A Promise Kept - a free tutorial

Can it really be 3 years ago that I made the promise to create a free tutorial on how I made my faux stained glass Tiffany inspired lampshade? I just checked, and indeed, it has been almost that long (just shy of 2 months), since I made that promise on this blog. How time flies when there are so many ideas to create! Part of why it took me so long to make the tutorial is that I rarely revisit old ideas, and when I do, it's generally (as you can tell) a long time later.

I have finally made another faux stained glass lampshade for the April 2015 PCAGOE challenge and this time, I documented my steps so that I can keep my former promise! Our challenge theme this month is "Cover something". So, when I was debating all the fun ideas floating around in my head and all the cool items I have stashed for the purpose of covering with polymer, I remembered that little promise I made. Luckily I also had a little lamp for which I had been meaning to make a new lampshade, so the timing seemed perfect.

In my studio, I have an old treadle singer sewing machine, and above it hangs the first quilt I ever made. On my treadle machine, I have a small little lamp that was a gift to me from my friend Amy. Amy is a potter, and she made this beautiful little lamp! When she gave it to me, she had crowned it with a little white store-bought lampshade. The lampshade was perfectly fine, but it just didn't seem to fit the arts/crafts style of the lamp and of the little nook where this piece sits in my room. So, I decided to make a faux stained glass shade to enhance this perfect little piece of pottery that is so dear to my heart.

Here's a before shot of my cute little lamp with it's original lampshade (plus a few of the other lovely pottery gifts from my friend Amy):

The tutorial is posted here free. This is a fairly simple project, but some knowledge of working with polymer is helpful. For this project you will need:

Supplies:

• A glass lampshade (I find them at thrift stores, but you can get new ones at most hardware stores that sell lighting)
• about 3-4 (2oz.) packages of translucent polymer clay (I use Premo)
• about 1 (2 oz) package of black polymer clay (again, I use Premo)
• cornstarch (helpful for blending seams and smoothing out areas)
• a bonding agent (I use Sculpey bake n bond)
• your choice of colors of alcohol inks
• rubbing alcohol
• a waterbased polymer sealer (I used an imported product that is similar to Finalcoat - I don't have the original jar and can't remember the name of mine... it was originally purchased to refinish a table, the remaining amount went to my studio)
• A way to mount the lampshade (I will explain this further after the next photo)

Tools:

• A pasta machine or roller for sheeting polymer
• An extruder gun with a small round hole disc and a half moon disc
• paintbrushes
• tissue blade
• Round cutters (optional)

Notice the hole in the top of the glass lampshade above. We need to design a lamp holder, so that the lampshade will sit over the bulb. The very first one I made had a little harp and finial, so I needed  something that would allow the heat of the lamp to escape and would have a hole in the center for screwing onto the harp of the lamp, securing in place with the harp's finial. My solution to that first problem was to use a decorative brass stamping, similar to the ones above on the left. For this second lamp, there is no harp system. So, I detached the lightbulb clamp from the lampshade that had previously been on this lamp. I needed to devise a way to secure this lightbulb clamp to the lampshade, which wasn't difficult to do.

The lightbulb clamp would be secured between two layers of clay at the top of the shade, positioned as above. If you need to use a stamping for the harp system, you will want to cut or drill a hole into the center of the stamping that is large enough to allow the finial screw to come through. I happened to have a hole punch and dye set and that's how I made the hole in the stamping of my Tiffany lampshade. I believe you could also take a block of wood and a nail, hammer the nail into the center, then once you have a starter hole, gradually increase the size using different drill bits.

Here's a shot of that original Tiffany inspired lampshade so you understand what I mean by the difference in the hanging systems:

So, now we're ready to secure the hanging system. First I measure the top of the shade with my available round cutters. (I used Fat Daddio round cutters).

The smaller of these 2 cutters was perfect for the inner rim of the shade top, the larger one was just a bit larger than I had wanted, but worked fine. I made a sheet of translucent polymer and cut a large circle with the smaller cut out inside, like this:

I mounted this ring to the top lip of the shade. If you don't have round cutters, you can just lay a sheet of polymer over the top of your shade and using an Xacto knife, cut out the inner circle and then cut around the outer lip of the shade to achieve the same effect.

If using a metal stamping with the harp method, you may have to build up this area a bit more on the inside, as generally the metal stampings are smaller than the upper mouths of these shades. Just be sure that the metal stamping has support both underneath and above on the outer edges (about 1/8" to 1/4" overlap on the stamping). If you are using a bulb clamp as I am here, simply trim the edges so you don't have anything sticking out (I use a memory wire cutter for this as some metals will mar the cutting edge of cutters or pliers). Press the hanging system into the clay and use a bit of bake n bond to add strength to the seal.

