Cool Uses For My Buttons!

I've been making ceramic buttons since last winter and love them. They are really enjoyable for me to make since they are whimsical and just plain fun. They are awesome "kiln stuffers" which fill all the empty spaces in a firing so a potter saves money because there is no dead space. Carol Dean from SandFibers makes the most beautiful woven bead creations. She bought a few of my large buttons several months ago and listed one of them in a felted wrist cuff.

And.....she sold it!

Picnic Portland!

I had an awesome time showing at Picnic Portland in Lincoln Park this past Saturday. I shared my tent with my long time artist friend Allison Villani, who makes recycled paper jewelry. The weather forcast was pretty sketchy, but then it cleared up and became beautiful. My 6 year old daughter was dropped off an hour into the show and stayed for 6 hours. I was completely floored that she was able to handle it that long, but she made a bunch of new friends and ran around the whole time throwing stuffed animals into air.

Here's our shared space in my tent. We had so much fun hanging out. I remembered that Allison and I had met in this park 13 years ago while walking our dogs. We both lived in the Old Port at the time.

This was the booth next to us. The guy who makes these large fabulous birdhouses actually made this set-up out of recycled cardboard tubes that had rolls of fabric on them. It took him and a few friends close to 2 hours to rig this up, all the while we were biting our nails watching. It took them 5 minutes to take down. I was happy for him because the birdhouses were priced at about $150, and he sold two. Phew!

Check out Wordy Smith!

MaryAnn from Backwoods Creations, a fellow Etsy Maine Team member, came up with a great cross promotional idea a few weeks ago and I am just now trying it. She has encouraged all team members to blog about each other. I love this idea! I have chosen by good buddy Kellie, from Wordy Smith!

Kellie has so much fun making her amazing decoupage work. I have some of her bamboo tiles that she thoughtfully crafted just for me. She found many vintage pictures of potters and clay pots and decoupaged them onto the tiles. I later glued magnets on the back and get to see them everyday on my fridge!

I been to a few etsy Maine Team meetings with Kellie and I love hearing her talk about her process. She enjoys finding the right phrases and passages and words in her vintage finds to create her pieces. I know that anyone who purchases one of her goods, will have something very special, not to mention funny as well! Kellie is a hoot, a great team member, and an awesome friend! Check out her shop!

Making Encaustic Medium

Well, I FINALLY took the time a few weeks ago to make my very first batch of encaustic medium. This is the method I learned from Kim Bernard, my encaustic guru. What is encaustic medium you ask? Well, it's kind of like what gesso is to oil painters, encaustic medium is to encaustic artists. The medium acts as a base for the paint, among many other purposes. Since I intent to do a lot of scraping in the wax, I need a thick surface on which to work on.

I felt like I couldn't really start anything in my studio until I had accomplished this task. It was a very impulsive evening in August. The weather was nice and the kids were happy playing outside and I thought, "now is the perfect time!" It was 4:45 and by 5:00 I had the hot plate plugged in and everything set to go.

Here's all the equiptment: hot plate, stainless steel pot, stainless steel bowl, colander and ladle, silk screen, clothes pins and stirfry spoon.

To make encaustic medium you need 5 parts beeswax to one part damar resin, which comes from a certain family of deciduous tree that grows in the East Indies. They have to be melted together slowly over low heat. The white stuff is the refined beeswax and the golden chunks are the damar resin.

Okay now the damar is really melting now. Here is a gooey chunck stuck to the stirfry spoon.

All done! Now it's time to pour it through the filter.

Ooooh nasty! That junk was all in the damar crystals. It's bark and maybe some elephant hair.

The wax is now poured into silicone muffin tins and tuna fish cans. I ordered the wrong size muffin tins. They said on-line that they were the standard size. Maybe for kids cupcakes....they were a lot smaller than I expected so I have to scrounge and find every tuna can laying around. Thank goodnes my daughter loves tuna sandwiches!

Aren't they purdy? Aren't they just lovely? I'm so proud of myself. I gave myself soooo many hours to do this, thinking that I'd begin at 5:00 and slowly start the melting process. By the time 6:00 came I was already filtering 1/2 the batch and pouring the rest of the beeswax in. By the time 7:15 came, I was pouring the wax into the tins! I thought it would take much longer. Well, I must have done it right because nothing got set on fire in the process.

Surviving Craft Show Season

My booth at the UMC show.

I spend August 7,8,9 and 10th (four days!) at the UMC Cumberland Craft Show. It was looooong, but I felt I made a lot of great sales. As usual, my ringholders, spoon rests, and mini pots were my best sellers, but I also sold quite a lot of mugs and cereal bowls. And 12 pendants, which is very exciting since they are just simply fun for me to make and are a total bonus when they sell. I'll definately do this show again next year, but maybe do it outside in one of the animal stalls. I know that sounds gross, but the spaces are huge and cost a lot less than what I paid.

Rob made these shelves for me. They where so easy to set up and display.

Close-up of my jewelry and button display.

Some Encaustic Work

Here is one of the encaustic pieces I made at Kim Bernard's workshop during July 4th weekend. We made our own supports which are basically shallow boxes turned over. The sides of this piece are about 1 and 1/2" thick. The supports keep the piece from warping. If it warps the wax could crack...very bad. This piece has another mini box inset near the top where I poured wax into the cavity and stuck one of my mini vases in before the wax cooled. Underneath are a row of periwinkle shells. I'm having so much fun playing with the wax and trying some cool things out.



Here's a close-up:



I think I can put dried flowers in the vase and they won't fall out. My daughter said this is ocean art because she says the blue part at the bottom looks like waves, plus the shells. Maybe instead of flowers, we'll collect some feathers we find at the beach and put those in the vase.

Buttons and Boxes!

These are my new buttons that I'm having fun with. I myself don't enjoy sewing but used to enjoy running my fingers through my mother's button box when I was little. I loved the feeling of the smooth buttons on my fingertips. These buttons and nice and large measuring anbout 1 and 1/2" wide. I've sold some in my Etsy shop and at craft shows. People seem to really like them. I had some shoppers ask if I could make them smaller, so I'm working on that now.

I'm also working on some sculptures for my fellowship work. I'm taking a weekend long workshop with Kim Bernard on the 5th and 6th at her studio in North Berwick, Maine. I needed to make some supports for the encaustic to adhere to. Anything pourous will work. I am so excited to try this on clay. I've been making these clay wall boxes for years and can't wait to see what I'll come up with. Here are two different sizes in the green stage. The "green" stage means that they are still wet and not leather hard yet. My basement is nice and cool right now with the humidity (as long as I keep the dehumidifier on all the time), so everything is drying nice and slow, perfect for slab work.