More Fun with Marilyn Ray Knopic's Mokume Gane Technique

Warning! This post has a LOT of pictures! I've been playing around with the Mokume Gane technique by Marilyn again, this time with greens and blue inks only. Here are some of the nicest! 

This is the back of the previous one. I had these baked for a couple of weeks now but ran out of Magic Glos. I ended up getting a 6 oz bottle from Amazon because I know I'll be using it for these! It came out about half the cost of getting it in the store....well worth it!

It is amazing how the blues and greens pop on these once the resin is on them. They are quite dull without it, even if you polish them...The shine from the foil really stands out after doming!

This is the back of the previous one.  This side is flat. It just looks textured. :)

Front. 

Back. This one is textured.

Front. Love the colors in this one. I used Sailboat, Stream, Lettuce, Bottle...a few others...

This is the back of the previous one. 

Front.

This is the back of the previous one. 

Love the ones with the dots in them. :) Front.

This is the back of the previous one.  The backs of some of these aren't great...

Front.

This is the back of the previous one. 

This is one I wrapped from the previous batch with the reds and yellows.

This is the back of the previous one.  No resin on this side.

Previous batch again. Front.

This is the back of the previous one. No resin on this one. The matte finish can be interesting, too.

Back to the blues! This one is much smaller.

This one is a bit different from the other ones in the red batch. I used some Kato Liquid Clay over it at first and didn't like it, so I sanded it smooth and used the MG. It gave it a hazy look that I really love. It reminds me of Bryce Canyon.

This is the back of the previous one. 

First one I used the twisted wire with. Had a coupon @ Michaels! :) The bursts of pink look like tiny flowers...love this batch!

This is the back of the previous one. 

The red batch again. 

This is the back of the previous one. I use coarse sandpaper to make the texture on the back.

This one is a little different from the others. It is still the same red Mokume Gane stack, the very end scrap...I flattened it over a previously completed bead and pressed a stamp into it. Then I rubbed some copper powder into the high spots. I really like it.

 Made a couple of swirl beads with some scraps I had laying around (from my next post!) and decided to use some eyelets to run the cord through.

This is the back of the previous one. 

Another swirl bead.

This is the back of the previous one. 

Then I had been thinking about a bead I saw online recently that had a lot of swirls and layers and translucency. I had got a new Fimo clay color called  Blue Ice Quartz and wanted to try to emulate the one I had seen, making a light blue striated "stone" of clay.

Well, I may have wanted a light blue stone but this is what came out of the oven.  I think the Ice clay is a transparent clay and it wasn't quite what I was looking for. I used a variation of the Mokume Gane technique Marilyn uses, without any ink or foil. I just wanted the layers. I am not saying it's ugly, it's just not what I planned on. :) I used transparent, the Ice blue and some white. I have the light pink quartz, too and may not try it with this technique! 

I also got the bright idea to use some of the sheet metal I've been working with (available at Home Depot, 10 5x7" sheets for less than three dollars!). I had been cutting very thin strips of it off and noticed how it curled up. I decided to embed it in the clay to give the plain clay some life. It does make it a little harder to sand the piece after baking, so plan accordingly!

I also used white eyelets to strengthen the holes. I love the polish on this one! Again, I just sanded well at 220, went over it again with some 2500, then buffed. I did find a trick that makes it shine even more though...use a light paste of cornstarch and water. Rub it on the stone and use your Dremel to buff it off....outside, preferably, as it makes a mess! But look at that shine...!

More sheet metal. This one buffed up very nicely, even with the aluminum on top...

I really loved the shine on this one, as well. Maybe not what I was going for but still nice. Can you imagine it in a light blue though? :P I have to say it reminds me of faux ivory, which I love.

The darker area is where the blue Ice was. Hmph. ;)

Last one! I loved the striations in it. Hope you enjoyed the photo show! 

Thanks for looking - make sure to stop by my Pinterest page to see a lot more of my creations, and please like my Facebook page, Karmic Confetti! 

2014 Christmas Cards and Beaded Ornament Covers

It's been a while since I posted, thanks to Christmas and other household projects. But I've been making new things all along! I guess I'll start with Christmas!

I had never made any beaded ornaments before, but this year I was determined to make one! I had no pattern, I just saw a few on the internet that I liked the components of and combined them to make a couple that I liked. Love the little snowflake, they are very quick to make! Here is the link to the pattern, which is from a Russian site. The panels I made by looking at one similar and guessing it was brick stitch. :) The one on the right does not have wings! The wings belong to a wire fairy I made - behind it...for another post. :)

Then in the middle of my beading, I had to make my yearly Christmas cards! They weren't as involved as in other years but still took a bit to design. What do you think of the outsides? I have some wonderful embossing folders and had a lot of fun with them this year. The ones that looked like a reindeer sweater were my favorite. Middle right is one of them. Click the picture to enlarge! The metallic paper was cool...looked like metal when I was done embossing. Doesn't photograph too well though!