I decided that I wanted a more decorative top than this, so I also added one of my metal stampings on top of this (to cover up the bulb clamp from the outside view). You'll see this in the second photo after this one. 

Add another ring layer just like the last, over top of this to secure the hanging system. It is now ready for it's first curing. Bake according to your polymer brand's instructions. 

Once the shade has cooled from it's first cure, you are ready to cover the rest of the shade. It helps to have something to rest the shade on for the rest of the process. I use a ball of crochet thread, as seen here (you can also see how the top looks before the first cure).

To cover the rest of the shade, you will need some sheets of polymer that are as wide as the shade is long. I used about 1.5 to 2 2oz. blocks to make my first sheet, on the 2nd thickest setting of my pasta machine. Because of the curve of the shade, it will take a couple different sheets blended together to cover the entire piece. Work with one at a time. First, cover the entire shade with a thin layer of bake n bond or liquid PC. You may need to use your fingers or a paintbrush to help you smooth it into a thin layer, and you may need to add some polymer clay thinning liquid if it is too thick. When this is ready, align the straight edge of the polymer sheet with the rim of clay at the top, wrap the sheet down and around the shade. You will have to trim off sides with your tissue blade. I try to trim at the point of the upper rim where the sheet edge stops touching, and straight down to the bottom of the shade.

Above, you can see on the right side where I've cut off the excess, the left side still needs to be trimmed (you can also see the metal stamping I added to hide the bulb clamp here). Be sure to smooth out as many bubbles as you can! If you find any bubbles you missed, you can prick them with a pin or your tissue blade and starting from the outside of the bubble work your way in toward the pin hole to let the air escape, then blend the clay with your fingertip to cover the hole. Add more sheets in the same way, and use your fingertips to blend the edges of where 2 sheets meet to create a seamless piece. On the bottom of the shade you will want enough clay to be able to wrap a small lip towards the inside (about 1/4"). Your seamless covered shade should look something like this:

At this point, I did a second curing - again, see your polymer manufacturer's baking specs. But if you are confident of your design and confident that you won't make the mistake of nicking the translucent layer with a fingernail or a tool, then you can keep it in the raw state.. Now we are ready to add the faux leading. Using your extruder, put the small round dye and the half moon dye together and extrude black clay (the result will be a small half round extruded length) {Thanks to Jan Montarsi for that tip, which he shared with me after seeing my Tiffany inspired shade). It helps to have an idea of your design. I began adding a design that I thought would work, but after I had 2 of the 4 quadrants completed, I decided I did not like it:

Luckily it was cured before I added the leading, so I just scraped off the areas I didn't like and started over:

Remember, if your translucent base was cured, you will need to use bake n bond or some other bonding agent to secure the faux leading. Be sure to put the flat side of the half round extruded lengths on the side that touches the lampshade. I decided that I wanted my design to mimic the design of my quilt that hangs behind this lamp, but I didn't want the entire shade to be covered in the pattern. This design suited my taste much more!

If you're worried about messing up parts that are finished, while working other parts, you can spot cure finished areas with a heat gun (just be sure you are happy with the design in the areas you spot cure!). If you use the heat gun, also be sure to keep it moving, too much heat at the same spot for too long can scorch the piece! I added a rim of black around both the top and the bottom of the shade, as you can see below:

Here's my fully cured shade with faux leaded design. Ready for color now! I use Adirondack alcohol inks, some rubbing alcohol and paintbrushes. I basically use these inks as though I were painting with watercolor. 

Because real stained glass often has variation in hue and intensity, the alcohol inks painted on the surface mimic the effect quite well. I just point the tip of the ink bottle on my brush till I have the amount I want on the brush, then paint the surface. When I want a change in value, I touch a lighter version or darker version of ink to the brush and let the colors blend together. When I want to use a different hue, I either clean my brush with rubbing alcohol or I use another brush. Any mistakes are easily cleaned with rubbing alcohol or just painted over with the color you want.

With this one, for a last spur-of-the-moment touch, I added some squirts of these sprayable inks that I just picked up at my local thrift store. I really liked the added touch it gave. After the inks were applied to my liking, I put the shade in for a final full cure for 30 minutes. (again follow your manufacturer's specs). Once the piece was cooled, I gave the entire piece a coating of water soluble poly-coat varnish in a low gloss/satin finish. 

