AMANDA'S BASKETS: FUN WITH GOLD

Thursday, July 3, 2014

FUN WITH GOLD

We had a small storm blow in just a bit ago - my windchimes are hanging on for dear life. Of course, there's lots of wind and dark clouds but, alas, no rain. They need to build a wind farm around here and capture all that energy!!!

I thought I would play around with some gold leaf today. It's fun to work with, but very, very light weight so it blows away rather easily. Be sure to have a container to capture all the little pieces. You can continue to use them.

So for the first piece, I thought I would try gold leafing some egg shells. First I used an ink pad to create color on a heavy piece of bristol paper. I really like using ink pads to create a background color...

I spread tacky glue in three areas, placed the broken egg shells on those areas and pushed down making sure all the pieces had good contact with the glue...

After the glue dried and the egg shells held firm, I brushed on some gold leaf adhesive. By the way, this is very thin. This has to dry until tacky, anywhere from five to ten minutes. After that, I placed a piece of gold leaf over the egg shells and rubbed firmly...

Using a soft brush, I brushed away the pieces of gold leaf (into a container)...

Finally, I added antiquing with some brown and red dye using a soft cloth and carefully wiping off any excess. An interesting look. I was thinking next time I would paint the egg shell areas with a black acrylic paint and then carefully apply the adhesive to the egg shells only so the black would show through the gold leaf.

Next, I tried using an adhesive pen to draw on a card. Again I first used an ink pad to color the background...

The procedure is the same except the adhesive was applied with a pen. The first time I did not use enough adhesive as you can see...

So I reapplied the adhesive making sure there was a lot more on the card. I even added dots (a favorite of mine). A trick I tried was to create a small puddle of adhesive on another piece of paper and dip the end of the adhesive pen in it to make sure it was soaking. This time the design came through easily...

Finally, I created a flower using gold leaf. First the background and an outline with a black marker...

I used a brush this time to apply the adhesive. Once the gold leaf was applied, I did go over the outline again with a black marker. This really was quite striking. By the way, to cut down on the glare, I photographed the card from the side...

Gold leaf is a bit expensive, but a little goes a long way and you can capture and use all the little pieces that come off with the soft brush. It works great for small accents!

ZENTANGLE CHALLENGE: DAY THIRTY-EIGHT

Like I said yesterday, I may cover it all up...and I did. There are some gold accents though. And I am really not finished with this journal page yet. If you look hard, you can see some of both previous layers. Stay tuned for more...

I hope everyone has a great Fourth of July Holiday here in the States enjoying parades, picnics, concerts and, of course, fireworks. Be safe. Be happy. Be well.

Thanks for dropping in today...
I may, or may not, see you tomorrow.
If you have the time, check in and see.
At any rate, I will be back on Monday...

CRAFTING IDEAS

I am always looking for a small piece of paper to write down something which will later be disposed of. I decided to use some of the scrap paper of which I have a ton. I mostly use the paper for glueing projects. I decided to cut the paper into a small size. (Six pieces from a piece of copy paper.). But just having them sitting on my desk would get messy without a container. So, using a cardboard box, I cut it down to size and using a hot glue gun I glued the ends together. Using a picture from a magazine cut into pieces and stick craft glue, I glued the pieces to the box inside and out. I also used some decorative tape for the outside edges. And to finish the top corners which were not covered, I used straight pins with colorful tops. Looks nice and works well.

MAGAZINE IDEAS

(New) One article in the Farmer's Almanac 2024 is a list of trends. One I knew about is the trend to downsize in just about every area. Another trend that I was surprised about was called ''The Human Library' which offers people on loan to talk about specific subjects. Finally, more folks are adding pets to their family and as a result, stores are adding more pet food, toys and medication to their offerings. There's also a nice garden article which suggests mixing vegetables and flowers together for success.

RECIPE IDEAS

Have you every made Cherry Dump Cake. It calls for 2 cans of Cherry Pie Filling (21 ounces), a white cake mix, 1/4 -1/2 cup butter, melted & 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans. In a 9 by 13 pan, spread both cans of cherry pie filling. Add the melted butter to the cake mix and break apart the resulting mixture and crumble it evenly over the pie filling. Sprinkle the pecans evenly over the mixture. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35 - 45 minutes until the topping is golden brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Fast, easy and very delicious.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

What if you want to establish better habits, then decide what habit you want to work on. Again, try an easier one first for that good feeling of success. Let's consider more exercise. Start small. Don't try to run a marathon right away. Set the amount of time, the type of exercise and when to do it to begin making sure that it is within your reach. If it works for you each week add a bit more. Walking is one of the best ways to get good overall movement but there are many exercise videos on YouTube of varying lengths and difficulty to check out. Change your exercise routines to eliminate getting bored. For hardcore exercise with weights, give yourself a day in-between to recover. Even on days you would rather not exercise, do it and see if you feel better. It takes an average of 66 days to establish a habit. Just think 66 days to establish a good habit for a lifetime. Sounds like a good thing to me...how about you?