prototypes. Or perhaps they're the "stunt" pins, used when the real, valuable pin is resting up & doesn't want to be bothered.
I was originally going to spend the weekend sewing since my book came in and there's loads of overskirts, a great bodice, and some bustles. Instead, I wound up spending the weekend with gunk all over my hands and plastic & metal all over the place.
Not much different from most weekends around here.
The one on the left was a last-minute slap-together. I'd already molded the bit in the center and found the rhinestone earring while I was looking for the dangly pearl on the right.
I've had this typewriter for about 15 years. It weighs about 75 pounds and I got it half price (ten bucks) because the guy at the flea market didn't want to put it back on the truck. Nearly put my back out hauling it to my friend's car. The cat threw up on the roller once. If you want to decorate your apartment with weird old crap, don't get a cat.
This is the stuff that started it all. All this business came out of the end of the roller part of an antique typewriter. All I wanted to do was temporarily take off what I thought was a simple gear on the end so I could make a mold of it, then simply put it back on. Nooooo. There were something like 35 parts inside a non-moving roller knob. That's not even counting the screws that hold it all together.
The left mold is the gear business with about 25 little loose cylinders which had to be tacked down with a glue stick before I poured the silicone. The right is the domed top from a cheap ring. I poured amber epoxy into the mold because all the clear epoxy domes I molded came out all bubbly. The only real way to get rid of the bubbles would have been to use a vacuum chamber but I haven't quite got one of those lurking around the apartment at the moment.
Colors that didn't quite work out. I tried a garish gold mica powder, black paint and silver leaf (looked too much like silver spray paint), brown powder eyeshadow, and gray powder eyeshadow. Yes, eyeshadow. It was 5am by then and I was deleriously trying anything, including dried-up acrylic paint which caused a weird reaction and the plastic got all foamy. The combination that worked was a combination of the two eyeshadows and a dab of gold mica, then black paint that was mostly rubbed off, just to make it all greasy & grimy looking.
A mourning pin from eBay. The pin opens up front & back so it could either hold two photos or a photo and a lock of hair. I guess if you were a complete weirdo you could stuff the entire thing with hair.
The whole center business swivels around so you could show either side. The photo is on glass and doesn't copy very well. Scratches through the black paint on the back show through to the front and the photo at one time had some color painted on it. You can still see a little pink on the guy's cheeks. I did a tiny black & white copy because most detail wouldn't show through the amber lens. Plus all's I got right now is black ink. Feh.
Pieces ready to be glued together. The amber piece magnified the photo more than I had expected so I had to print up another one about 25% smaller than I was originally going to use.
I was originally going to spend the weekend sewing since my book came in and there's loads of overskirts, a great bodice, and some bustles. Instead, I wound up spending the weekend with gunk all over my hands and plastic & metal all over the place.
Not much different from most weekends around here.
The one on the left was a last-minute slap-together. I'd already molded the bit in the center and found the rhinestone earring while I was looking for the dangly pearl on the right.
I've had this typewriter for about 15 years. It weighs about 75 pounds and I got it half price (ten bucks) because the guy at the flea market didn't want to put it back on the truck. Nearly put my back out hauling it to my friend's car. The cat threw up on the roller once. If you want to decorate your apartment with weird old crap, don't get a cat.
This is the stuff that started it all. All this business came out of the end of the roller part of an antique typewriter. All I wanted to do was temporarily take off what I thought was a simple gear on the end so I could make a mold of it, then simply put it back on. Nooooo. There were something like 35 parts inside a non-moving roller knob. That's not even counting the screws that hold it all together.
The left mold is the gear business with about 25 little loose cylinders which had to be tacked down with a glue stick before I poured the silicone. The right is the domed top from a cheap ring. I poured amber epoxy into the mold because all the clear epoxy domes I molded came out all bubbly. The only real way to get rid of the bubbles would have been to use a vacuum chamber but I haven't quite got one of those lurking around the apartment at the moment.
Colors that didn't quite work out. I tried a garish gold mica powder, black paint and silver leaf (looked too much like silver spray paint), brown powder eyeshadow, and gray powder eyeshadow. Yes, eyeshadow. It was 5am by then and I was deleriously trying anything, including dried-up acrylic paint which caused a weird reaction and the plastic got all foamy. The combination that worked was a combination of the two eyeshadows and a dab of gold mica, then black paint that was mostly rubbed off, just to make it all greasy & grimy looking.
A mourning pin from eBay. The pin opens up front & back so it could either hold two photos or a photo and a lock of hair. I guess if you were a complete weirdo you could stuff the entire thing with hair.
The whole center business swivels around so you could show either side. The photo is on glass and doesn't copy very well. Scratches through the black paint on the back show through to the front and the photo at one time had some color painted on it. You can still see a little pink on the guy's cheeks. I did a tiny black & white copy because most detail wouldn't show through the amber lens. Plus all's I got right now is black ink. Feh.
Pieces ready to be glued together. The amber piece magnified the photo more than I had expected so I had to print up another one about 25% smaller than I was originally going to use.