WOYWW 131

I know we all say it, but WHERE has the last week gone??? It’s absolutely terrifying… I’m at least a fortnight behind with all I have to do because I was out of action so long with that awful throat infection, and now I’m chasing my tail trying to catch up, and we’re at the end of the 1st week of December already… Anyway, first of all thanks to Julia for organising yet another “What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday” – for all who don’t know what this is all about, click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar and it will take you to Julia’s blog where you can sign up and join the fun, nosing around everyone’s work desks and seeing what we are all up to.

At last I am feeling better enough to do some stuff. I’m making 3 more of my butterfly mirrors – the first one I made for the recent village exhibition and it was one of the pieces I managed to sell. Here’s a picture of it:

Click here to see the the process in detail, and more photos.

I need to make a couple more for Christmas presents, and I thought I’d keep one in reserve and put it in my Etsy store.

Here’s my desk as of Monday, showing the first stage. For this design I use Ikea mirrors that are already painted black, to save me doing it – the edges are already black and I don’t have to prepare them in any way. In this picture you can see one of the mirrors, with the pieces of silver mirror card cut ready to stick onto the mirror frames.

The next photo shows them at the next stage (Tues. p.m.) with the silver mirror card glued on, and the butterflies and swirls stamped with archival black ink.

The final photo (small hours, today) shows them after I’d finished painting the shapes with Daler Rowney Pearlescent Acrylic Inks. As always, the colour doesn’t look as intense on the photo as it does in real life.

Once they are fully dry, I need to spray the surface of each frame with acrylic varnish, and then later today (after I’ve been to bed lol!) I can apply the glass bead gel medium when the varnish is fully dry, and complete the project.

I think I’m right in saying that I invented the technique of using a thin layer of glass bead gel medium over mirror card – I haven’t found anyone else doing it! The effect is wonderfully scintillating!

Behind these 2 mirrors you can see the inks I used, and behind that, all those little white things are small “happy birthday” sentiments that I cut with the Cricut last week, some of which have been applied to the cards I’ve made for my mum. You can also see a portion of Tim Holtz-style clock face left over from my steampunk clocks mirror project and various other bits and pieces on what really isn’t a very tidy desk this week!!

Thank you all for your lovely comments last week, and a special thank you to those of you who commented on my piece about my lovely uncle who died on Sunday morning. Very much appreciated.

Next week we may be away for the funeral – weather permitting – I hear there’s snow in the Midlands and we may not make it. We haven’t been given the date yet. If we do go, I may be absent from WOYWW. If so, have a good one!