Marbled bezels and eye shadow cabs

I'm back into blogging now, feeling a lot better than just a week ago. Pretty much recovered fully now -- unlike how I was when making the two bezels (to be covered with clear cabs or glass tiles) above. They are actually failed, but I do really like the look of them nonetheless, especially the round one. Adding a cab/tile over the paint will also enhance the look, not least of the oval bezel.

The failure lies in the fact that I used Fantasy paints, but being ill on the evening I made them, I probably didn't stir them properly and I ended up really marbling the paints, which might be the main reason why the paints didn't behave as they should.

(By the way, anyone out there that knows why the image background is white in PicMonkey, but takes on a blueish tint when I upload it to Blogger? Or is it just my monitor?) [Problem solved: it was a change in Picasa, where blogger pics are uploaded, that I wasn't aware of, which autocorrected photos -- in this case making them worse. I fixed the setting and the pics are as they should.]

This is a cab I made before I got ill, about the same time I made the Pébéo Fantasy paint tests. It's made by painting a mix of acrylic medium and loose powder eye-shadow (essentially mica powder) on the back of the clear glass cabochon. I then covered it with magenta acrylic paint for a more opaque background that intensifies the burgundy mica powder.

Unfortunately, I made the biggest mistake you can do when painting: forgetting to let the first layer of paint dry fully before doing any touching up or painting a second layer. Because of that there's blot of non-shimmering magenta. Not that easy to see in the photos, but very visible IRL. Still, I really like the colour, shimmer and depth of the painted cab so I'm keeping it like this. At least at the moment, perhaps I'll scrape it all of and redo it some day.

Pébéo Fantasy test pieces

I thought I'd better blog about this before forgetting about it. As you can see, there's two more pieces than in the sneak peek posted here. As mentioned in that post, the paint comes with instructions just must follow to the letter in order to get the effects you want so therefore I thought this post would start with my first pieces, which all failed, and tell you what I did wrong.

The first fault I did was not paying attention to the instructions saying mix well. I just shook the bottle and stirred the knitting stick (for applying the paint) around the bottle once. That's usually enough with ordinary paint, but this isn't ordinary paint and you really, really need to stir well as the effects won't appear if the paint isn't mixed properly.

The second fault was taking the next set of instructions lightly. Flat, horizontal surface means that and not just something sort of horizontal and flat-ish. I wanted to paint the bottom of a cab. To keep it horizontal I fixed it onto the table using Tack-It (häftmassa) and moved the cab until it seemed to be horizontal. It wasn't 100 % so and therefore the paint slowly, slowly moved to one side, which ruined the possibility for the patterns to emerge.

The third fault I made was forgetting how slowly the paint dries and thus making the very first piece, the round bronze tag, on an impromptu worktable. When moving it, the charm got rolled over by a paint syringe, got knocked into the wall of the cardboard box and then, finally, was dropped on the floor. You need to work on a table or other space where you can leave the pieces untouched until they harden. And don't pick them up just because you want to look at them more closely, even if they've been drying for two hours. I did that with the piece below and accidentally put my thumb in the bezel, ruining the paint (which was one of my first successful pieces) and having to redo it....

same bezel with glass cab

So far you can see that I've tried adding paint both directly to a cab and to a bezel covered by a cab. You really should do the latter and I'll explain why. First look what happens when I flip the big glass cab from the photo at the beginning of this post:

Whatever pattern there is on the surface won't be on the bottom. When painting the back of transparent glass cabs, it's the bottom of the paint you will see once the cab is being used. It's at least a small comfort that the Fantasy paints have a mica shimmer that makes them nice to look at even when you fail to get the effects desired. These two cabs are still useful even if they're so far from what I wanted to make.

One last fail, which I don't really see as a fail is what Cookson Gold in their tutorial call an amalgamated effect: if you wait too long (like, a minute or two) to add a second or third colour, the new colour will be engulfed by the first one and the result will either be a marbled look (bracelet) or just one colour on top of the other (copper connector). If filling multiple bezels it's better to add all colours to one bezel before moving over to the next. Pébéo doesn't tell you that on the package so be sure to remember this!


But enough with failures -- I've had some very successful results too! And for every failed piece (almost) I've learned something.

These two glass pebbles -- that I made before realising cab painting was a dead end -- might not look very special, but I'm including them as they were my first two successful attempts at using Prisme. You can see the front of the eggshell white and purple cab above.

For most of my tests I've been using 2x2 cm glass mosaic. They're a good, handy size and will hopefully be very useful and versatile when it comes to actually doing something with them. In the samples above I've used two colours in each (except in the apricot tile in the middle of the top row), mixing Prisme with Prisme, Prisme with Moon or Moon with Moon. The only real flop was the red one in the upper right corner: the lighter red in the centre is Prisme, which should've turned bubbly as in the rest of the samples.

