Packaging - making unique bags

Just recently, I needed to restock on some of my packaging. While browsing patterned paper bags, I came across some favour bags. They were made with embossed paper and were just the kind of thing I would love for my own packaging. They were expensive though for something I use a lot of, so I set about finding out how I could make embossed bags without them costing a fortune.

During my search, I found something I've never come across before, embossing folders. They are a folding sheet of plastic with a raised pattern on one side, and a recessed opposite on the other. The idea is, you put a piece of paper, or whatever you want to emboss in the folder and run it through a machine to imprint the pattern. Perfect! The only problem was, I didn't want to fork out £80 for the embossing machine to try something out! I sat thinking about it for a while and it hit me... I have a pasta machine, that was a roller! I chose the pattern I liked and some plain bags and prayed my posties would be good and deliver everything quickly.

Thankfully they did, and here's how I got on with my idea...

This is the embossing folder. You can see the feather pattern which will be imprinted on the bag. As I said earlier, this is two sheets of plastic with a hinge at the top and the bag is put in between them.

The whole thing is then fed into the pasta machine. It needs to be a tight fit so that the pattern is embossed, but not too tight that it won't roll through.

I discovered on the first attempt, that it was better to clamp the machine right on the front edge of the table. If you're using a long folder, it will hit the base of the pasta machine, so you need to gently bend it out so that the whole thing will pass through. Putting it right at the edge means it won't hit the table when you bend it.

Once through, you can open up the folder.

And here are the finished bags. I'm really pleased with how they turned out!

The bags are slightly transparent, so you can see the tissue paper I've wrapped the beads in which I think is a nice effect. They are finished off with a handmade sticker and they're ready to go!

I hope you've enjoyed following along with my experiments, and I'd love to see some pictures if you have a go yourself!

Caroline

http://www.blueberribeads.co.uk

About my not-so-secret addiction: Murrini

I have a problem....an addiction. I'm pretty sure if my family knew the extent of my addiction, they would probably have an intervention. Until they discover my secret, I have no intention of ever giving it up. Because I'm not a quitter.

What am I talking about? Murrini. 

What is murrini? Basically it's a glass cane that can be simple, or very complex pictures in glass. When the cane is cut, the design is revealed. These little slices of glass cane are used in the creation of glass beads, pendants, rings, or even dinnerware. 

Here's an uncut cane by West County Glass on Etsy

Here's what the design looks like through the entire length of the cane: 

Even if you aren't a glassworker, you can tell that these things would take patience. More patience than I possess. That's why I buy murrini already made and cut up for me so I can make the beads and not mess around with making cane to make beads. 

My current obsession (and one that has been going strong for a while now) is to make headpins with the murrini. Here's a recent batch:

I also used them on the charms I made for the charm swap and Beads of Courage benefit auction:

How about using some on a skeleton key? But of course!

I thought maybe I would show how I work with these little guys.

First of all, when introduced to an 1800 degree flame, they have a tendency to pop apart. When working with "soft" glass (my glass of choice), it is a little cranky about being cold then put into a flame.

So to start with, I will pre warm them on a candle/mug warmer or even on top of the kiln when it's heated up to the temps (950F) that I garage my beads at before doing the anneal cycle.

oooh! Look at all the pretty murrini (and no, this is nowhere near how much I really have on hand any given day...).

When I have the base ready to go for a murrini slice, I pick up these angled forceps

Grab the murrini by the edge (this is kind of tricky). And hold the side I want to put onto the bead above the flame. Even though I've pre warmed the murrini, they will still pop and crack apart. I hate it when that happens. So the intro has to be slow and gentle.

But it's a dance. While I'm getting the murrini warm, I also need to spot heat the base so the glass is sticky and adheres to the murrini slice. If the murrini slice gets too warm while holding it with the forceps, it will stick to the forceps and possibly get distorted (depending on how hot I let it get). If it isn't warm enough, it will crack when put on the base or not stick at all.

One of the skills vital to a lampworker is learning heat control and how to "read" the glass. And just like anything else, it gets easier the more you practice and the more mistakes you make. And trust me, I've made a lot.

These little slices of glass make me so happy. And when I make a bunch of them, it's like a bouquet of tiny round flowers.

Stay warm, friends!

-Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions

Upcycling - Part Two

In my last post, I showed you some raw electrical copper and some small ceramic tiles I was planning on upcycling into a new creation.  I wanted to show you my progress.

This is the raw copper I was using from an electrical job I worked on.  It's 12 gauge copper, I determined, so it needed to be annealed before I could do anything with it!

 This is the copper after annealing and hammering.

