Deadlines!

Are you like me? You know you want to do something....enter a contest, submit to a magazine.....and you just wait and wait and then you think, "No way can I get that done in 2 days!!!"

????

Gotcha, didn't I? I swear, I always thought I was so guilty of this. I've worked in an office for 33 years and I would wait til Friday morning to create a report that was due at 8 am that morning! OK - I often made the report at 8:15 am.....always a bit late! My excuse....they got the latest information that way! LOLOL!!!!

Well guess what? Amaco has extended their deadline for their CHA challenge to November 18!!! Now, absolutely NO excuses! I have Friendly Plastic here in my little store and you can have it on Thursday if you ship it priority mail. And even if you want first class - you'd have it on Monday!

And I still have 3 of Liz's books and 1 of Sarah's DVDs , so if you need instruction, we can even help you with that.

I'm going to host TWO more play days if you live in Colorado! There's going to be another Friendly Plastic party this Saturday, November 7, in Eagle CO. And then I'll do one on Thursday, November 12, here in Lafayette in my studio. Everything is provided - you just come make a butterfly or piece of jewelry that we can submit to the Children's Memorial in Houston!

Email if you want to attend either of these events.....or if you want to place an order for Friendly Plastic!

I have to wonder how far they might extend the definition of a butterfly for the project! Meet "Miss" These Wings Weren't Meant for Flying!"

Now yes, that's a butterfly cookie cutter I used for her wings with Liz's ooooooooze technique. I just think she is absolutely adorable! I'd like to see a whole series of butterfly girls.....anyone want to join me? And remember, I can't compete - so I'm just giving away all my ideas for you to copy! OK - the doll is Liz's, the oooze is Liz's - my idea was to assemble them to create a butterfly girl and I think she is beyond adorable!

Stay tuned as I've got a few more ideas to share!

Friendly Plastic books and DVDs for sale

When Liz Welch was here, she bought so much stuff that she didn't have room in her bags to take home the DVDs and books she brought to sell. So I am selling them for her!!! Trust me...these are a limited edition as far as getting cheap shipping within the US! It's first come, first serve for sure! Some of these have even been signed!

First up is her DVD - Bend it Shape it $25.00 plus shipping (I'm happy to send priority mail or media rate)

"Create texture with Friendly Plastic by stamping in to it with rubber stamps, thick lace or objects around the home.

Join strips together to create wonderful patchwork effects.....

Use moulds to shape and form the plastic......

Try Liz's unique lacework technique.....

and oooze......

90 minutes, so loads and loads of ideas in this one!

SOLD OUT!!!

Then I have several copies of her book: Friendly Plastic for Starters. $15.00 45 pages. In this book, Liz shows you how to do moulding, cutting, stamping, piecing, rolling, modelling, manipulating and layering. Projects include patchwork, mosaics, texture tiles and beads. She also has a whole section on finishing your piece.

ONLY 2 LEFT!!!

Liz also left a few DVDs by her good friend Sarah Lawrence. This first one, "The Decorated Surface", is $25.00. 90 minutes. In this DVD, Sarah will show you how to create texture and drama with paint and scraping tools, how to color and decorate all sorts of surfaces including wood, plastic and fabric. She uses found objects as printing tools and will show you how to use rubber bands to make background surfaces. She incorporates Friendly Plastic, foils, bottlecaps and shrink plastic into her art. Again - it's called the decorated surface and that's just what she's doing - decorating surfaces!

ONLY ONE LEFT!!!

And then there is just ONE of this DVD - "Simply Fused" $22.00. Sarah will show you how to use Angelina and Crystalina fibres. Ok, we know them as Fantasy Fibers by Art Glitter.

SOLD OUT!!!

So, if you want to order these, simply send an email to me at jlowe54@gmail.com and list which product you want by title. Include your zip code, tell me whether you want priority or media rate mail, and include your paypal email. I will create an invoice and email it to you via paypal. And since this is Saturday, and the mail is already closed here, these won't go out until Monday. As we sell out, I'll come back to this blog and add notes.

How fun that I can sell these for Liz - it makes it seem like she's still right here!!!

Party lag

....it has to be something similar to "jet lag"? Where a few days after you travel somewhere you just can't function? I think I'm going through "party lag" today! Linda and I were up til 2 am and then the phone rang at 7:30 am and I just cannot function yet today!

So instead of editing photos and writing yet another story.....I read what Liz Welch wrote about the weekend and I do believe it sums up the whole event in such a wonderful way!

Grab your coffee and click the link below and have fun reading all about our fabulous weekend of play!!!