I've also filled both tags (need to be careful moving those) and bezels. Here are two examples of that, both using two colours of Prisme and as you can see they've fused together on the brass round in a way they didn't do in the bezel (part of a bangle).

My final samples are both made using Vintaj brass tags. In the first one I mixed three colours of Prisme. Nothing fancy, really. In the second piece I wanted to see what happened when you have a relief. As you need a horizontal, flat surface would the paint migrate from the relief (in this case decoupaged thin cardboard leaves)? Except for the edges, the paint did cover the embellishment well, though I'm not sure it was a good idea to paint on a sealed pendant considering the Fantasy paints are solvent based. Not sure if that explains the lack of pattern in the Moon paint or not.

Now, when I say that the paint is dynamic and moves, it doesn't just mean that it'll flow on a surface that isn't horizontal. It means that the paint changes, morphs during the time it takes for it to harden. The patterns develop up until the paint is dry, meaning the results are unpredicatable. A fun surprise. Below is a photo I took of the pendant above just two hours or so after applying the paint (never occurred to me to snap one right after dripping the paints on the charm). Notice the differences, both in pattern and the proportion between the colours. (The harsh shimmer, however, is due to the artificial light and camera flash as this photo is taken indoors at night.)

It's not a paint for control freaks -- but for everyone who loves unpredictable results and find morphing paints exciting, it's heaven!

Ick -- first try at polymer clay

First, I should add that these aren't new. The pictures are new, though, and I don't think I've shown my polyclay beads and pendants to anyone before. Why that is, is pretty obvious: I do have a hate-love relationship with all sorts of clay, which I've written about before, and this was my first time working with polymer clay. The only clays I've worked with before have been saltdough and modelling clay as a kid and then dabbling with ceramic clay in art class in school as pre-teen and teenager a couple of times.


 I'm no natural clayer. More a painter than a sculptor when it comes to creating. I like to work on a canvas, be it painting on an actual canvas, embroidering on cloth or weaving beads on a thread. While it most certainly can be dimensional, not least my beadweaving, it's not about moulding a material or chiselling away bits and pieces of it. I draw with threads and beads or piece beads together like it was Lego, I shape but I don't mould and manipulate like you do with clay. But sometimes I'm inspired to work with it nonetheless. It has its uses and there are many interesting techniques to try.

The beads above are made after instructions by Irene Semanchuk-Dean in the book Making Beautiful Beads. She calls the Inside-out beads if I'm not mistaken, which explains pretty well how they're made. It's a rather fun and very simple technique, perfect for clay newbies and kids. Like children's inkblot paintings, but in 3D.

As you can see, I haven't mastered the technique for smoothing out the edges and seams where the different clay pieces meet. One thing I did learn, on the other hand, is not to use white clay unless you're 100 % sure the work surface is clean. If there is just one pin-size speck of darker clay or one tiny glitter particle it will end up on the white clay... D'oh!

 I also used ultrafine glitters, metallic powder, liquid Fimo and copper foil on some of the pieces. You can only see the foil and silver powder here as I wasn't pleased with the other pieces. Too fugly to show...

The cat pendant and silver charm have stamped images. There was probably a good reason for adding the pawprint to the kitty image, but I wish I hadn't. Other than that, I'm pleased with the colour I mixed for it (using chocolate brown, white and a smidge of yellow, I think) and the chocolate brown frame. I also like the finish I got using Fimo silver powder.

The copper crackle cabochon is one of the pieces I was pleased with. Sure, it's a bit uneven, but I really like crackle effects -- and this one was so easy to do. Normally, instructions call for a pasta machine, but I just used an acrylic roller.

I will add another, bigger pic of the cab later. That photo shows off the copper foil better, but I couldn't add it now as the photo is on another computer. *photo added*

So there you have it, my first venture into the world of polyclay. I haven't touched it since -- and that was perhaps two year ago I made those. Clay probably isn't my thing. And now other clays have become more interesting in my eyes. Clays that don't require oven baking and clays that also work as adhesives. So why even bring all this up then? Well, I guess it's because of this. Pehaps I should give pc another chance? (Though I confess that a resin clay challenge or hop would've been much more exciting and inspiring for me personally.)

Autumn leaves

It's Sunday and I'm as usually spending the weekend writing a week's worth of posts for my other blog so today will be more pictures than words. As it's (still) autumn I thought the colours and theme in these old photos was fitting.

This is a handmade boro glass cab surrounded by hessonite garnet chip beads. Like a lot of beaders, I'm not a big fan of chips, but I like how they can feel like autumn leaves sometimes. So I figured they might look good with an autumnal cab like this one. This is how far my ideas for this cab has come.