Here are some more photos of the finished piece:

And here you can see the lamp with my quilt (inspiration for the design):

I am so pleased with how this turned out, I just love the way it looks with my quilt in the background! I hope you like it too, and I hope you find the project tutorial helpful!  Oh, and if you love the little lamp, check out my friend Amy's Facebook page: Amy Burk Pottery

Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think of my little lampshade, and of the tutorial too!  If you have any questions about any of the steps, please do leave a comment below, I always try to reply within one day!

If you make a faux stained glass lampshade of your own, be sure to come here and tell me how it went! A flickr, Facebook or pinterest link to where I can see your lampshade would be great too!

The voting for this challenge will open on April 1st (no fooling). ;)  I'll try to post a reminder here on the blog!

March Forth and Vote!

The only day of the year that is also a sentence or command... March 4th. So I thought this command would be apropos to remind you about the PCAGOE vote! Voting is open (has been since the 1st) and will remain open until the 7th at midnight. Here's a peek at all the wonderful creations my guild mates created:

Okay, now March forth to the PCAGOE website and vote for your favorite 3 entries, remember, you could be randomly chosen to win a prize!

My Polymer Quilling Article Published in The Polymer Arts Spring 2015 Issue!

Now that the spring 2015 Diversity issue of The Polymer Arts magazine was released today, I am thrilled to share that I've been published again! For this publication, I wrote a tutorial-type article detailing my tips and tricks for polymer quilling. The digital issue was sent out to subscribers today and the print issues should be arriving in the mail to subscribers very soon! Here's a peek at the cover photo and my article pages:

I'm including below, a gallery of the pieces which are included in the article; all of which were created during the documentation of the various methods that I found for creating this look. Though they are not included in the article, you might remember my 2 other quilled polymer pieces, my Creation Story Turtle Wallhanging and my most recent challenge piece, the Once Upon a Time book cover which you can see at those corresponding links.

The main project I created for this article was the piece that you can clearly see on the first page of the article above. This piece was designed to become my new logo for Create My World Designs which you can see (without the polymer quilled font over top) in my new banner above! The addition of the polymer quilled font was made for my profile photo on the Create My World Designs Facebook page. Here are large photos of that piece, both with and without the font:

Other pieces created during the writing of the article were this bunch of Christmas ornaments, 3 snowflakes which were made for my guild swap, an upcycled lightbulb covered in polymer with quilled polymer spirals and a freeform polymer filigree which was mounted to a satin covered styrofoam ornament accented with beads:

And finally these 2 pair of earrings were created while working out best practices for polymer quilling:

I am once again, over-the-moon happy to have an article published in one of my favorite periodicals! You can read the article and learn all about my methods to create polymer quilling by purchasing the issue or subscribing to The Polymer Arts at their website.  Many Thanks to Sage Bray (editor) and The Polymer Arts staff for the opportunity to be included in this publication! If you missed the other 2 places I've been published, they are: the Summer 2012 Recycle & Reuse issue of The Polymer Arts, which I wrote about here and the book Art Without Waste by Patty Wongpakdee which I wrote about here. If you subscribe to The Polymer Arts and have the opportunity to read my article, I'd love to hear your comments! I'd love to hear what you think of my new logo too! Post your thoughts below!

Once Upon A Time...

...a love of nature, books and polymer converge. 

For March 2015, the challenge theme for my guild (PCAGOE) is "Nature". As a self-described treehugger, you can imagine that this chick loves all things "nature". Well, maybe not all, I'm not too fond of stinkbugs, mosquitos or my summer-time arch nemesis - cabbage lopers (who I battle for my brassica family plants every year). But I think it's safe to say that, to my mind, MOST things in nature are a fascination and curiosity to admire and study. That being said, one might assume that this challenge theme was an easy one for me. It was not. Because the subject of nature is so wide open, there was simply too much from which to choose. After tossing around a couple different ideas, I finally decided that I would base my project on one of the books I was reading this past month. 

I'm also a book lover. I'm the old fashioned sort who likes her books with actual pages to turn (or as the Ikea ad says, "Book Books").  Yes, not very eco friendly in the scheme of paper production, but in my defense, 99% of the books I buy are second hand; we have quite a library of favorite reads in my house and we donate the non-keepers to our local library for resale, so we do try to keep the impact low. 

