Small Ones, Tall Ones some as Big as Your Head.....Part 1

Yes, I know, showing my age with that title but it seemed appropriate to what I have been up to this week. I have had to work in my front room because a wonderful lady has been painting my kitchen following my husband's accident with a flaming grill pan a few weeks ago. Like a lot of houses my kitchen seems to lead into everywhere else and I did not plan very well for the disruption or the duration and I realise now why I hate camping!

This has meant trying to work on my lap in a very organised way while watching the French Open on television.

A couple of posts ago I asked how to cover tiny jars with material as I had just started messing around with potions for both my house and shop. I have moved on to the kitchen in my house and had this vision of jars of super ingredients filling the dresser and shelves. I then made the mistake of trying to dress both the bathroom and kitchen before really preparing what I needed.

I have found that I need to have everything to hand when I dress even the smallest piece of furniture, I cannot make items up as I go along. So I abandoned the kitchen, left gaps in the bathroom and set to with scenic water and fimo deco gel.

I filled a few jars with odd thing I had to hand, herbs, beads, ends of fimo canes etc, the odd fimo bits I seem to have accumulated and began to play. The deco gel is used straight from the tube and is then baked at a very low temperature so I read, and can be coloured with oil paint in very small , very small quantities. sounds easy I thought. I poured into egg cups, added paint and mixed, oh dear they did mean very small quantities, much smaller than I had thought. Literally the tip of a cocktail stick.

Start again. Much better colour. Hmmm now how to transfer into these very small jars.....Ahh now I remember why I bought those syringes! Now play hunt the syringes. Finally I have some jars filled and in the oven baking on my glass tile. 20 minutes later I remove and they have cooked. It worked but the deco gel goes very cloudy, it looks like soap or creamy lotion to me so if the jar is filled you can't really make out what is inside.

Then I turn to the scenic water. I have wanted to play with this for about two years, which is when I bought it! Instructions tell me to heat, colour and pour. All very simple. So I pour a small amount into my egg cup, melt in microwave for 15 seconds and it melts beautifully but removing it is difficult cos the egg cup is red hot! Oven gloves no good for removing egg cups. Kitchen top now covered in gloop and I am running fingers under the tap!

Start again. Egg cup on plate, gloop melts, remove carefully with folded tea towel. I didn't add colouring first but transferred hot scenic water, in syringes to jars. I liked this effect as the ingredients could be seen really clearly.

Now I was on a roll. Out came the herbs plus anything that looked like it would fit in a jar. I mixed all the colours and glooped and syringed for all I was worth. I had great fun. Some worked some didn't, the kitchen looked like a scene from CSI but what the hell it was being painted the following week.

And this is what I have been doing while the kitchen is being painted. I was a bit embarrassed when a syringe was discovered under the microwave. I think she believed me!

Here are some of my new jars. Part 2 tomorrow, the one in which lids become airbourne!