Inspiration Avenue: homage to needlecraft

I'm a day early with my Inspiration Avenue challenge entry this week because tomorrow, my usual day I post my challenge entry, is Veteran's Day. This week, for our Inspiration Avenue challenge, Hettienne asked us to pay homage to needlecraft. Originally, I was going to turn one of my empty thread spools into a message keepsake, but I simply didn't have time to plan out and make something I've never made before, especially since I was gone all day yesterday and will be gone most of today (Thursday).

I had intended to make a new "Mess in a Bag" as I call my dresses, but these take at least eight days, which means I didn't have time to make one in time to enter it in the challenge. However, I had just finished one and sent it to a friend, so I hope she doesn't see it on my blog (grin).

Although I took no photos of the piece I made for my friend, here is how I made it, based on one I made about a month ago.


You begin with Liquid Nails or caulk (which I used), a zip locking bag, and a bit of water.

Place your caulk and a bit of water in a bag. The amount of water you use will be something you will have to play with. I've made three of these and haven't gotten it right yet! I keep ending up with too much water in the mix.

Add your doll or infant dress and knead the bag, getting complete coverage of the caulk and water. Allow to sit unattended for at least a day until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Pour off the excess liquid, knead a bit more, then remove as much air from the bag as possible, and allow the dress to sit in the bag for at least five days.


When the dress has set for a week, remove it from the bag and position it on your substrate. You should not need any glue unless you don't immediately affix it to your substrate. Position the piece on the substrate as you want it to be when dry. If you want a subtle look, paint the dress while it is still wet.


Allow the dress to dry for at least two days in the position you want it to dry in. That means if you want to hang the piece, you will need to stand it up to dry. When completely dry, paint the dress using acrylics, if you have not already added paint.


This is the piece I just finished. I'm not sure you can tell, but this dress is quite dimensional because I shaped the bodice. In addition to the above directions, I added pink paint to the caulk and the water when I originally placed the doll dress in the bag and kneaded. This is a tip-in that is going to a friend in a color swap. Her colors are orange and pink and the size of the tip-in is 8 inches by 11 inches or about A4.

I hope this is not too far fetched to be considered for this challenge. It was a difficult one to comprehend what was really expected, so I went by the examples Hettienne gave us.

WOYWW #127 in my basement studio

It's been two weeks since I joined Julia and the rest of my mostly British friends for What's On Your Workdesk on Wednesday. I hope I can stay awake to link up, because I must be up early in the morning and out the door by 6:30 a.m. my time.


As you can see, I'm in the planning stage of working in my basement studio now that it is finally ship-shape. I'm getting ready to make some art using my latest purchase, which is joint compound. I tried to use a similar product I got free at my local Household Hazardous Waste Swap and Shop, which turned out to be unsatisfactory and didn't work. So I finally bit the bullet and bought the right product at Home Depot, a big box "home improvement" store here in the U.S. While I was getting the joint compound out of the bag, I was distracted by the aromatherapy kit I found on one of my shelves


that makes both soap and candles. Looks like the box has been through a flood. Well, yes, as a matter of fact, it has! But I am planning to make a few gifts from this kit because the soap and candle crystals did not get wet, nor did the molds. Even though the soap is the microwave melt kind, not the type that mixes oil and lye together that I'm used to making, I think a few of my non-artistic friends will appreciate either a Christmas candle or bar of soap. And to welcome in the festive season is the cute snowman with the rocking horse in a snow globe. Yes, I count it as one of my approximately 450 rocking horses.



Although the joint compound wasn't at the Household Hazardous Waste Swap and Shop, I did manage to pick up a Liquid Nails and caulk cartridge that have never been opened and a cartridge of caulk that has been opened. These should be easier to use for making my caulk dresses (or mess in a bag as I've called this project in the past), because I can use my caulk gun for easy removal, even though it is ratcheted, which makes stopping the caulk a bit messy. All in all, I have a few projects to work on now that it's time to bring my art inside. And being in the basement this winter will hopefully be warm and toasty, since it's still quite warm from this summer.

