Bad Girls, or things I couldn't show you before :D

So remember a while back I gave a hint of a project I was working on for the Ten Two Studios design team? You can see the whole thing now here (Just don't tell my mom! ;o)

Lisa also named a kit after me "Carolyn's Artsy Medals" and they are already sold out!

Some other things I couldn't show you. You can see the pile of bottle caps I made for the Art For All Goody Bag here.

I can now also reveal the photos I submitted to the "Are You Your Artspace?" contest at Art For All where people were supposed to identify whose work area was whose. Yes, my work areas are very messy....

I think only 2 or 3 people guessed mine correctly (OK only about 10-11 people were hardy enough to submit their guesses - it was a tough contest) and a couple of people thought my space was Muppin's because of the fabric stuff. Nutty Nanner guessed mine correctly because I had lent her my hand-drill not realizing it was visible in the bottom corner of the right hand photo!

I'm a little afraid of what sort of traffic this post's title will attract....

Injured in the Line of Crafting?

Have you ever been injured in the line of crafting? Then you deserve a medal! This was another Ten Two Studios design team challenge: use bottle caps and bamboo dominoes together. I am prone to all sorts of crafty boo-boos myself, having sewn through the side of my finger with my sewing machine or burned myself with my various irons. (We won't even talk about all the paper cuts!) For those of you less accident prone, here are some general Medals of Artsy Crafty Honor. Keep an eye out at Ten Two Studios for limited edition artsy medal kits!

Make It Mondays - Found Objects

This past week's Make It Mondays theme was Found Objects, which comes right after my adventure last weekend photographing and collecting random rusty things in Walker's Point. Yesterday I took a workshop in Resin Jewelry at UW-Milwaukee's Studio Arts & Craft Centre and got to use of some of my growing beer bottle cap collection (right side of photo above - top four caps use images from the Ten Two Studios rounds sheets). Does it count as a found object now that family and friends just hand me bottle caps?

I've made bottle cap charms before using Diamond Glaze to seal them, but had been nervous about using the two-part epoxy resin because I had heard if you didn't mix your ratio of resin and hardener correctly, you just ended up with a sticky mess. So getting to play in a workshop overseen by someone who actually knew what he was doing was a lot of fun! SACC provided all the materials for us to use, including the resin jewelry molds shown above and lots of beads, doodads and findings.

Here's our fearless instructor Ben (left, in the act of encasing some cicadas in resin) and my art buddy Gary (right, a found object aficionado).

Last October, Gary and I took workshops with Michael deMeng at the Raevn's Nest Art Retreat in Cedarburg, WI. (This is a segue, in case you were wondering.) And I'm FINALLY finishing the Morpheus Box that I started then.

Found objects incorporated into this include rusted metal and broken glass from my sister's farm; the burnt stick shift knob on top (found in the fire pit where we used to live); and a broken pair of spectacles (found in a parking lot?). The vintage photos are from my personal collection gathered over the past fifteen years (the source of my screenname "vintagepix").

Last week I got everything wired together, and this week I need to figure out finishing touches on the exterior of the box, attach the turning knob(s) and decide whether this will stand on feet or hang on the wall. What do you think I should do?

What to do with Bamboo

Ten Two Studios has these bamboo domino-shaped beads, and Lisa Vollrath challenged members of her design team to make something with them. I decided the shape and location of the holes made the perfect form for an art doll body. I've been wanting to make a button fairy after seeing so many posted on Flickr (including Margaret Field's tutorial) so I came up with this.

It had to have a bottle cap head, of course, with a face from the Tinted Twenties Rounds, and the wings are from a sheet of butterfly wrapping paper that I bought at Artist & Display.

Lisa posted a bamboo pendant tutorial with an Asian theme, so I tried a more Victorian version, making a faux tintype with aluminum foil tape and a packing tape transfer of a Victorian lady from the Little Women collage sheet jazzed up with a bit of Sharpie coloring. The cool beads are from Jess Poor, who has been cleaning out her studio space, and I strung it on silk ribbon.

Crafting 365, Days 159 & 160