Happy New Year! Time for a fresh start filled with new goals and resolutions and new projects waiting to be tackled. But what about the projects that started 2011 (or even previous years) with such promise and just got set aside for one reason or another? Well, last week - the final week of 2011 - I decided to try to at least make a little dent in my pile of half finished projects. Here's what I got done:
1 - Heart Tile Glaze Samples - You can't really tell the true color of ceramic glazes until they are fired so I had been wanting to make up some sample tiles of my collection of glazes for a long time now. I had made lots of white clay heart tiles a while back but had never gotten around to actually glazing and firing them.
Hearts A Fire
I used a ceramic pencil to jot the glaze details on the blank back of each tile. It took about two hours to glaze a tray of sixty tiles and then another four hours to fire in the kiln. Now it'll be easy to select my colors next time I start a ceramic piece!
Hearts A Fire
Total time of project spent in half-finished project pile - 12 years for the glazes (how long I've been meaning to make samples) / 3 years for the heart tiles (how long ago I actually made them).
Ay-yi-yi. Is that ever embarrassing.
2 - Finishing Up Resin Stained Glass Mirrors - These little guys had been languishing on a shelf practically done except for needing some final finishing touches. I had already done all of the hard parts of making the mosaics and pouring the resin coating. All that was needed was to remove the resin drips along the inside openings so that the mirror glass could lie flat against the front of the frame. A few minutes with a craft knife removed the drips and then the mirror glass was able to fit beautifully. I secured the back of the mirror glass with a bead of hot glue and then covered up the back of each mirror with a piece of black paper. The last thing to do was to add the hanging hardware. Hooray! These babies are finally ready to hang!
Mirror Mirror Mirror On The Shelf Wall
Total time of project spent in half-finished project pile - 5 years.
A long time but not as bad as those dang heart glaze tiles!
3 - Hot Foil Pen Experiments - I purchased this "Hot Foil Pen" by Staedtler eons ago but had never actually played with it. It is a battery operated pen that heats up to melt plastic backed sheets of foil onto all kinds of surfaces. Boy! What took me so long to try out this great little tool?
Oooh Shiny!
I tried the pen and foil on paper, wood and leather and was delighted with the results. It takes a little bit to get used to but now I've got tons of ideas of things to make!
Total time of project spent in half-finished project pile - 4 years.
Although to be fair, this was more of a tool test than a project and although it's now off my to-do list, I have now added to the project list at least three things that I want to make with this pen and foil.
4 - Leather Color Swatches - OK, this one wasn't on the half-finished pile for very long but I was just in a leather crafting mood and this was a good excuse project. I painted purchased leather rectangles with all of my leather stains and dyes and then strung them with bead chain to make little color sample sets.
I Want Shoes In All These Colors!
I stamped some of the leather pieces with the names of the colors and all of them I labeled on the back with a Sharpie. Aw man, now I want to go make some leather items!
Total time of project spent in half-finished project pile - 6 months.
Whew! It felt good to get some of these projects done although I only wish that the interest paid on my bank accounts compounded as quickly as my craft list seems to grow. Happy New Year and may your year be blessed with lots of adventures, laughter, joy and welcome surprises!