It's almost like a flower, a chrysanthemum of some sort, in that flat cab. Love it!

Crackle paint cabochons

I've had some crackle medium standing on a shelf for ages. Or at least it feels like that. I bought it just a week or so before reading about a cheaper crackling technique that uses ordinary white glue instead of crackle medium, which can be pretty pricey sometimes. Typical. Anyway, this weekend I finally got around to trying it and these are my very first pieces: two 30 mm wooden discs and two glass pebbles (of the kind used in flower vases etc).

This one is a bit so-so. I tried not to paint over the medium more than once, as recommended, but I think I was too worried about doing it and therefore got a very uneven layer of paint. To the right you can see an unsuccessful attempt to add some colour without blocking out the crackles in the semi-dry paint. Not a smart idea. Better to just paint, allow it to overlap if you have to (and don't do it too much) and then not worry about uneven painting or a few small bare spots. After all, that just add to the old and rustic look.

For both cabs/discs I used a blue base coat, pretty much the only darker colour I have apart from some purple paint. It was really a matter of using what I had at hand. Have to buy some dark brow paint soon as I think it'll make a better base coat, more realistic if nothing else.


I also tried to paint some glass pebbles. Here, I didn't use any base coat. Instead I painted the medium directly on the glass and then painted it over with acrylic paints. Beige on the amber yellow cab and the same blue as above on the clear cab.

I tried to add another layer of paint in a contrasting colour to darken the cracks on a third, green cab (not pictured). Didn't work very well. Perhaps I should've let the first layers of paint dry longer, making sure there's not even a drop of moisture left. Well, you live and you learn...

Have no idea what to do with these cabs. They were test pieces, but it would still be nice to use them in my jewellery.

I'm also planning on doing a few pieces that are only partially crackled, e.g. adding the crackling as a frame around an image or painting. Not exactly sure what I want to do, but playing with crackle medium is fun so I will experiment some more with it.

Pretty purple pebbles

I feel like I haven't blogged in ages (giveaway tips and blog recaps don't count). At least partially it's of cause a side effect of having worked a lot lately and also being called to work last in the last minute on days when I was supposed to be off, thus messing up my planning.

We did have Wednesday off and my sis and I spent the afternoon wandering around in Malmö (as my dad went to hospital for tests, we took the opportunity to tag along). We also got a chance to visit the Panduro Outlet, which we missed last time, and that's where I bought these glass pebbles. They're the kind you use in flower arrangements so the quality is nothing near glass cabs: they have tiny bubbles on the surface, shapes are irregular etc. But I really liked the colour and patterns in these purple glass stones.

Great thing about it was that they were sold loose so I could pick out the pieces I liked the best. Normally they're sold in bags, but for jewellery-makers and crafters this is so much better as you can pick out the perfect pebble (hopefully) and also mix and match colours instead of having to buy a whole package of each. Notice how a couple of the pebbles -- the two on each side of the one at the top -- have patterns of white that almost looks like fuchsias with their petals and long stamen.

Not sure what I'm going to do with these, but most likely I'll do some beaded bezels. As usual. The irregular shapes make them less ideal for fabricated bezels and settings, though they would work with, say, glue-on bails and other "glueable" findings. Or maybe I should make a wire bezel? Haven't worked with wire in ages, it feels like.

Perhaps I'll tumble a few that have too many bubbles and flaws.

The bouclé chain necklace

I made this necklace for the Vintaj monthly challenge, but never submitted it as I didn't think it was good enough. The focal is a boro glass cab that I set in a "Whimsical Spray" Fastenable riveted to a brass blank. The cab is a little bit too fat for the setting in my eyes, but it's not too big to be securely fastened. I just wanted the prongs to show a little more.

Anyway, the part I was pleased with was the chain. I've woven space-dyed rayon bouclé twice through a ladder chain (also by Vintaj). A very simple technique, but I really like the result. Especially when being careful to let the yarn/floss "wind" between the links when you weave the second layer. The result remind me of braided cords (e.g. a simple kumihimo braid) and if you don't overdo the weaving, the chain will still be subtle and flexible. I think the wavy texture of the yarn works especially well here.




The variegated thread makes the weaving more visible and also pick up several of the colours in the cab. So far so good. Only thing I worry about is that rayon is notoriously frail compared to many other fibres and bouclé is a very loose type of yarn, meaning there's both an issue of snagging and of abrasion when weaving, but also when using the finished piece. I do hope the yarn is heavy enough to stand up to some wear and tear because I like this chain.

More beaded bezels

I have two loves when it comes to jewellery making: metal and seed beads. Usually I alternate between the two and right now it's all about bead weaving. I've already mentioned here why I'm on a roll right now, making beaded bezels. These are my three latest creations in that department.

