Friday 28 May 2010

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!




14 comments:

  1. You work like me! I can tend to get things out as and when I need them, and another time I am completely organised and have everything I want to hand! lol :o))

    I love the large jars, where did you buy those, really big large jars are not that easy to find. I love the green bean jar, they look just like olives and I love the label too! :o)

    Michelle ;o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Michelle, we are both up late as usual!
    These jars are not that large they are the smallest I have used. I will show the larger ones tomorrow.
    I have mostly ordered them from My Tiny World as they came with lids. They are a little expensive when you consider what they are but they are hand blown so the quality is fab.
    Then some of them are your basic Streets Ahead jars, really cheap from Ebay.
    The really large ones I have used , about 2 inches high I got from The Range, a chain of home stores which have a craft section. They were in the kids section and full of tiny beads. Six large jars for about £1.99 I think. If this is the sort of size you want let me know cos I am going back there this week to get another pack for myself so I can easily pick up some for you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh my gosh these came out great! I've always wanted to try the scenic water thing but the bottle I bought a year ago I found a few months ago with a broken lid and goop everywhere... what a mess! Can't wait to see the rest you made!

    ReplyDelete
  4. They look great! I have a jar of scenic water and plan to play with it one of these days so thanks for the advice and warningns :D

    ReplyDelete
  5. Arh, I know My Tiny World and we have a Range up the road not that far from us too! I need some large ones to go on the floor, so many thanks for the info. much appreciated.

    If you could be pick me some up (just incase ours Range doesn't have them!), Id love about 12 (so two sets?). Let me know about money etc.

    Yup, I like staying up late, but I hate getting up early! lol

    Michelle xx

    ReplyDelete
  6. Janice your little Jars look Fab.
    Janice when you mix the colours, and have any left of the Scenic water. Suck it up into a syringe and when it goes cold and solid you can store it, till you need it again. The just stand the syringes in very hot water to melt it. xxx

    ReplyDelete
  7. you are much more organised than me! and it obviously works as a technique cos youve had great results :o) although the spidey jar/pickled tick looks far too realistic for my liking!! LOL I must have a go at filling the hundreds of jars I have here to go in my potions room, so thanx for the inspiration :o) x

    ReplyDelete
  8. They are brilliant :-) I could do with some for my wizards tower :-) Thank you for your comment on my Dobby sculpture :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. They look great! You must have had fun with this project. I've never tried anything like that.

    And what great purchases you have made as of late. :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi ladies life seems to have got in the way the last couple of days.

    Hi Debbie. Thank you for the tip, I did seem to have quite a lot of waste.

    Hi Wendie. The scenic water was much easier to use than I thought it would be, especially once I got going. It's fun too!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Dale I have been a bit busy with the credit card but I just couldn't resist!

    ReplyDelete
  12. This really looks like fun! Messy, but that's the way real good stuff comes about!
    Your jars are great! Tops and all!

    ReplyDelete
  13. A girl has got to have fun. :)

    ReplyDelete

I really appreciate all comments that readers take the time to leave. I try to reply to all of them.