More Polymer Ideas

I love the idea of fun simple projects that people can use with their children or to add cute touches to holidays. I watched Dayle Doroshow's 2 "International Inspiration" polymer clay DVDs with this in mind and here's what I came up with. All of the projects are really simple and just meant to be fun and cute.

Easter Bulletin board pins:


Just use a cookie cutter to make a butterfly. Press in a pattern before polymer goes into oven. Paint. Hot glue a flat pin on the back and wallah!

Flower Pipe Cleaner Rings:


Wrap pipe cleaner around your finger to fit. Twist so that it closes and won't pop open. Use the rest of pipe cleaner to make a flat nest to glue the flower to and a leaf. Hot glue a cookie cut polymer flower to the flat nest.


Easter Tree Ornaments:
Take cookie cut flower and put a hole in the top before baking. After cools and painted, add a loop and ribbon and hang from a tree inside or out.

Faux Stained Glass

Ingredients:
-Polymer Clay (translucent)
-Clear plastic sheet (folder, overhead project sheet)
-Tissue paper of your choosing
-Gel medium
-Craft knife
-Acrylic paint

Recipe:
Frame-
-Roll out polymer into a sheet (7 on pasta maker).
-Cut two "frames" with identical measurements.
(I cut 2 index cards to represent the outside and then inside of the frame as a guide.)
-Make small hole at top of each frame (they should meet when brought together)
-Bake as the polymer instructions indicate.
-Allow to cool.
-Paint frame with acrylic paint.
-After dry sand lightly with sandpaper and remove sections of paint.

"Glass":
-Cut two pieces a bit larger than the "window" of your frame of plastic and tissue paper.
-Spread a watered down gel medium over plastic. Attach right side of tissue paper to glue. -Carefully smooth out eliminating any bubbles.
-Repeat with other tissue/plastic. Allow to dry.
-Spread a thin layer of gel medium on the back of one of the tissue papers. Attach to second. -Plastic side out.

All Together:
-Sandwich everything together so that it goes window, plastic/tissue paper, window.
-Make sure the hole as the top meet.
-I used a little tape to make sure my "glass wouldn't move around too much inside the frame and then I gel mediumed all the edges. Wipe off gel medium that seeps out the edges or use it to fill the gaps.

Put in a hook, hang with ribbon or chain and hang in a window.

Easter Fun

After so many holidays using one color set it was really a treat to use a different palette for spring. (SPRING!)

Here are some of what I'm working on.

Idea 1:

Instead of Easter Baskets why not give someone a cute Easter cup?! Imagine finding one of these on your office desk or night stand!


Ingredients:
-coffee mugs in a Spring color- check your local Goodwill or thrift store. This cup was .99
-green napkins (Target is a great source)
-four different colors card stock
-pipe cleaner
-and of course CHOCOLATE!

Recipe:
I used cookie cutters to outline the flowers.
-Cut four flowers each a slightly different size.


-Poke a small hole in the center of the cut flower. (A push pin would work)
-Slide flowers onto a short green pipe cleaner.
-Cut napkin as indicated below and unfold.

-Stuff into cute mug and fill with chocolate.


-Plant flowers in. You could even tie a little tag and note with paper and ribbon to the mug handle.

More to come!

Try This at Home- Traci Bautista!

Each month Craft Cat has a Try This at Home Challenge. We pick one of our craft arts artists and have a hand at their DVD workshop. We then share some of what we came up with in the next issue.

We'd love to see what you're doing with Traci Bautista's Retro Rags Workshop: Funky Fabric Books. Send images or links to your blog to me at kelly@ccpvideos.com

Enjoy!

Rocks for Collage?

Where does Carrie Burns Brown find the rocks she adheres to her collages. And what does she use to glue them on?
-Cindy B.

Cindy,

Carrie says that she finds her agates all over at gem shops. She found a particularly nice selection at the Denver airport, proving that it's worth looking anywhere and everywhere for good craft supplies. If you're not connecting through Denver anytime soon, gem shops or online vendors might be your best bet.