 This is the copper after adding some texture.  Have to anneal again to make it straight!

 Copper after being annealed, it has a lot of firescale on it.  You can get rid of this easily with pickle.  I use warm pickle, I don't have a pickle pot so I just make a fresh batch each time. Maybe some day I'll get myself a pot just for pickle!

  This is the copper after pickling, then patinating with Liver of Sulphur, and doing a light sand on it to bring out highlights.  Filed the ends to make them smooth.  Then I sealed it with renaissance wax.

 Arranging the tiles.  I found out E6000 glue will not stick to a piece polished with renaissance wax, so I had to sand the area where the tiles were going to go.

 Making sure I like the placement of the tiles.

 These tiles are finally glued on.  I now have to decide what type of necklace to make with this pendant.  I really like it as a statement to what you can do with "spare parts" but don't know that I would actually wear something like this - would you?

Susan Kennedy
SueBeads

Shard Babies All Grown Up

On October 29, 2013, I shared some recent experiments with you, where I was attempting to capture the look of ancient pottery shards in metal:

Most of these pieces have since "grown up" into finished jewelry. I wanted to share the finished pieces with you!

After I got my patinas the way I wanted them (which included, on some of the pieces, a whisper of gilder's paste over the top to bring up some pattern), I sealed each one with three coats of Permalac and a coat of Renaissance Wax on the front (which darkened the colors nicely) and one coat of Permalac on the back, which I left as bare, burnished copper. The two green pieces and the teal piece also got several coats of Age-It over the top (available from Sculpt Nouveau--I LOVE this stuff, it's like tea-staining, but for metal patinas.)

Here are the creative homes they eventually found. This piece includes amethyst nuggets and Indonesian glass in a lovely cinnamon color from Happy Mango Beads. (I've been totally into making bar chain, linked with wire wrapped beads.)

Jacob's Grape-a-Licious Ladder

This one has carnelian, amethyst, red agate, golden jasper, carnelian, bronzite and a sea urchin spine. And more bar chain.

Aztec Sun

I paired this one with rhyolite, prehnite, Czech glass, dragon's blood jasper, Indonesian glass, and I think green opal. I've been doing this knotting thing, where I put one strand through the bead, and the other one around the bead, and tie a half hitch at the end, and then a regular overhand knot with both strands, and then on to the next bead, alternating which strand goes in/around the bead. It makes for an interesting jumbly, nubbly, irregular pattern.

Leafy Greens

This one has lots of recycled glass and Indonesian glass (all from Happy Mango Beads) and one of my favorite Karen Totten (AJE member) beads:

English Garden

For this one I went with sunset colors, with carved flowers in poppy jasper, tiger eye, fancy jasper, and red agate; red creek jasper, red picture jasper, moukaite jasper (I'm all about jasper, apparently), and a dash of Indonesian glass in amber.

Sunset Bouquet

For this one below, I channeled my inner Leprechaun. I chose large, irregular turquoise heishi, prehnite discs, celery green and blue-green kyanite, emerald green aventurine, golden jasper (I'm making that up, I don't know what those little goldenrod-colored stones are), peridot, moukaite, "prehnite" chalcedony (on the clasp ring), and a fabulous handcrafted porcelain leaf by Karen Totten (I actually started this with just the focal and Karen's leaf, and riffed off that). I've been doing this thing with my own oversized, tube-riveted bead tips (those are the copper tabs at the end of the knotted portions).

Interview with a Leprechaun

For this one, I decided to go hog-wild with my sterling silver stash. I hadn't been using it partly because of price, and partly because of my love affair with copper, but I figured, hey--the money's already gone, might as well use it; and I just thought the teal and turquoise cried out for silver. I went with more more of my turquoise heishi, a flat turquoise drop, kyanite, African turquoise, green apatite, bronzite and pale topaz Czech glass (the color makes me think of whiskey and soda) to draw out the browns in the focal (purely serendipitous--this came from the Age-It treatments, I didn't use any brown patinas). For both this piece and the one above, I used a deliciously rustic, undyed Irish waxed linen cording from White Clover Kiln that's slightly thicker than the other shades of Irish waxed linen. I recently got a huge spool of it from Mary so now I can go crazy with it! And notice more bar chain, this time with double-ended ball headpins wrapped around the middles.

Treasure of Tenochtitlan

Phew! Seven down, two to go...Thanks for looking!

(The ones with links above (in the captions) are still available in my shop, Lune. The items without links are already sold.)

Keirsten
Lunedesigns
The Cerebral Dilettante
Keirsten's Flickr Photostream