Full Moon Swap - October 2007 (just starting!)
Filtered from ladyofbrileith since she's a new friend on my list and is my partner this month.
I got off to a late start. Had my partner for a week now but we were too broke last week for me to get going on it. But I've now started and here's what I have for the Samhain/Halloween themed swap so far!
First off, I saw a craft show that talked about a product called "Dimensional Magic." You basically mosaic tile but with paper and "paint" each paper tile with the stuff after you're done and it gives the paper a raised, glossy clear surface mimicking glass tile. Less expense and no messy grout this way. So I thought it sounded cool and I wanted to try it.
I picked up an unfinished tray:
And cut up a bunch of paper into small, tile-like pieces. Then I spent, oh, a good two hours or so trying to figure out how the hell you make little pieces look like what you want it to look like! *laughs* In my case, I wanted to make a nice pumpkin. Here's how it came out:
The problem was once I spent all that time getting it set up the way I liked, I then had to pick up each piece and glue it back down. D'oh! Lot of work.
Next I covered the entire thing in a nice, thick coat of Mod Podge:
By this point, it was like 1:30am so I called it a night. This afternoon, I meticulously went over each piece of paper and filled it in with the Dimensional Magic. Took maybe another 30-45 minutes. A note to anyone doing it: try doing it outside or with a fan on. I've got quite a headache from the smell. I didn't even notice a smell at first but after awhile, it became overpowering and, ow. Headache.
Here's the piece as it's drying plus the couple little filler items I've managed to get so far:
The Dimensional Magic has a slight filmy color to it as it's wet but it dries clear. You can see that it's still wet in some of the pieces (notably the border pieces I did last.) I also got a cute witch hat candle holder, a mini baking ceramic loaf pan, and an "autumn spice" candle. I was excited when I saw the mini pan because it's both a black cat AND a pumpkin and she said bonus points for things which have both on them. Heh.
The crappy thing is that the stores around me are already almost sold out on all their Halloween items! Seriously. There was a cool raven statue I wanted to get (since she loves ravens/crows and is a writer) but the Michael's didn't have a single one left two days ago. Nor any of the other shapes in the same theme that they did have. (Like tombstones and stuff.) Jeez! In fact, they were taking down one of the autumn isles so the Halloween stuff was down to one isle that was already showing signs of being picked-through. Craziness. I saw some great Halloween stuff at Ross a couple weeks ago so I hope to run by there one of these days and maybe snag something. I'm looking especially for things which are pumpkin, black cat, leaves or raven/crows. So wish me luck.
So there's what I have so far. I think the tray is pretty cool. I'm keeping up with my tradition of making entirely new craft projects for swaps again this month. *chuckles*
I got off to a late start. Had my partner for a week now but we were too broke last week for me to get going on it. But I've now started and here's what I have for the Samhain/Halloween themed swap so far!
First off, I saw a craft show that talked about a product called "Dimensional Magic." You basically mosaic tile but with paper and "paint" each paper tile with the stuff after you're done and it gives the paper a raised, glossy clear surface mimicking glass tile. Less expense and no messy grout this way. So I thought it sounded cool and I wanted to try it.
I picked up an unfinished tray:
And cut up a bunch of paper into small, tile-like pieces. Then I spent, oh, a good two hours or so trying to figure out how the hell you make little pieces look like what you want it to look like! *laughs* In my case, I wanted to make a nice pumpkin. Here's how it came out:
The problem was once I spent all that time getting it set up the way I liked, I then had to pick up each piece and glue it back down. D'oh! Lot of work.
Next I covered the entire thing in a nice, thick coat of Mod Podge:
By this point, it was like 1:30am so I called it a night. This afternoon, I meticulously went over each piece of paper and filled it in with the Dimensional Magic. Took maybe another 30-45 minutes. A note to anyone doing it: try doing it outside or with a fan on. I've got quite a headache from the smell. I didn't even notice a smell at first but after awhile, it became overpowering and, ow. Headache.
Here's the piece as it's drying plus the couple little filler items I've managed to get so far:
The Dimensional Magic has a slight filmy color to it as it's wet but it dries clear. You can see that it's still wet in some of the pieces (notably the border pieces I did last.) I also got a cute witch hat candle holder, a mini baking ceramic loaf pan, and an "autumn spice" candle. I was excited when I saw the mini pan because it's both a black cat AND a pumpkin and she said bonus points for things which have both on them. Heh.
The crappy thing is that the stores around me are already almost sold out on all their Halloween items! Seriously. There was a cool raven statue I wanted to get (since she loves ravens/crows and is a writer) but the Michael's didn't have a single one left two days ago. Nor any of the other shapes in the same theme that they did have. (Like tombstones and stuff.) Jeez! In fact, they were taking down one of the autumn isles so the Halloween stuff was down to one isle that was already showing signs of being picked-through. Craziness. I saw some great Halloween stuff at Ross a couple weeks ago so I hope to run by there one of these days and maybe snag something. I'm looking especially for things which are pumpkin, black cat, leaves or raven/crows. So wish me luck.
So there's what I have so far. I think the tray is pretty cool. I'm keeping up with my tradition of making entirely new craft projects for swaps again this month. *chuckles*