Carrie calls her gems “agates” in her video, but there is a precise term for the type she uses: Brazilian agate slabs. They're readily available on eBay; search for "Brazilian agate slab" or "agate slab." Be sure to check the depth – Carrie uses thin ones.

A quick search brought me many gem websites. The first one is a fun learning tool for all the types of agates out there. The second website is a good example of a site ready to sell agates. I can't vouch for any of these sites from a customer standpoint, but they are good places to start your search.

http://www.greatslabs.com/
http://www.artfromgod.com/thinslabs-dealers.htm

Carrie attaches the gems with E-6000 Jewelry Glue or GOOP, both manufactured by Eclectic Products. A local jewelry or gem shop might be your best bet for purchasing jewelry glue, but you can find GOOP at the hardware store. Large craft stores like Michael's may have both glues.

Got questions about Creative Catalyst DVDs? Just ask!

Does PMC require a special oven?

I am interested in Sherri Haab's Precious Metal Clay DVD but need
to know how it is fired before I buy the DVD. Can I use my regular oven or
does it require special equipment?
-Sandra S.

Sandra,

Precious Metal Clay does require more than a regular oven, but you do have options (even an inexpensive one).

There are several types of metal clay: PMC, PMC+, and PMC3. All three can be kiln fired, but one of the clays, PMC3, can be fired with a butane torch like one used for creme brulee. Sherri demonstrates butane torch firing in her workshop. Just make sure that when you buy your clay, you get PMC3. The other varieties require much higher temperature to burn off the clay binder, and a butane torch just won't work.

You could also consider a small propane firing device like the SpeedFire Cone system, which would allow you to work with PMC+ or PMC3.

Editing Gloria Page

"Sometimes I think we can get so serious about our art we forget to play. And when I play, when I give myself the gift of playing that's really where I learn the most and do some of the things that make me the happiest." -Gloria Page



I found the above quote in the footage I'm editing of Gloria Page today. The final DVD will be *brimming* with goodies and I'm excited. (It's still a ways out yet but it will be worth the wait. Remember, I'm just step one of many :)

Above are 2 images from the DVD. Gloria carves all of her own stamps and even has a line of red rubber stamps based on her carvings. She is immensely talented and I had forgotten how many *IDEAS* she has for projects across the board. Incredibly inspiring!

Easter

So Easter is fast approaching and there's lots to be done. I'm currently plotting my Dayle Doroshow Try This at Home Challenge and I'm hoping the fun that is polymer will help me in creating a bunch of fun Easter treats (non-edibles clearly :)

I also have a ton of cards to make and send. Above is what family will be receiving in their mail boxes. The blue paper was PACKING PAPER inside a random box sent to Creative Catalyst. Susan the office manager keeps an eye out for such treasures for me and I have a TON of this stuff now. The paper on the birds I made using techniques learned while filming and then editing the Traci Bautista video. And the style of using pen lines is straight up Claudine Hellmuth...a style I now love since doing her Try This at Home Challenge last month. Little does my family know that each card comes from 4 or more people! Tweet!

Monday Rain

Oregon is having the typical finicky spring weather. Yesterday was ride-your-bike-in-shorts weather and today is bundle-yourself-in-a-sweater weather.

I'll begin working on Craft Cat tonight after the official work day is over. I moved a bunch of my art supplies out of CCP and therefor have to do some of the work at home in an apartment still filled with moving boxes.

Issue V should hit email in boxes next week Thursday-ish. I feel like I might have just cursed myself.

In the meantime however, check out the old issues.

PS- I made the above using what I learned in Claudine Hellmuth's first two DVDs as part of the Try This at Home Challenge. Check out this month's TTHC!

GA: Cimbabue

My community drawing class ended today and while I'm still debating on next term, I know that I need to start some independent studying of art history. I found a book with a somewhat fitting title (something like "The World's Greatest Artists") and I thought, why not post about it. Art History is good for the soul...I'm almost certain.

