Thursday, March 24, 2011

Techniques should be for Tuesday ...

... the alliteration is just better. But I learned a new technique tonight, and it's Thursday!

I love staying up late on Thursday. I'm normally in bed by 9:00 and up by 5:00 or 5:30, but on Thursdays I give myself permission to stay up late and do whatever I want. I just don't care if I'm tired at work on Friday, because - hey - it's Friday! It's ok to be tired at work on Friday, right?

So tonight I followed the detailed instructions I just purchased on how to make faux dicroic glass beads (http://beadazzleme.blogspot.com/2011/03/tutorial-how-to-create-faux-glass-beads.html). Out of, guess what - no, not soap. Or glass, either, for that matter! Polymer clay, in case you're tired of guessing. It's all very mysterious and involves translucent polymer clay, foil leaf, pearl-ex powders and liquid polymer clay. Magic heat applied by a heat gun and everything melts and clears and comes together in a beautiful bead that looks like glass. To wit:

Yeah, sorry about the crappy, blurry photo (and my messy desk). I think I may have actually captured a better image on my cell phone, but for some reason it won't download from my e-mail, so we may never know.

But in real life, this bead is clear and beautiful and not blurry. I still need lots of practice to make better ones because I smeared one of the layers of Pearl-Ex and the liquid clay ran in drivels on one layer. And there's a big stinking air bubble, and I'm not totally in love with the gold foil - this is one time I think silver foil may have actually worked better but I don't have any so I'll use less gold next time. And I should have added a few more layers of liquid clay for a thicker layer of clear on top the colors, but we all know how patient I am so that didn't happen. But tonight is Technique Tuesday on Thursday and I learned something new and I'm still awake and the Chihuahua Brothers are asleep in their little beds and tomorrow is Friday and it's all very, very good!

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