POLISHED STONE KIMONO

I used the polished stone technique for an April swap I was in but I didn't want to do a background as usual. My polished stone was made using Ranger Alcohol Inks in red pepper, cranberry and butterscotch. I put drops of those three colors on my applicator and pounced them all over semi-gloss paper. Next, on the same applicator felt, I put a few drops of gold mixative and squirted on some blending solution and did some more pouncing here and there. I then dug out my favorite kimono stamp by Judikins and stamped the kimono with black permanent ink and cut out. Used sparkly red card stock for the base card, layered on a piece of black cardstock and a torn piece of a Japanese magazine, affixed the kimono to the magazine piece and added some Asian symbols.

Heart Tile Bracelet

While looking through a box of embellishments, I came across a bunch of small ceramic heart tiles that I bought many many moons ago. Also found a bag of brass pieces that are just as old. I first sealed the brass pieces with clear nail polish and then joined them together with jump rings and put a magnetic clasp on the ends. I then stamped the hearts with gold pigment ink and embossed with detail gold powder. Stuck on some pink jewels and then sealed with Diamond Glaze spread with my finger. The sides of the heart tiles was finished off with a gold paint pen. All stamps by Posh.

ANTIQUE UTEE NECKLACE II

Same frame, same stamp, done the same way, different colors.

ANTIQUE UTEE NECKLACE

Back to my favorite hobby, making jewelry with Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). I learned this technique from the Queen of UTEE, Suze Weinberg.

I used an oval antique silver ornate frame by Tim Holtz and laid it face down over two flowers on a Posh fan stamp. I melted clear UTEE in my melting pot with a little purple To Dye For. To Dye For doesn't come in purple so I mixed red and blue together on a jar lid with a toothpick to make purple, then I swirled the toothpick through the melted clear so I basically had clear with swirls of purple through it. I then poured the UTEE into the frame on the stamp and let it harden. Popped the UTEE piece out, colored the raised design with Smooch inks, let them dry and with my finger, slicked a coating of Diamond Glaze over the top to seal the piece. While the UTEE piece was still wet, I ran some Loctite glue around the inside rim of the frame and placed it on top of the UTEE piece. Let the glue and glaze dry and then did my beading.

Of course the necklace is way too fancy to wear with any of my ratty clothes so now I have to go clothes shopping.

HOW TO MAKE FAUX WASHI PAPER

If you're like me, you buy sheets of gorgeous washi paper but can't bear to cut into it or use it. While I'm trying to work up the courage to use the real stuff, I've been making my version of washi paper. You'll need a lightweight paper, I used rice paper but plain old copy paper works just as well, spray colors such as Smooch, Glimmer Mists, Color Wash or whatever you have that's in a spray bottle or make your own with water and re-inkers, an iron, stamps, perfect medium ink and white ink, perfect pearls in colors of choice.

1. Mist your paper with colors of your choice until you get the coverage you want. Let dry. When dry, iron to flatten paper.

2. Stamp whatever images you like using a perfect medium pad and apply perfect pearls in colors of your choice. If you don't have perfect pearls, stamp your images with metallic inks. Stamp accent images with white pigment ink. Of course, you can stamp your images in any type of ink you want, I just like the shimmery look of perfect pearls.

3. Use your faux washi paper as a background and decorate your card however you like.

SMALL STAMPED PENDANT

When I was at the bead show back in August, I bought a strand of brown sliced agates. There were nine agates in graduated sizes. I was going to use the five largest agates for pendants but didn't know what I was going to use the smaller ones for. This necklace is to show that no matter how small your agate slice is, you can still use it for a pendant. The agate is 1 3/4 inches long and 3/4 inches wide. The stamp is 3/4 inches long and less that a 1/2 inch wide. I used a clear stamp because I like the fact that you can see where you are putting your design. I stamped the image in gold permanent ink. I accented the design with two self stick clear jewels. When the ink was dry, I squirted on a little Diamond Glaze and spread it around the entire top of the pendant with my finger, over the jewels too. This gives the piece a nice shine and secures the jewels. Because of the small size of the pendant, I used size 6 seed beads, small crystal bicones and small gold accent beads.

STAMPED UTEE BUTTERFLY NECKLACE

I recently purchased a half sheet of butterfly stamps from I Brake For Stamps to stamp up a tote bag which I still haven't done yet. While trying to decide which butterflies to put on the tote, I remembered that somewhere I had butterfly cookie cutters. I found the cookie cutters and one of the butterflies was just about the same size as one of the stamps and so the idea for this necklace was born.

I melted black UTEE in my melting pot and poured some on my craft sheet. Immediately I pressed the cookie cutter into the UTEE and allowed it to set but not completely cool. I then pulled the excess UTEE up from the cutter and popped the butterfly out. I did this two more times. While the third butterfly was cooling I mixed some interference colors in the black to do something else. When I popped out the third butterfly I had to poke it out with a tool and I ruined it. This is why the center butterfly of the neclace has some colors in it and is not completely black. I had to make another butterfly with the mixed colors.

Next I took the butterfly stamp, applied permanent gold ink with a makeup sponge and stamped it on the UTEE butterflies. If any part of the image didn't come out, I filled it in with a gold paint pen. I applied self stick jewels to the butterflies and then dropped on a small amount of diamond glaze and spread it around the top of the butter fly with my finger. I attached tabs to each wing with loctite glue. Dug through my beads until I found something I liked, made a couple of dangles and bead components and strung it all together.