Trials and Tribulations.

I have had this melting pot for some months and only just now got round to using it. I found the technique I used here on the CDRom 'Paper and Beyond' by Maggie Grey and Jane Wild. These are my first attempts and are not very good. I put Ultra Thick Embossing powder into the pot with some copper embossing powder and stirred them together before switching it on. When they had dissolved I dipped small snippets of lace, etc., to see how they would react.

All the light coloured pieces are various scraps of lace. The bottom sample in the middle row is lace that had previously had gesso and paint applied to it. The top right piece is a scrap of canvaswork and below that are two tiny bits of knitting.

Here they are after dipping into the molten embossing powder. Not a roaring success but I will reheat them with the heat gun and see if I can disperse the 'enamel' to reveal the patterns of the lace. The top left sample looked quite promising but was too floppy and I couldn't control it to lie it flat on the nonstick sheet. The stuff sets as it cools and you have to work quickly. The knitting was hilarious as it absorbed the melted powder so readily and kept sticking first to the tweezers and then to the kebab stick and I thought I'd never be able to put it down. I didn't bother with the second piece of knitting.

It was interesting to see that the piece of lace that had been gessoed and painted turned out better than the others so maybe if I gesso all the pieces of lace I will get better results.

I found it much easier to use with paper. All these were done with heavy watercolour paper.

The first row are simple squares with their edges dipped into the molten powder. Next I tried dipping the fronts of the squares and then stamping into the wet enamel. Again I had to work quickly as it cools and dries so fast. The second attempt is better than the first but I even like the third which was really a disaster. Then I tried dipping paper shapes cut with decorative punches. These were easier to do though it needs practice to control the amount you take up each time.

I went back to my 'frames' and coloured the backgrounds with pale Pro Marker pens and stamped small flower and leaf images on top. These could look quite nice on cards or make little gift tags.

At least I have learned what not to do!

Yesterday I thought I would try out another 'toy' I have had for some time. Armed with Dale Rollerson's booklet for inspiration I set about trying to fit the Flower Stitcher foot to my machine only to discover that I think I need an adaptor of some sort before I can do so. At least I have her other two booklets on Walnut Ink and Sari Ribbon, so I can play with those instead.
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We had fun and games in the garden yesterday. One of our daughters called with her dog Chester - you can see him a few posts back. As it was such a nice day we went into the garden and Chester ran round exploring. I don't think he'd met a pond before and because the pondweed has pretty well covered the surface he tried to walk across it! Poor little chap - he disappeared completely for a moment before surfacing and climbing out up the little waterfall!

He was none the worse for his adventure and neither was the waterfall, and he dried off quickly in the sunshine. I just hope the frogs and newts weren't too traumatised.