Here is a closeup of one card. I made the green patterned envelope to match the size of the card from some crappy Christmas scrapbook paper. I have stamped/embossed papers that are just a little ugly with some pretty glittery embossing powders before, but I decided to hold back this time! :) I cut the mats and used an embossing folder for the embossing on the white paper but cheated with the little ready made glittery chalkboard chipboard figure on the lower right. 

Here is the inside of the card! They all had a fireplace inside. Saw it on Pinterest where someone used a crimper to make the border of the fireplace look like paneled wood. Came out cute! (There are other examples of fireplaces like this on my Christmas Pinterest page!) Used another embossing folder to try to make the background by the fireplace look like wallpaper. Stamped the Merry Christmas over the fireplace. I used some kid's holographic large chunk glitter for the fire, and it sparkled nicely! I used a punch for the "doily" and cheated with stocking stickers - they were cuter than anything I could have made! I did break down and buy a die cut for the fireplace grate. I love 40% off coupons! I also used snowflake peel-off stickers from Hobby Lobby to decorate the card and some had this type of wreath - which is also a sticker - and some had a different type. I didn't use my Cricut to make this card, it was pretty easy to do the math since they were all the same. I just used a ruler and a blade to make the few cuts there were. 

Snowflakes were the theme for most of the cards. I used an embossing folder and some very old Christmas paper I'd been holding on to for a long time. Wasn't sure about using pink glittery snowflakes but I think the card worked, don't you? :) The "Season's Greetings" on the bottom right were a stamp/diecut set I had.

Another inside. This was the other type of wreath I ended up using. No doily on this one. 

 I liked this set of earrings, I made several. They feel Christmassy to me!

.

Now, on to more recent stuff. I've been playing around with my polymer clay again. I love making the bone/ivory canes! They look so beautiful when they're done right. And I've fallen in love with this one particular mold, which I like making into sun faces. You can see below the difference when the finished clay has not been antiqued! It really brings out their features. 

This is a recent sun I made, using one of the molded faces above. I love playing around with the faces after I mold them, before baking. On this one I only made it one sided but sometimes I sandwich wire between two of them so I can make two sided pieces out of them. 

I had a problem with the edges of some of the clay beads I had used the Lisa Pavelka Magic Glos on, and also when I had two suns that I wanted to meld back to back after baking (below). So I recently tried using this flat wire I found at Hobby Lobby (I've seen it at Michael's, too) as a bezel wire, as you can see in the photo. I glued a black one around my fauxpal in the photo below. I guess I could have done a better job with the seam! In the future I am going to bake them right in the bezel...this was my first experiment! I will also be able to drill holes to hang them by. I am going to use the others I made to cut out and bake the next clay pendants I make in so they'll fit perfectly. Has anyone else tried this? 

This sun is a good example of my bezel idea. I had two of the suns, which I glued together, but the sides showed, so I made a bezel that encased them both. So this little guy is two sided. :)

In the photo below, you can see the black bezel I made a little better. This is the other side of the one above.

While I was looking for my sun mold, I found a couple of other molds I had bought that were supposed to be for fairy and female forms. I wasn't fond of the fairy face but I loved the female one. Once again, it's fun playing with their features, although these are so tiny you'd need a magnifying glass and very steady hands! I had recently joined this cool Facebook group for polymer clay and saw someone using these intricate metal filagree plates to back a pendant and thought I'd try it with these flower filagrees. Love the butterfly one! They have a rather weird cast on some of them because I used pearl clay and it left a pattern on their faces, but I think it makes them look aged! Rather haunting, aren't they? Not sure if they should be pendants or pins...

Here is the butterfly one before antiquing. Big difference, huh! What a beautiful mold!

Another thing I played with was a contest I found, also on Facebook, on a DIFFERENT polymer clay group! I am so excited because Lisa Pavelka is actually a MEMBER and I think she's so talented! She has a different little contest every month - I just joined so they were doing a Valentine's Day Carmex jar challenge. I made the little doohickey below as a decoration for the jar but didn't use it. I made it from a clear rubber stamp! Once again, antiquing made a huge difference! Isn't it cute? It's only.about 1.5" square.

And finally, to end this long post! I made some of my sun faces into ladies. What do you think? Maybe a redhead? Brunette? Lol.

For some reason, this reminds me of the Les Miserables girl. :)

That's it for now! Look for me on Facebook. Karmic Confetti, or my Pinterest page! There is so much more there that I haven't uploaded here yet. Soon! Later!