Friendly Plastic

 

Last weekend I attended a Friendly Plastic Course with  Liz Welch, which was run  in the beautiful Chepstow Castle.

                       

 

I don’t have very much experience with Friendly Plastic, but Liz is a wonderful teacher and the week-end was thoroughly enjoyable, meeting up with old friends Adrienne and Liz Gale and hopefully meeting new friends. We shared an evening meal on the Saturday, great fun and good food too!

The object of the course was to teach us how to work with Friendly Plastic in a 3 dimensional way. On the first day  Liz took us through lots of techniques, oozing, attaching friendly plastic to itself by using a soldering iron, making right angled sides, moulding and cutting , using metal leaf and colouring Friendly Plastic pellets with alcohol inks.

 

                    

          Small pieces made using the various techniques.

 

The next day we were already to make our dimensional piece. Adrienne and I found a couple of Acorn squash, different shapes and we decided that this is what we would use for our moulds.

I used the Friendly Plastic pellets , and when these were melted sufficiently , I used lace to try to create a design. This worked very well on the inside, but I had a lot of trouble getting any design onto the outside. I , with Liz’s guidance, tried to rectify this with a heat-gun, and by holding the whole thing in the hot water, but nothing worked, due to my inexperience I must add here lol. Eventually I gave in and reheated the whole thing. I moulded it around the squash, and pressed the outside firmly, folding and smoothing to  make some texture. I then coloured it with Alcohol Inks, lettuce, butterscotch and sail boat blue. It isn’t finished yet, but I am thinking about where to go next with it! Any suggestions gratefully received…… 

                             

Technorati Tags: Friendly Plastic,Liz Welch,Alcohol Inks,Friendly Plastic Pellets,oozing,soldering iron,foiling

Grungepaper 2

              
                            
I wasn’t particularly happy with my first effort, so thought I would have another go. I had a ready to go canvas, one which had been covered with various mediums to give texture. It was not quite the colour I wanted , but I changed it by using Starburst stains and Treasure Gold Copper to highlight some of the texture.
I cut out the hearts coloured and then embossed them, using a small Sizzix embossing folder.I stuck the hearts together and used a star sequin and a stick on heart shaped jewel to finish off. I used beaten copper wire  and attached the hearts with super glue.
This is going to Adrienne , along with the bookmark when I see her next week. We are off to have a week-end of friendly plastic fun with the amazing Liz Welch.

Grungepaper 1

                                    
I signed up for a swap where I was to use Grungepaper  in any way I chose to do so. I’ve had some Grungepaper for ages, but have never got around to using it.
I first of all made a bookmark , using two pieces of Grungepaper stitched together , and coloured using Starburst Stains. I then   embossed it, using a Sizzix embossing folder with my Wizard.
I decorated with punched flowers, sequin and a bead and added a brass eyelet to take the fibres. It didn’t look quite finished so I added a Grungeboard letter, coloured in the same way.
I hope Adrienne likes it.

Row Houses

I'd forgotten how addictive making these little pieces of art can become! Out came my saved pieces of backgrounds, images , stamps and embellishments. Here are the results. I had to make 5 for a swap, but ended up making a few more, and more house shapes ready to be finished off.

Fabric Postcard

Another fabric postcard for a swap on UK Art. For this I embellished an old scarf around the edges and for the centre I stitched on a piece of black and silver coloured paper that I'd had left over from something. Can't remember what lol. I then used an image that I had already printed onto cotton and attached this with some scribble stitching and a small piece of organza. At this point I left it, no idea where to go.

A couple of days later I was playing around with some organza and found this piece of pink. I made some organza flowers, rough circles cut out and then, using something circular in the middle to hold it down,

gently heating with a heat gun. The edges curl up around the circle, and voila there you have it. I found some black buttons ,stitched them on using a black and silver thread and added small beads to cover the holes. I used the same black and silver thread to satin stitch around the edge. I hope my partner likes it.