Meet: Cimbabue

Florentine artist Geiovanni Cimabue was known by several names including Bencivieni Di Pepo or Benvenuto Di Giuseppe and even the "Father of Italian Painting." That was apparently enough to get a reference in Dante's Purgatory. (Seems like it should.) He lived between 1240 - 1302 AD and Wikipedia says that he "is generally regarded as the last great painter working in the Byzantine tradition" which means that his work was flat (no perspective) and stylized. Although his images were flat, he was in the first wave of artists using naturalism. This means that he used more realistic proportions and shading on his figures.

The image here, "The Madonna of St. Francis" is a good representation of his work. He did a lot of frescoes and a lot with the Virgin Mary. (A popular subject matter of the time.)

He also discovered Giotto at age 10 (a local shepard boy at the time) and helped foster his artistic talent.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Happy Spring!

If you need a burst of color, go here: COLOR!

I have to admit I was a little mesmerized.

Virginia: Day 3

In movies they always have the artist characters covered in paint. (The current show Heroes has this for example.) This always sort of annoyed me because all the artists I know are really tidy. Artists don't want random color on their hands because those random colors might get into their palettes or onto their paintings and create mud. Who *are* these artists the movies portray? Then I met Virginia. She moves paint with everything from razors to squeegees to her own hands. (As seen in the picture). Not only is it fun to watch, it has beautiful outcomes.




Virginia left yesterday early and we were sad to see her go. Lynn is already planning on attending one of her workshops in September. How fun will that be?!?

Update: Virginia's DVD Acrylic Abstract Painting: The Evolving Image, is now available at Creative Catalyst Productions.

Viriginia Cobb: Day 2

I was out the first half of the day at drawing class but when I came back, WOW some of her paintings had really transformed! Virginia is not afraid of that paint. Unfortunately my camera is having close up problems but above is a shot of one of her three.

Update: Virginia's DVD workshop, Acrylic Abstract Painting: The Evolving Image is now available at Creative Catalyst Productions.

Virginia Cobb: Day 1

Virginia* arrived last night and we got the cameras rolling this morning. I'm sitting in on the filming and while they don't need me this afternoon, I'm learning so much I hope they let me stay!

Virginia is an acrylic non objective painter. She uses everything from her brushes to squeegees to her hands to move color and create texture. There was one point where we watched through the cameras as she squeezed out a giant gob of cadmium red light and we all sort of held out breaths in fear. But it looks amazing. She's fearless!

Below are close ups from some of the paintings she's working on this morning. She does amazing work with texture (visual and physical)

*Update: Virginia's DVD, Acrylic Abstract Painting: The Evolving Image, is now available at Creative Catalyst Productions.

Spring!

The air smelled so good this morning I couldn't believe it wasn't June. I'm currently in the middle of moving and have been spending every non-work hour working on my lower back pain. Between the Gloria Page DVD I'm currently editing to thinking about the fun projects in Claudine's new Beeswax Collage to the Dayle Doroshow Try This at Home Challenge, I'm seriously itching to play but no art projects will be started until I finish moving. (*sigh*) In the meantime, I'm dreaming up characters for future paintings and cards in Photoshop.

Try This at Home Challenge- Dayle Doroshow

During the month of March Creative Catalyst Productions is inviting polymer enthusiasts (or anyone curious) to try a hand at Dayle Doroshow's DVDs "International Inspirations." In these DVDs Dayle covers polymer basics, various methods for combining colors, how to work with a color theme and techniques galore. (I'm most exciting about the transfer methods.)

So pull out some polymer and inspiration, "International Inspirations" is the March Craft Cat challenge.

Come see what Dayle does: free previews.
Check out what Dayle is up to: Dayle's website.

Claudine's Video Preview

To order or learn more about Claudine's DVD, visit Creative Catalyst Productions.

Claudine Hellmuth's Beeswax Collage is Here!

