So I ended up spending only one long day on the floor at CHA. And during that day I did demos for Streuter and our book, A Charming Exchange, at F&W.
Streuter is a company local to me. I discovered them through this wonderful girl...
Bernie was working with Streuter making awesome ATCs with their super cool glue foil and adhesive film. And, they needed another artist so I joined in the fun.
Here's a photo Bernie got of me at my easel...
Here's a photo Bernie got of me at my easel...
I worked on a mixed media portrait on a big piece of wood for about six hours that day. Streuter makes the most excellent glue sheet. It comes in packs of two 12" x 12" sheets and is heat activated. It looks sort of like a rubbery sheet of wax paper. You can cut it, punch it, run it through a cutting machine to get just the shape of glue you want. Then heat it with your craft iron or heat gun to liquify it. I was tearing cutting it into the shapes of different papers I wanted to include as I built my piece. I would sandwich the adhesive sheet between the painting substrate and the paper I wanted to adhere. Then I took a craft iron and ironed the paper which would melt the glue underneath and adhere the adhere.
There were two things I really loved about this product. First, there was no down time while waiting for it to dry like there is with gel medium. You heat it, it cools right away, and that's it. All done. Also, I like to use a lot of old papers in my work. I find that when I use old papers and gel medium the papers sort of suck of the medium causing faulty adherence. If I am trying to glue down a whole page from a book, for instance, with gel medium, I have to glue in sections. Otherwise, I end up with bubbles underneath that are not adhered.
But with Streuter's adhesive film I just ironed the pages completely flat to my substrate in seconds. It really rocked! Seriously. I'll be using it again.
The other product I worked with was their glue foil. It is a sheet of metal foil that has the adhesive film on the back. So you can cut your shapes out of foil, iron them one, and you are done. In the above photo I used aluminum over cardboard to create the blocks along both sides of the piece.
There were two things I really loved about this product. First, there was no down time while waiting for it to dry like there is with gel medium. You heat it, it cools right away, and that's it. All done. Also, I like to use a lot of old papers in my work. I find that when I use old papers and gel medium the papers sort of suck of the medium causing faulty adherence. If I am trying to glue down a whole page from a book, for instance, with gel medium, I have to glue in sections. Otherwise, I end up with bubbles underneath that are not adhered.
But with Streuter's adhesive film I just ironed the pages completely flat to my substrate in seconds. It really rocked! Seriously. I'll be using it again.
The other product I worked with was their glue foil. It is a sheet of metal foil that has the adhesive film on the back. So you can cut your shapes out of foil, iron them one, and you are done. In the above photo I used aluminum over cardboard to create the blocks along both sides of the piece.
And, in this detail photo, you can see that I used black foil to create her hair. In person it really looks cool. It looks like patent leather. The piece is far from finished. I think I will bust out some embossing tools and put a story in her hair. We'll see where she takes me.
Over at the F&W booth Ruth and I made jewelry for an hour.
We also mugged for the camera quite a bit.
Sweet Kristen took these wacky pictures of us.
We brought some of the jewelry from the book.
And did demos of some of the projects. We met some awesome jewelry enthusiasts from Germany, Australia, and the US. It was lovely to meet them all.
And here we are trying to behave ourselves with all these fabulous F&W authors.
L to R: Me (Kelly) Tonia Davenport, Alisa Burke, Traci Bautista, and Ruth
Over at the F&W booth Ruth and I made jewelry for an hour.
We also mugged for the camera quite a bit.
Sweet Kristen took these wacky pictures of us.
We brought some of the jewelry from the book.
And did demos of some of the projects. We met some awesome jewelry enthusiasts from Germany, Australia, and the US. It was lovely to meet them all.
And here we are trying to behave ourselves with all these fabulous F&W authors.
L to R: Me (Kelly) Tonia Davenport, Alisa Burke, Traci Bautista, and Ruth
Everyone is shouting to me to get off here and get in the car. We going out with our family for dinner. I hope you have a beautiful time wherever you are.
Ohhhh....ahhhh....drool....slobber! The painting you were working on is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME! The hair is the coolest! Oh man, absolutely jaw dropping, girl! You know my birthday is in May. I'd be happy to drive down there to pick up my present...chuckle!!! No seriously, my birthday is in May...! Snort!
I'm glad you had fun and experimented with new things at CHA! :)
Cool Hair Hugs, Tam
Posted by: Tamara C. | January 31, 2009 at 06:38 PM
Kelly, you look fabulous in all these photos! And wonderful art, as well. When I'm in London, will have to look out for that glue product. And I see you know my friend Kristen. Isn't she the best??!! Looks like you both had a great time at Cha.
Posted by: Paris Parfait | February 01, 2009 at 02:43 AM
How cute you all are! Looks like you had a great time...
Posted by: Deryn Mentock | February 01, 2009 at 04:44 PM
Cool painting! I've used the adhesive film and it's excellent, but I've never seen the foil.
Posted by: Cindy Ericsson | February 01, 2009 at 08:44 PM
You are all so cute!!! I swear I want you to do wardrobe shopping for me, your clothes always look perfect.
Very interesting products, I need to try these as I *hate* bubbles in my work.
Posted by: Mary Beth | February 02, 2009 at 03:41 AM
You look super fab painting that gorgous gree fay. I love what you did with the hair. The glue sheets sound awesome. I need to pick up some of those! I hope you post the final incarnation on your gal.I would love to know what she looks like at the end. : D
Posted by: pilar | February 02, 2009 at 07:46 PM
It looks like you all had a fabulous time! Love the painting :)
Posted by: Annette PIper | February 02, 2009 at 10:51 PM
kudos to you Kelly!
Posted by: Tally Oliveau | February 03, 2009 at 10:24 PM
Wowzer Kelly - beautiful painting! It looks like you guys had a gas! I'll live vicariously through your blog, if you don't mind!
Posted by: Trudi | February 05, 2009 at 07:27 PM