The book I chose for this project is the book Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. If you've not read or heard of the book, here is a pretty great summary. Basically the book weaves the stories of three female protagonists amid a backdrop of the natural world of the Appalachian mountains. Coyotes, luna moths and chestnut trees are all strong players in the book. Barbara Kingsolver has said this about the book: "This novel is not exclusively—or even mainly—about humans. There is no main character. My agenda is to lure you into thinking about whole systems, not just individual parts. The story asks for a broader grasp of connections and interdependencies than is usual in our culture." This is a concept that resonates with me, as one who deeply believes that this life is one big web, woven and connected to all living entities (human, animal, plant, soil and beyond). With that in mind, it seemed the perfect subject for my nature themed challenge. 

I decided that since I owned a paperback copy of this book, the best way to honor it would be to turn the paperback into a hardcover book - this is where polymer love-meets nature love-meets book love. This was not as easy a task as I had thought it would be. But I persevered. 

Since I've been doing a lot of faux polymer quilling lately (I will be making an announcement about the polymer quilling soon!), I decided to continue in that vein to carry out my illustration. I decided that I wanted to base my design on the Fibonacci sequence (or the golden ratio, the golden mean, the golden section or the Greek letter Phi). Fibonacci numbers follow a 1:1.61 ratio. The Golden Ratio is the relationship between two numbers on the Fibonacci Sequence, plotting those relationships on a diagram to scale will produce a spiral commonly seen all around us. The Fibonacci sequence is widely found in nature (think the unfurling of fern fronds, seashells, flower heads, etc.)

The front cover of the book is designed with images connecting the symbols of the story to the Fibonacci grid spiral. Built upon a base of Premo translucent with inclusions from a spent bag of tea, I first "drew" the Fibonacci spiral and grid in two tones of gold (to symbolize the golden ratio). In the upper right corner, you'll find the Luna Moth set against a quarter moon and night sky; upper left corner, you'll find a coyote set against an almost half moon and night sky; mid right, taking up the smaller parts of the Fibonacci grid and some of the bottom square, you'll see the 5 lobes of a chestnut leaf cluster; and finally, taking up the majority of the bottom square is one hand supporting another hand which holds soil and a seedling (symbolizing the human-human and human-nature connection). 

The spine of the book carries the theme of the Fibonacci spiral with the font that I chose to emboss the title of the book and the author's name... each letter carries it's own spiral, as you can see here:

As you can also see above, the area around the spine is covered in a burlap fabric. Needing this area to easily bend, I chose burlap to carry the natural theme. I sewed a hem at the borders of a strip of burlap (so no raw edges were exposed), it was then glued to the paperback book cover. 

For the back cover of the book, I chose to simply display the Fibonacci spiral and grid, as you can see here:

The inside of the book was treated to an image of a tree that reminds me of an extending web of connections. This is simply printed out on paper and glued to the back of the polymer, then strips of polymer encase the sides of the cover and overlap the inside paper cover, as you can see here:

 The inside cover looks pretty cool when you can see both sides juxtaposed: 

As I think I mentioned above, this project was a lot of work and more difficult than I had imagined. I know how I would do things differently next time to make life easier. Because I like the idea of turning paperbacks into hard cover books, I may revisit this idea sometime again. For now, I'm fairly pleased with this one. What do you think of my nature-meets-polymer-meets-book project? Please leave me a comment! Voting for this challenge will begin on the 1st of March. I'll post a reminder here on the blog at that time...

Your Digital World: a new venture for Create My World Designs

As I promised last week, I have some news to share about a new (or another new) direction for Create My World Designs. I have opened yet another etsy store (now I have 3), where I will be selling computer graphics. The available items will range from high resolution, printable scrapbooking paper, cards and postcards, digistamps, custom branding and more. Here's a peek at my new store logo:

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned here on the blog my previous life of working outside the home. I was formerly a designer for a paper printing company. I designed and manipulated patterns on the computer and I prepared the designs by separating them into stages for the process of printing. These patterns were used in the laminate industry. While I did enjoy the creative aspects of my job, there were many factors that went into my decision to leave, which I'll not go into here.

