ObjectsandElements.com

France 2013

Last call for students to join us in France 2013!  We had some "life" situations come up and have some last minute openings.  We will be traveling to Paris and spending each day at the flea market  in the morning then museums and sight seeing in the afternoon.  We will then journey by train to our class at the lovely La Cascade where we will make souvenirs from our finds!

Here is some "eye candy" to let you know the amazing finds only in Paris! 

I love love love hardware!

and vintage jewelry...

 and letters and numbers of all kinds...

  

When we go south we see such amazing little villages...this is Soreze where "Au Chocolate" was filmed....I am pretty sure Johnny Depp is still hanging out there somewhere...

 

 

and of course you can't leave without making friends with a little French Bull Dog!!  

The teachers will be Debbi Simon, Brenda Schweder and Linda Larsen and we will guide you to the markets and help you make souvenirs of your amazing trip!

Email me if you want more information...linda@objectsandelements.com

The winners from last weeks blog have been emailed with their prize, thanks for all your comments....

 

Objects and Elements Doming Resin

                 

Our new doming resin is easy to use and is a great addition to your jewelry designs.  A friend asked me to help her with a project as she really wanted these bracelets for an upcoming trip to France.   They say "let them eat cake" in French and attributes it to Marie Antonette even though it is rumored that she never said it.  She brought me the maps with the words imposed on them made in Photoshop.  

I experimented with a bangle by coating it in paper from a magazine with mod podge.  Then I  reated a jig from steel wire and hung it so the resin could drip as it dried.  If you try this,  make sure the bangle doesn't touch anywhere that the resin will dry and attach to the wire.  The point of the jig is to make it "dangle" and drip.  After each coat dried I trimmed the drip and applied the next layer.  

Then....I tried the same technique with the cuffs and they were a disaster.  They didn't hang quite right I had a really bumpy finish and couldn't get them smooth.  

Of course I had a time crunch and had to switch ideas fast!  I realized I needed to resin the paper first then attach to the cuffs.  The paper needed the resin to make it water proof and wearable as a piece of jewelry.  I printed new papers and laid them on a heavy black garbage bag.  The best way to get them coated is to mix the resin and use a piece of sponge to work the resin into the paper.  This will always give you a somewhat translucent look to your paper so if you don't want that then seal it with several coats of mod podge or other sealer and let it dry well.  

I ended up gluing the papers to the cuff with an epoxy glue.  Epoxy glue is nearly the same formula but just has acceleorators in the hardener which is why expoxy glue is yellow.  The accelorators create the yellowing.  

Playing in Santa Fe...

I just returned from BeadFest Santa Fe--yee haw!  What a great town, kind of a dress up town for grownups!  I love the western vibe and the amazing clothes that the women there wear with all their vintage  jewelry and the great Native American jeweler's selling their wares on the square.  I found Florentino Bailon who sent me a beautiful ring last year , I bought another one to keep it company! He does custom work at an amazing price and no retail space mark up.  505.465.2144.  

OK, calling all shoppers!  Santa Fe is one of my favorite places to shop. There are great stores and such fun goodies to look at--danger!  I went into this store and considered being a country western singer for a moment--just for the wardrobe.  The leather jackets were there to match all these beautiful boots...however my favorite store was Santa Fe Dry Goods--yummy!

Across the street from the hotel was this amazing place....I didn't go over as it was lots of columns and doors and I have an addiction to them both...they are too pricey to ship.

My students were great and lots of fun.  Wow, they made some pretty crazy and amazing peices and as usual I was too focused to take photos...I need to remember to take photos as I am always amazed at the wonderful pieces they do and all so different!  It would be fun to have  documentation of them all...

I shared the trip and room with the great Creating Recklessly artist Melissa Cable.  Check out her blog as she will do this in a much more technical way!   The day we left we had most of the day to play so we dropped by Origins, which is a very eclectic shopping, the ladies there are great fun and they even had lunch for us the day before.  

Then we went to Shidoni Bronze Gallery and it was the best way to end our trip!  They make any kind of bronze castings from chess pieces to large over the top monuments.  We were lucky enough to get a guided tour and here are the photos I took.  First the wax, this vat was huge!

 more wax melting tubs...

 washing down the wax cowboy...

 

 This lion was beatutiful!

then we went in the room where they pour the bronze and Melissa and I were drooling over this box...our wonderful tourguide gave us both a sample and we were giddy!

this horse is part of a huge monument, bigger than you can imagine!

I loved the tour but the bronze patina's were the best part...AMAZING!  

 this one was one of my favorites...

Leave a comment and I'll draw two  names for the overflowing stash...I've been slaking and it is growing!!!    Hope over to the website if you haven't checked out our new Objects and Elements Epoxy Doming Resin and Sterling Silver Bezels at 40% off!    We are spring cleaning since we are moving our website very soon!  ..Linda