Last night I was covering Jim's side of the office with streamers (it's his birthday today) and saw the boxes but didn't realize what they were. Claudine Hellmuth's Beeswax Collage DVDs are here! See a preview here. (scroll down toward bottom)

Why Yes Please

This weekend I attended the Creating Keepsakes convention in Portland, OR. I didn't take part in any of the classes (I have no talent when it coms to page layout) but I did explore the vendors. If you love paper, ribbon and color this is an event to attend. So much paper potential in one place!

Check out the Creating Keepsakes website for times and places.

The event travels all over the country so there is a good chance it's coming to a town near you!




PS- I'll find the names of the the above booths.

Filming!

The studio is set up. Our talent is somewhere doing her final preparations. It's filming time! This is especially fun because the artist we're filming is Lynn Powers. She's the "voice" of all our videos and one of the co-founders of Creative Catalyst Productions. Lynn has taught watercolor for years and we're really looking forward to her beginning watercolor workshop.

Tuesday

Ratindra Das arrived today! Or rather his DVD. Besides the logistical problem of where to put all the boxes (I can hear Susan down in the office arranging and rearranging boxes) it's always really exciting to have the truck show up with the videos.

Yesterday was my birthday and we also got it off for President's Day. What did I do all day? I worked. There might be some irony there but it's really nice to be in the office alone AND I'm almost caught up with my hours. I'm making great progress on David Kitler's drawing video. What an amazing artist! I'm learning quite a lot while I edit. It's great because I'm currently taking a beginning drawing class at the local community college and the two work nicely together.

Love^2

One More Day

I feel like Valentine's already passed. This weekend was the first annual Black Heart's Party. (Dress code: all black with an accent of red. Result: lots of sharp looking people!) So now that I have no more decorations to cut out I'm confused as to why there are still advertising for those heart pajamas in a hat box on the radio. (ahk!)

I write a newsletter for work. They've got the link up for January. So here it is (tah-dah!) the January edition of Craft Cat.

Day 3: Heart Tree

Ingredients:
1/2 Chopstick
2 Styrofoam balls (1 large for tree, one small to smash inside napkin ring)
napkin ring (I lucked out and found this one as part of 6 at Goodwill for 99c)
4 different greens felt
brown felt (for "dirt")
Sobo craft glue

Recipe :
Cut up a ton of green hearts in various sizes.
Poke chopstick into big Styrofoam ball.
Glue on green felt layers onto big Styrofoam ball until all white is covered.
Cut small hole in "dirt" felt and lay over small Styrofoam ball.
Push small ball with felt up into the napkin ring so that it's snug and the felt hole is center facing skyward.
Poke chop stick (with "tree" on top) through the small felt hold into little ball.
Stand.

Idea:
Create three and leave along a windowsill.

Valentines Project 2: Cup Bottoms

Just in under the wire. My boyfriend was looking at the project and then left to go see if he could rewire my parents new DVD player so that it shows movies in actual color. He took a look at me and my dry glue covered hands and said, "Go back to fighting your war of craft escalation."

Project number 2.

Spiff up some glasses for your Valentines Day festivities. I found 2 for 99cents at Goodwill.

Ingredients:
Cheap glasses from Goodwill (look for glasses with flat non-textured bottoms)
Card stock- 2 patterns
(I used a polka dot for the circles and maroon for the heart)
ModPodge (some other sealant?)


Recipe:
Wash glasses REALLY well.
Cut a small heart.
Cut 2 circles of paper per glass. Make them slightly bigger than the glass bottoms.
Glue together pattern-sides out.
Allow to dry.
Hold circle-sandwich to the bottom of the glass and estimate how much should be cut.
Remove circle-sandwich from bottom. Cut. Eye. Cut. Etc until circle-sandwich doesn't stick out at all beyond the glass bottom. (A little too small is better than a little too big.)
When you've got the right size, glue the heart onto one side.
Cover heart-side of circle with thin layer of ModPodge.
Try to smooth out glue around heart because it will gather.
Carefully place on bottom of cup (NOT inside of the glass).
Turn glass over and press into table to secure.
Cover other side with ModPodge with several layers of glue. Allow to dry in between. Seal around edges.
You can use your fingernail to scrape off any ModPodge that has strayed too far away from the gluing area.

