Studio

Having a little extra sunlight in the evenings this week is making my studio a might lovelier place to sit and sew, and to snap a few pictures. 

Wool felt, piling up

Roger oversees all the sewing with great interest

My wall of yarn, waiting to become tiny scarves and sweater (and large sweaters, too).

Office plants

January's Animals Brought to You By....

For most of January and half of February, we are pet sitting Amigo, this chunky chihuahua angel.  He belongs to a friend of my mothers and he has spent these last cold dark weeks keeping my lap warm.  In this dark, blue January there is little better than a lap full of dog, marathon tv and lots of felt.  Our dog, Roger, is delighted by the visitor and spends more of his days looking at Amigo in my lap with sad longing, waiting for more rough housing and chasing around the living room.  

DIY Rock Magnets

Living in DC we go to a lot of museums, a brother or sister or friend is almost always visiting and we walk down to the National Museum of the American Indian for their unbelievable cafe or the Air and Space Museum because everyone wants to see a space ship.  My favourite exhibit in the city is definitely the gem exhibit at the Museum of Natural History.  Aside from the Hope Diamond (THE HOPE DIAMOND) and the Harry Winston jewelry there is the Gem Gallery and all the rocks, gems, minerals and meteorites you could possibly want.  After wandering the exhibit I always want to bring home ALL THE THINGS in the gift shop and end up putting pyrite in my terrarium or slices of agate in my jewelry box just to look at.  After coming across Leif's gorgeous Gemstone Magnet Set I thought that perhaps the chunks of rock around my apartment could be put to similar use. If you don't happen to have a random collection of pretty rock bits around your apartment Bliss Crystals on Etsy has loads of amazing sparklers and Karma Bead Supply have everything you need. 

Materials:

Gorgeous Rocks
Gorilla Glue
Super Magnets

I had a bit of a hard time because the glue doesn't get tacky quickly so unless you are lying on the magnet on a perfectly flat surface it will slide off so I used napkins to wedge things around so they lay perfect flat and then put a tiny bit of glue on the rock and a tiny bit on the magnet.  The magnets are super tiny but strong and one kept the  agate and smaller rocks on the fridge but the huge chunk of pyrite needed three and an unreasonable amount of unsightly glue because it wasn't a flat surface .  They are apparently super strong little magnets and according to the amazon reviews should be kept away from pets because they are super dangerous if consumed or something, so be aware of that.   I let mine dry over night and then went crazy pants on my fridge.  Now I want to attach ALL the things to magnets and my fridge, possibly small dinosaurs, and almost certainly sheep and llamas.....  

Hearts Hearts Everywhere

In between sewing little jackets for little badgers (there will be new little badgers in the shop soon!), I've been cutting tiny little hearts out of polymer clay, baking them up and painting them with nail polish.  I made heart rings, heart hair clips and heart pins.  And stars.  A bunch of stars.

I started by rolling out a wee ball of white polymer clay using a brayer (you could just as easily use a rolling pin but I'm a bit paranoid about not using things I use for food with clay).  I used some old cookie cutters to cut large and small hearts and stars out of the clay and popped them onto parchment paper and then into an oven for 20 minutes at 275° (check your own clay for baking instructions, your polymer might have different directions).

Once they had dried, I very messily painted them with nail polish (getting both the parchment paper and my fingers completely covered in nail polish).  I let them dry for a couple of hours and then used Gel Super Glue to attach pin backs and bobby pins and ring backs that I got from the craft store.  After a few hours they are ready to go. Three pins are on their way off to the Aunt Peaches Valentines Exchange and my little sisters are all getting some bobby pins.  Now if only I could find a way to let the foxes wear heart pins.

xox

H.