While I was somewhat versed in photoshop through that former self, my main task of computer graphic design back then was carried out on a highly specialized platform developed by Barco Graphics, so my photoshop skills were mostly self-taught in aide of transferring file formats for printing on our high res printer. After leaving that job to be a full time wife and part-time crafter, I continued playing around with photoshop on my personal computer, but never really went as far as taking a class or even perusing a learner's manual. I knew enough to get by, with altering some photos here and there, and creating basic graphics for personal use. Fast forward to about a year or 2 ago, my husband decided to take a photoshop class to allow him to integrate more technology into his job. After he was finished with the class, he asked me to donate the workbook to our local Re-useit store; I decided instead to keep the book and do a self-guided study of the textbook, to see if I could expand upon my own skills. Doing so reinforced my love of creating on the computer and really honed my abilities. I've since tackled a bit of Illustrator, self guided as well, to bring my hand drawn sketches to computer perfection by vectorizing the sketched lines. Here's an example; I had an idea to create a valentine card with the saying, "you're the bee's knees". So, I sketched out this bee on the left, and the bee on the right is how he looked after I turned him into a vector image in Illustrator (excuse the business watermark - there for my copyright protection of this original image):

I really need to find myself a textbook on Illustrator so I can put all of the tools of this program to work for me... but even with a quick lesson from an internet video, I'm pretty proud of what I can do with Illustrator already! ;)

It was about a month after I had made the decision to start selling computer designed graphics and after I began to play in Illustrator, when one of my online friends, fellow jewelry designer and polymer clayer Tammy Adams of Paisley Lizard, posted a question on Facebook asking if anyone knew the term for an image that is made up by the letters of a word. I had made one of those way back in Jr. High school, and made another one in college, but I didn't remember if there was a proper term for it, so I posted my response to her question. Tammy contacted me and asked if I would be willing to take on the task of creating a logo for a new etsy shop which she was opening to sell her whimsical line of jewelry. Tammy wanted a typographic illustration (from one of Tammy's friends we discovered the proper term), of a frog that was created by the word cactus. It seemed serendipitous, having just decided to birth a graphic design shop, plus I welcomed the practice, so I decided to tackle Tammy's project. 

I began with a couple of sketches of frog shapes and tried to work out how the letters would fit into the body of the frog. Of the 2 best sketch options, Tammy decided that she liked the shape of the frog in this sketch on the left, which I vectorized to what you see on the right:

After many versions, I finally struck upon a combination of colors, textures and font with which Tammy was thrilled, and so the new logo for Cactus Frog was born:

So, now you know the news that I've been working to unveil in the past month! I do have an exciting piece of preview news to add about my polymer world: I was also pleased to finish, last month, a tutorial article that I'm thrilled to announce will be published in a favorite polymer periodical! (more news to come, when the publishing is complete, probably end of this month/begging of next)! I'm so excited about that news, I had to post a teaser to it here! ;) 

In case you're wondering about my other shops, the Create My World etsy shop will always be designated to my first love (polymer) OneMoreUse will always be designated to upcycled materials creations and my very neglected Artfire shop is still open with a small sampling of older pieces (I really need to commit to either fully stocking it or letting it go... decisions, decisions). And now instant downloadable, high resolution printable, digital graphics can be found at Your Digital World on etsy. I've finally just opened the new digital shop this weekend, and have started stocking the store. There are some scrapbooking paper patterns available, a couple postcards and my heart bumble bee digistamp. I'm trying to create new items every couple days and hope to have a decent showing within a month. For now, won't you check out my new shop and give it some love! :) I'd appreciate some favorites from those who have etsy accounts. Suggestions are welcome too, if you have ideas of items you'd like to see me create... and custom orders (like Tammy's cactus frog above, and personalized invitations, announcements and greeting cards) are welcome to! So, go check it out at www.yourdigitalworld.etsy.com or use the tabs above (which now direct you to each designated store! - just changed that tonight!)

Oh, and please check out Tammy Adam's post about the birth of Cactus Frog and her logo here. While you're there, take a moment to browse the wonderful things she creates with art beads and polymer! 

So, what do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Your Voting Reminder and a Prelude to Upcoming News

Well, I've done it again and delayed my reminder post until the day before the last! Yes, voting is open and will only be open through tomorrow (ends at midnight EST on the 7th) But hey, I remembered, even if it's a last minute effort! ;)

Check out this wonderful graphic created by Marie Young of Marie Young Creative - it features Marie's wonderful foxy sculpture that she made for this challenge:

So, please do, if you haven't already, Go Vote! But wait!... before you do, I have some upcoming news about new projects and directions I plan to take Create My World Designs in the coming year and beyond. I have too little time today to write about it, so I will try to get a post written this weekend or at least by sometime next week! If you're a fan of mine on Facebook you might have noticed a hint of this in some new etsy listings and a project that I worked on for a friend (which I'll be sure to show off in the next post!)... so check back in a week or so, to get the full scoop!  Okay, now, Go Vote! Please and Thank you! ;)