These will not survive the dishwasher. To clean, hand wash carefully.

Valentines Project 1: candy box

Ingredients:
M&Ms (the big V day bags have 4 colors inside)
aluminum foil
cookie cutters (to use to shape foil)
low box (I made my own)
tissue paper

Recipe:
Fold foil back onto itself into narrow ribbons.
Choose 2 cookie cutters that can fit inside each other.
Wrap foil around each. Leave a little overlap and tape with double sticky tape.
Remove cookie cutter. Do a little reshaping of foil.
Put foil shapes in box on top of tissue paper and fill each section with a different color of M&M.

Enjoy!

(Textured backgrounds are very addicting to create. Now I just have to do the foreground!)

More CHA Chances

Find Claudine Hellmuth tomorrow at:
9am-12 Ranger Booth #4843 - demo

2 -3:30pm Lazar StudioWERX Booth #3772- meet the artist - stop by for a fun photo - become a life sized Poppet®!!

4pm-5pm F+W Publications Booth #1509 -- book signing and demo ONE FREE book to each person. LIMITED quantities!

Sherri Haab
10 am - 11 am Watson and Guptel booth, demo

Traci Bautista has events going on as well but I'm not sure when. Surely worth checking out though!!

Sherri Haab at WG Booth!

If your at CHA this week (and I hope you are...although why would you be checking email?) check out Sherri Haab at the Watson & Guptel booth on Monday 11-12 and Tues 10-11.

More on artists at CHA coming tomorrow!

And if you want to keep an eye on what fun projects Sherri has going on, check back here or at her blog.

Friday Goodies- CHA CHA CHA

(A card I designed this week)

If you randomly find a magic genie and he's offering you 3 wishes, use at least 2 on this.

The website doesn't do it justice but CHA stands for The Craft and Hobby Association. Their press release says "You’ll have the chance to explore 3200 booths featuring the newest offerings from 1100-plus companies –divided into six product sections for optimum buying convenience. "

I'm drooling....in Oregon...where I will be ALL of next week. But if YOU are in the Anaheim area, go check it out.

Also a few of the CCP artists will be there including Traci Bautista, Sherri Haab and Claudine Hellmuth. Check back on Sunday. I'll post the where and when they'll be along with the instructions for a project Sherri will be demoing. See what other fun stuff is going on here.

Have a great weekend!

Monday! Monday!

I'm trying to learn to create patterned paper to use for my cards, etc. This is my first attempt. This could be *very* addicting!

Turning Your Hobby Into a Business

Claudine Hellmuth is one of several artists taking part in the teleworkshops at the smARTist telesummit 2007. The summit starts tomorrow and runs through the 26th. Check out their website for all the topics covered but the main focus is how to turn your art into a business. Claudine's session will cover life as a published author and how to become a workshop instructor. It all starts tomorrow so if you're interested, check out their website here.

Weekend Work

I'm spending the weekend making up hours I've missed or will miss here at Creative Catalyst Productions. Something about being in the offices on the weekend is nice. It's just me and the cat and my podcasts.

As soon as I finish Jacqueline Sullivan draft one to hand off to Zach, I'm going to work on the Try This at Home Challenge. I've been watching Lesley's video and am both excited and nervous. It's so fun to watch. It's much harder to *do*. I understand this is just part of learning curve.

However, a quick trip to the craft store yesterday made me realize I hadn't listened well enough to some parts of the DVD and I need to make better notes! (It also made me notice yet again that I succumb WAY TOO EASILY to bright shiny objects in craft stores.)

I've got some general themes though and I'm excited to get down to business later today!

Glue-ish Stuff

Apparently there is some toxic glue-like smell coming out of the studio and editing suites. Every time Susan and Lynn come upstairs for anything they look around, sniff, say something about a glue smell and then inevitably look my way.