Above is a crystal vitrail light rivoli (18 mm) that I bezelled using metallic purple 11/0 seeds. I wanted to use 3 mm fp for embellishment and settled for jet lumi amethyst. Rather dark compared to the colour of the rivoli so I decided to use something less dark for the 15/0. Transparent Grey Luster didn't seem like a perfect match when holding the tube next to the rivoli, but the rainbow finish did look like it could have something in common with it. So I went for it. And I liked it: the blueish grey beads brightened up the dark purple bezel so that the nuances were more in harmony. The dark purple thread helped bring it together, I think, as it "dulled" the grey a bit.

When peacock was a new custom coating on Swarovski rivolis, I bought this one as I just had to see it IRL. Was rather ambivalent about it and thought about selling it several times, but each time I saw something in it that made me keep it. (Keep in mind, I don't like dots and stripes in beads so it was not like me to even buy it!) So in a way I didn't feel bad about "sacrificing" it for a bezel experiment.

For this one, I used two different colours to make the bezel base: Permanent Finish galvanized gold from Toho and Duracoat Dark Berry from Miyuki. I also added 15/0 in jet AB as I thought they picked up the colours from the peacock spots. As you can see, I used a different way of embellishing the RAW base this time. Not adding bows of beads on the diagonal as with the fp for example, but stitching them "straight" between the spokes. Not sure about the colours, but I like the result of my altered thread path for the embellishment.


Then there's this one. Again, a piece where I'm not sure about the colour choices (you got to work with what you have), but where I'm pretty pleased with the over all design. Here, I used a glass cabochon instead of a rivoli. To avoid gaps in the ring of beads in the front, I added 15/0 in sparkling beige-lined crystal. A couple of the same bead where stitched to each "hole" in the RAW base along the side. I then netted a border using the same Dark Berry seeds I'd used for t he base. 3-bead netting for the first row, then 4-bead. Will use this design again, but this pendant is in the danger of being frogged.

Alcohol ink experiments

After seeing others working with alcohol inks on metals, of cause, I had to buy some inks too this summer. Haven't done much with them, but have already shown a simple example of faux oxidization on my "imitation bottle cap" charm.

Above you can see another example where I've worked with three different nuances of inks (Pitch Black, Stream and Raisin) in several layers. The base is a rather large brass ox stamping. The same one I used when testing my rusting paint here. In that post you can also find a "before" pic of the stamping.

Haven't sealed it yet -- which I intend to do as the inks can be dissolved by alcohol and other solvents and I don't want that. What I will not do is repeat my first mistake: using a solvent-based spray lacquer. I did use that on my first charm and it utterly changed the pattern made by the inks. It's ok, but not as nice as it was before spraying it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But at least I learn from my mistakes.

I also had fun playing with a simple round brass blank, approx. 19 mm. This one was textured using a ball hammer before I added the inks. Used Stream and Raisin here as well, but they are not fully mixed as in the floral stamping. Sorry about the "artsy" angle, but it looks slightly better when viewed like this so I save a photo eventhough I didn't intend to show it here on the blog (as I wasn't fully pleased with the result).

Faux patina and gilded reliefs

Not too long ago I wrote about the colourful "faux patinas" you can paint onto metal components like stampings and filigree in my other blog. While I enjoyed the idea of using oil pastels like Jane Salley at the Objects and Ornaments blog, I think I especially like matte creamy whites on raw brass (see these examples). Very romantic, reminding of white-washed wood. I also have an ornate hook-and-eye, that I really like, which has a similar colour: a matte bronze or brass tone (partially) coated with a matte creme white paint.

I'm noot too pleased with my first try at this, but then again, I didn't use the ideal paint... Will be giving it another try some day.


Colouring or darkening recessed areas can be very effectful, but it can also be said about adding colour to raised areas. The acrylic cameo above was rather boring and I felt uninspired by it. So, being bored, I took out my "gold vax", orginally a product for wood and similar materials. I took some wax on a piece of cloth and rubbed it over the relief flowers, taking special care to make sure the leaves and edges got some colour too. "Gilding" the motif gave a boring cameo a new dimension -- now I actually consider using it!


As I was playing around with my paint anyway, I also gave this cat brooch a faux patina. It's a cheap plated brooch, that I got and which had now started to tarnish. A lot. Instead of trying to polish the plating -- no idea about materials used -- I gave it a black colour-wash. The black was polished off so it only remained in the recessed areas, the same areas affected by the tarnish. This also enhanced the features better than before when it was all a shiny white metal. Not my best result, but better than originally.


PS! All these methods normally need a coat of spray laquer or similar to keep the paint from coming off too easily when used. On metal, a base coat of laquer or primer may need to be used or the paint won't adhere well to the metal.