January 10, 2012: T-riffic Wall Decor

This was one of those nights when I felt awful. I wanted to make something new but I really could not spend too much time on it. Thinking back to a recent conversation with a friend, (Beth maybe... was it you?) I was inspired by the idea to use embroidery hoops to turn old fabric into interesting works of art for your wall. A simple internet search lead me to this pintrest site with all kinds of cool ideas! You can find and abundance of embroidery hoops in thrift stores where they sell for about 10 cents - 25 cents a piece.  Needless to say, my project for this night in particular is less than stellar... but I got something done and opened a can of worms for future projects! This one is the back of a 2010 World Cup T-shrit. The front of the shirt was an advertisement for Guinness, which I do enjoy but I never wore the shirt. I cut out the soccer ball and put it on the embroidery hoop. Viola! Not overly involved but it does look pretty cool. Perhaps I will add to it later.

January 3, 2012: Bloom Necklace!

Have you ever seen cool jewelry made of bottle caps with some picture in it and a hard clear coating over it? I bought two great necklaces like this; one from a market in Nova Scotia that says "Earth" and the other from a street vendor in Union Square, NYC. I always look at this type of jewelry and say... "Oh I could make that." However, until yesterday (January 3rd 2012!) I had not even tried. I have been talking about making resin jewelry for years. So much that I have actually received resin as a gift several times... haha. That being said, I actually did not use the resin I received for this project. Instead I used epoxy resin (much like glue) which is why there are so many bubbles I think. But... at least I got the ball rollin' right? I will be sure to make genuine resin jewelry in the future and post it.

To make the pendant I took a bottle cap and sanded off the emblem on the flat side. Then I cut the rigid rim off leaving just enough to create a shallow dish-like structure. Then I painted Mod Podge all over the inside of the cap. Then, while that was drying, I cut out the floral magazine image into a circle and coated it with Mod Podge. I added the cutout of the word "Bloom" and stuck it to the front of the circle. I painted the image into the cap with more Mod Podge and waited for it to dry. Then I mixed equal parts of each compound to make the epoxy. I scooped the epoxy into the cap and tried to spread it out without causing too many bubbles. Then I let it dry. Meanwhile I found the brass leaf charm and used the epoxy to stick it to the back of the bottle cap. When everything had set, I attached a jump-ring and put it on a chain from an old necklace!

Ok... get ready for it! You would not believe what I learned about epoxy. Being a biology teacher, naturally, I was curious about the chemical reaction between the two parts of the epoxy mix. Basically you have to mix the two glue-like materials together in equal parts to cause it to harden. When I looked up the chemistry behind this (on Wikipedia... where else?) I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the first compound (resin compound) is made up of monomers (zing! bio word) and so is the hardener. When you mix the two together, the monomers form an intricate cross linked polymer! Huh! This causes it to form a very hard solid that is used in jewelry making, electron microscopes, plexiglass and much more.