The "I have no idea what your talking about, glue?" doesn't work because, well, from my current view I can see a Modpodge, a gel medium and a tube of fabric glue. (If I turned out my pockets we'd probably find a glue stick and Elmer's.)

We've descended into sniffing around corners, opening bottles and comparing notes. What is the cause of this *glue* smell? The final solution is that tonight I'm cleaning up all the half-started projects and we'll see if the smell disappears. Or at least they'll no longer be able to look suspiciously in my direction.

Wikimedia Commons- A collage artist's dream

Wikimedia Commons: These two words should be music to collage artists' ears. Wikimedia Commons is a source of photography and images on the web where the individual image creator designates the type of restrictions for each image. Some images can be used with absolutely no restrictions meaning you can photocopy them as many times as you want and use them in your work. Other images may have restrictions that indicate you must share the work you create with the images with the Commons. Just remember to check the type of license the artist chose at the bottom of each image. Ready to see all the possibilities? Go to Wikimedia Commons and enjoy!

Shelving at Fred Meyer

This is part of the wikimedia's commons. You can find the author of the picture and the picture itself in its full resolution glory here.

Countdown

Countdown until the weekend begins now! (It actually probably started *hours* ago.)

There is talk about starting an official Creative Catalyst Production blog. A place to hear from the artists and see work and all sorts of neat stuff. That's kind of exciting. I'm not sure how much I'll have a part in that. I know I'm learning the tiny details of newsletters however. Usually I design Craft Cat, hand it over to Jim who converts everything over into the appropriate formats for the actual newsletter. The result has been a lot of running up and down of stairs and emails of lists of corrections that need to be made. Finally I just decided that I need to learn the program and compile the final product myself. THIS is why the newsletter won't be going out until Monday. I absolutely LOVE creating the newsletter...turning it all into the correct HTML code is sort of like trying to hike up a learning curve and having a bunch of little <'s and >'s and "'s, etc come rampaging down at you full speed.

ps- The above is my first attempt at carving a stamp a la Gloria Page. Part of a card for Craft Cat. It's amazing how doing something as simple as carving a rubber box can feel so rewarding.

(Update: We now have a blog! Check it out here: Creative Catalyst Productions Blog)

Artist Wednesday

Robert Rauschenberg
Sandra Sider
Jonathon Talbot
Clare Verstegen

2007 and GO!

One of the cool aspects of my job is that I get to ask artists questions. I hope to start bringing their insight into Craft Cat as their incredibly busy schedules allow. For the January issue (it's changing to once a month) I asked them their New Year Resolutions. Some couldn't get back to me due to super flues (yuck) or being on vacation (yay!) but I'll have questions for them in the future. So watch for the latest Craft Cat for their goals for 2007. In the spirit here are some of mine (art and non art):

-eat vegetables at least once a day (the irony here is that I'm a vegetarian...aaand that corn chips don't count)
-paint/draw/craft, etc at least 5 hours a week
-write a family member once a week
-blog at least 3 times a week (my goal is Mon, Wed, Fri)

This Year, Reeeeally

I'm a big fan of New Years. It's the official day of List Makers everywhere. For one brief moment we get to make our list and make it official...at least until we lose the list or break down and burn it. But besides some slight pitfalls, I love The Resolution.

I'll be working on mine. (Pre-resolution resolution: no goals pertaining to the body!)

So happy List Making Day and see you on the flip side. I think 2007 is going to be a great year for crafts (and my collection of gel mediums!)

Artist Wednesday!

I've been reading some good art magazines lately and keep coming across different artists. In an effort to be more aware of various peoples' work I'm going to start posting some of those artists' names each Wednesday. Take a look. Inspiration comes from everywhere.

The first 4 do sculpture while the last is an oil and watercolor painter from Oregon. (!!!) I'll be checking her work out the next time I go to Portland~

Andy Goldsworthy
Henry Moore
Magdalena Abakanowicz
David Huang
Rachel Ann Austin