Rarelizzzie's Blog

You can order the cutters that Liz talks about here:

Rare Bird Ltd

The one she used is "Arabesque"

Yep, just let it snow! LOL!!!

Of all weekends....it snowed the night the Starving Artists Playground started! Last year...we had it the second weekend in October and we were eating on the back deck. NOT this year!!! And the temp dropped soooooo cold! The high for the weekend was 48 degrees!!!

We simply moved our meals to my garage. Yep, still pretty cold, so I fired up the kerosun and made a "campfire" circle around the heater!

Everyone brought their lawn chairs and folding chairs to help out. And that table is just loaded with all the gift bags and door prizes for the whole weekend - how fun is that?
But I decided that our snow was going to work to our advantage and actually came up with a new "technique" making snowflakes using our snow! Are you ready for this?

And may I point out - this is the advantage of the whole concept of a playshop. You don't really know what the "professor" is going to do until you walk into class as they have the "right" to change their final project right up to the last minute. So, I literally came up with this idea the day of my playshop....all due to the snow outside all over the back deck!

Here's a look at one of the snowflakes. I used Friendly Plastic and felt and mylar blossoms from Creative Impressions.

I simply laid 1/16" strips of rainbow Friendly Plastic in patterns on top of and underneath of the felt and mylar blossoms, used a heat gun to melt them together. (Note: you have to do this in layers as you cannot apply heat to mylar - it will melt!)

I also cut a tiny square of Friendly Plastic and softened it using the skillet method and draped it over a Creative Impressions brad, then used my needle tool to shape it to the brad to make the center flower for this flake:

Here's another flake that I put together:

Because we were using felt flowers....you can't really dip it into cold water to cool the plastic. So we took our snowflakes on our silpat sheets and laid them on top of the snow to cool.

Here's Rose, who flew in all the way from Wales just to play.....cooling down her snowflake. (I know - what on earth is she doing in a sleeveless shirt??? Does she not understand the concept of freezing weather? LOL!)

and here's one where we shaped spirals of Friendly Plastic around our needle tools and attached them using the water method.....this flake is about 6" across so it's quite large!

Now I suppose that you could dip your felt into cold water and allow it to dry....but we opted to take advantage of our snow and I think everyone enjoyed the idea that we made good use of the snow for a "new" way of cooling Friendly Plastic!

Yep - bring on that snow! Let the temps drop to below freezing. If nothing else, the weekend was filled with adaptive, creative artists who played for more than 48 hours straight!

Yesterday, I took Jana, Liz and Linda up to Estes Park to "hunt" for Elk. Just wait til you see how close Linda got to a 14 or 16 point buck! Closer than I cared to go! And yes, Rose, "hunt for Elk" is NOT a new term for "shopping" - although we did stop by to see Cheryl's new store!

Quite sadly we then took Liz back to DIA for her flight home to the UK. Liz, you were sorely missed last night - I wish you could have stayed forever. OK - just move in with me and we will play all day long! I'm qute certain your hubby can find work in Denver! LOL!!!

Today - another very small playgroup coming over to experiment with Jana, Linda and myself. I have declared this to be a jammie day - as in sweats and thick socks - no makeup.....we are just going to have fun!

Ah! Life is good!!!

Stay tuned for more photos and tales from our Starving Artist's Playground!!!

I can't keep up!

There is so much going on.....so fast....and it's so much fun!!! Found Jana at the airport and waited forever for Liz's flight to get in.....

Got them here and set up and ready to play......

Liz made the cutest little mini books out of Friendly Plastic
It really is a book!

and gave me this wonderful bracelet all made of Friendly Plastic!

more gifts and fun tomorrow - stay tuned. I'm having a really hard time remembering to use my camera.....which just means that I'm having a blast!

The Starving Artist Playground starts in TWO Days! I am finally ready! All I want to do is just play!!!

Friendly Plastic - oh baby (doll)!!!

This is just too cute. Can you tell I'm just having way too much fun? Linda brought the doll on the left with her...it was made by her friend, Liz Welch. You can see a better display of Liz's dolls here:

Friendly Plastic Blog

The one on the right is mine. Not too bad for my first doll.

Differences, to be sure, but maybe that's what I am liking about this medium!

So then I decided I wanted to make a baby...but I think she is more of a little girl:
I put tiny little flowers around her shirt....and crimped the edges using a very narrow pair of flat nose pliers. 

Her skirt is a piece of pleated wedding lace, gathered up tight.

And I made her bonnet by crimping the friendly plastic around her face.

Oh!  I am just having way too much fun!!!  So many ideas, so little time to play!!!