Transformations

I found this 16" x 20" print for free at the farewell party of Gallery at the End of the World in Altadena. I was not really attracted to the print other than I through the blues and greens would match the Metallic & Pearl Color 3D Crystal Lacquer I had waiting at home -- ready for a project to manifest.

Below are some close up details of the print - before I applied the Crystal Lacquer.

Here is the 3D Crystal Lacquer package with the print. The green is a dead on match and I had a dark pearl blue 3D Crystal Lacquer from another set.

I failed to take a picture of the print with the lacquer applied; however, I quickly realized it could not stay on the flat background. It was just blah, so I cut out the pieces and looked for a small canvas. I found an 8" x 10" canvas in my garage which I then spray painted black and coated with a glitter glaze.

I decided that the blue flourish would represent the sky and the green, the earth. I placed the sunflower between. The composition still needed something, so I added a ScrapFX Chipboard Flutterby which I coated with Bronze Crystal Lacquer.

After applying the lacquer and letting it dry, I glued the butterfly to the canvas.

After the glue was set, I filled in the butterfly wings with the 3D Crystal Lacquer. I did have to use a toothpick to move the lacquer into the smaller wing areas.

The green glitter button in the center of the flower was a last minute addition. I was cleaning out something and found the button. I started to toss it into the scrappy pile (yes, I have one) and then realized it was the same size as the center of the flower.

A final tip - on the petals of the flower, I squeezed the lacquer from the base and pulled it towards the edge releasing the pressure on the tube. This is what created the nice even look on the petals.

Have fun creating!

Clowning Around

I had a few sheets of Graphic 45 scrapbooking paper that I was wanting to play with. It was from their Le Cirque Collection.

I used the rectangular jewelry finding to figure out which image worked best out of the sheet of Circus themed tags. The running clown caught my fancy, so I carefully cut the front part of his body out of the tag and glued it into the finding.

Tip: You want to make sure that you put a little Crystal Lacquer under the image, to hold it in place. If you do not, the moisture in the Crystal Lacquer applied on top will float the edges of the paper up.

I covered the image with Crystal Lacquer and set it aside to dry. As I was cleaning up, I realized that the second half of the image would also fit in the rectangular jewelry finding (and it was pretty), so I repeated the same steps and also used another image from the same sheet in a round jewelry finding.

I did not really intend for their to be two halves of the clown; however, once they dried, I realized that I had a match and I knew they had to be put together as one jewelry piece.

I used Crystal Lacquer to glue the pieces together and then filled the findings to almost overflowing with additional Crystal Lacquer.

Once it was completly dried, I tied knots on the ends of two black waxed cord and then tied them together with an adjustable slip knot at the top.

Very easy to create a unique piece of jewelry that people will notice.