I hope everyone has a lovely WOYWW and I will try to visit as soon as I have a free moment this week. And before you ask, I can't get that clock hiding under the shelf to work. Seems the battery fused to the mechanism and rusted. Chock it up to water damage!

WOYWW One-Two-OH

Last week, I promised to show my WOYWWer friends the completed project that was in my sealed plastic bag. If you aren't sure what a WOYWW is, go to Julia's Stamping Ground and check out a bunch of links to participants' Wednesday work desks.

To make this post as short as possible, I will refer you to this previous blog post I call Mess in a Bag, where I explain how I made this assemblage from a baby tee, caulk, water, and fluid acrylic paint, on a decorated chipboard substrate.


Also last week, I explained I had a few rocking horses left I could show. I am not sure how many of them I have brought to your attention, but I know I've never shown these two.


However, I may have shown one or both of these painted wooden horses that are definite siblings to the wooden one I brought out today. I have several of the ceramic rockers (shown in the first photo above) that are made by Hallmark. The only difference is the color of the gilding.


And because I know you can't really see the assemblage due to the light on my dining room table (which became my work desk today),


I'm trying to show it a bit closer. Click any photo to enlarge.


I realize my camera leaves something to be desired, but hopefully, you'll be able to see the details in one of these photos. Although I didn't get enough caulk on the tee, it still stiffened up quite nicely, after I positioned it and set the assemblage out to dry before I painted it. Have a super Wednesday everyone!

Mess in a bag

I decided to try a technique I saw in Stampington, but like many techniques I try, I didn't have the required materials. The "recipe" called for Liquid Nails, but I knew I didn't have any. So I went on the internet to see if there was a difference between Liquid Nails and caulk. I couldn't find a thing, not a comparison, not even a chemical breakdown. So I decided to proceed full speed ahead. For this first part of the technique, I used Kwik Seal white caulk, which was all I had, along with some water and plastic bags. Originally, I was going to make three different batches of caulk and water, but I quickly learned there was probably not enough caulk for even one batch!


The instructions were to put the Liquid Nails (caulk in my case) and water in a zippered plastic bag and knead until the caulk and water were mixed well. Of course, I ran into a mess right off the bat because the Ziplock bag I managed to get the caulk into (boy that stuff is sticky, gooey, and hard to control) developed a hole that I noticed as soon as I added a bit of water. After kneading and mixing, I forgot to take a photo of the child's top you can see barely peep out below the doubled plastic bags.


Because I forgot to show the top before I added it to the bags, I tried to open the bags enough to show it before I kneaded the top with the caulk and water mix.


The next step was to remove the excess water and return the piece to the plastic bag and seal it for a few days. However, there was no excess water and the caulk mixture didn't begin to cover the shirt. My only hope was



the piece would magically take on that wonderful texture I saw in the magazine.



While I was waiting for the caulk and water mixture to penetrate the baby tee, I auditioned some rick rack I wanted to use as an embellishment.


After five days, I removed the tee from the baggie and placed it on a piece of chipboard which was actually the back of one of my watercolor paper tablets. I covered the backing with tissue paper that I further covered with fluid acrylics and gesso. I also forgot to photograph the backing, too.



According to the instructions, you should dry the piece in the position you want to display it. So I stood the piece and now I'm just waiting to see if it does anything. I feel I needed a lot more caulk than I used, so next time I will probably invest in Liquid Nails or a bigger container of caulk. Right now, it's a bit of a mess, quite gooey and limp, but hopefully it will be ready in time for Wednesday, since so many WOYWWers want to see the finished project.

Also on Wednesday, I will be joining Seth Apter for his latest blog collaboration, this time called Paper Stacks. So I will have two posts on Wednesday, since I can't seem to think of a way to combine both posts. It should be a fun venture!