How to Make a Pretty Rose.

How to Make a Rose in Polymer Clay (Fimo)

Polymer Clay Rose

Hello there, and welcome to another blog post from me…. Zoe!  

Today I am going to show you how to make a rose using polymer clay or FIMO. 

This technique can be used with all sorts of different materials such as clay, plasticine, paper and even icing sugar paste! (The stuff you can roll out flat).

The same technique applies to all materials, but in the case of the sugar paste you might need to use a little water to adhere the rose petals together. With paper, glue can be used.

I have decided to use a very vibrant pink colour Fimo today, for no other reason than the fact that I like it!

Petals in progress

Once you have selected your colour, (which you can buy on eBay or at any good craft shop) you will need to make between 8 – 20 petal shapes, making sure the top edge is quite thin and delicate.  

The more petals you have the bigger the final rose will be.

Curl a petal to make the centre

Once you have your Fimo petals, take one and roll it in on itself as shown on the right.

Petal centre

This is your flower centre, so the tighter it is rolled, the smaller and more delicate the flower will be.

Wrap petals on centre to make rose

Then you will need to start layering up your rose petals.  To do this take one of your pre-cut petals and wrap it around the centre, making sure that it completely covers the ‘join’ mark of the centre petal, as shown right.

You will then need to wrap another petal around, but on the opposite side, so to give a bit of balance to your rose.  Always remember to keep the thin edge at the top!

Flower takes shape

Keep applying the layers in this way, using your artistic flare to make the rose grow in the way you want it to.  

If you are making the rose out of paper, try to avoid glueing near the top, as this would make the petals harder to bend into shape.

Once you are happy with the way your rose looks, you will probably need to trim the bottom to tidy up where the layers have been applied.  Once trimmed, gentle tweak the edge of the petals, creating ripples and giving the flower movement and shape.

To fix the shape of the polymer clay, place it into a pre heated oven at 110 degrees Celsius for about 35 mins.  

Alternatively bake it for 30 mins at 140 degrees Celsius.  If it is baked for less time/lower temperature it is more likely to end up slightly brittle and the end result would be fragile.

The finished item could be varnished with clear acrylic varnish and made into a brooch, present decoration, magnet, birthday card - options are endless as they say!

Thanks for reading!

Bruising Effect Blog

Bruise Effect Blog

Hi there Zoe here!  In this blog post I’m going to show you how to create a TV realistic looking bruise, suitable for any casualty effect, or even better for a Halloween costume to freak out your friends and family!

For this you will only need a Mehron Procolouring Bruise wheel, which you can buy online on eBay for about £10.  This bruise wheel should last your for ages and ages (all depending on how often you use it).

  

Ok so here goes, first select the hand/limb/face/body part you want to work on.  I have chosen my hand, as it is easier for me to apply the make-up to!

Start by using the bright red colour.  Apply the make-up with your finger in a dabbing effect where you want your bruise to go.  Really think about this, as a fresh bruise will just be bright red, but the older it gets the colours will change to a more green/yellow hue.  It might help to have some bruising reference so you get the look you want just right.

You don’t need to add a lot, in fact the lighter you dab it, the more realistic it will look.

Once you have your red centre where you want your bruise to start, then start adding in the other colours.  You will want to use the black and dark red in and around the bright red centre you have created.  Again use this sparingly as it will look too over the top other wise, and remember to always use a dabbing motion, NEVER RUB!

Once you are happy with the colouring, start to then add the yellow and the green around the edges of the of the red centre, occasionally dabbing into the red centre to give it some randomness!

Once you’re happy with the basic colouring and Bruise effect, gently blend out the yellow and green with your fingers so to make it look more realistic.

You should then have a bruise effect you are proud of!

For a facial bruise really think about how the person got it, so where the main red centre would be.  For example if I was punched in the eye area, the eye socket bone would take the force of the blow, so that would be the reddest part (due to the thinness of the skin) then the bruise would carry on out around it and under the eye.

Thanks for Watching! xxxx

Red Wooden Heart - French Polishing

The heart will go from bare wood to shiny red!

Now for the fun part - making it shiny!!

By now you should have a 3D heart with all the major sanding done and only surface finishing left to complete.

For the finishing, you will need:

• The sanding sealer and shellac that you mixed up previously - the recipe and blog post is here.
• A small dispenser bottle for the shellac , like an eye dropper bottle, (some pharmacies sell them, but it’s not 100% necessary)
• Fine sandpaper (at least 320 grit) for your orbital sander and sanding block
• The tack cloths and OOOO wire wool mentioned previously.
• A clean white cloth or brush for applying the sanding sealer.
• A small amount of wool or cotton, some 6inch x 6inch pieces of soft cotton (an old t-shirt) for your muneca, and a glass jar with a lid for storing it in.
• A dust mask for the sanding.
• Possibly: alcohol (no, not for drinking), FFFF-grade pumice, a salt shaker, pure oil (e.g. Olive oil)

Applying Sanding Sealer
Now it’s time to break out the sanding sealer! Using a clean white cloth or an old brush, apply all over the surface. Pretty hard to do both sides at once unless you’ve found a way to levitate it, so do one side at a time. Let it soak in for 30 seconds or so and wipe off any excess.

When it’s dry (you won’t have to wait long), sand lightly with 320 grit sand paper, or the finest you have, still using your orbital sander. The goal isn’t to remove lots of surface material but just to knock back the grain.

Apply more sanding sealer, let it dry and hand sand from this point on. It’s best to use a sanding block for the flatter bits of the heart, otherwise they might come out a bit uneven.

A new muneca ready to be charged, an old one, and a storage jar.

Make your Muneca!
This is how we’re going to apply the shellac to the heart. The muneca is a wool or cotton core surrounded by a cotton cloth – it’s best if they’re both white, but as long as the dye won’t run when mixed with the meths, then it’ll be fine.

You’re supposed to use real wool to help the proper distribution of the shellac, but I didn’t have any, so cotton wool was a good substitute (I can hear the purists screaming!). A lot of people seem to use old t-shirts for the outside of the muneca, but I used a scrap of soft white cotton fabric.

Put a tight ball of wool (about an inch in diameter, once squeezed tight) in the middle of a 6in x 6in square of soft cotton (old t-shirt fabric is perfect) and gather the corners together so the wool is trapped inside. The inner core will act as a reservoir to dispense the shellac, which is applied to the inside wool core, and squeezed out from the contact pressure with the surface of the work-piece.

Shellac can be a sticky thing to apply and a lot of folks that are masters of French Polishing and make beautiful guitars & furniture recommend that you add a couple of drops of pure oil to the outside of the muneca to assist the application - The oil helps it glide over the surface of the wood.

I’d read that the oil rises to the surface and then needs to be removed by alcohol before moving onto to applying the next layer of shellac, so I decided to see what happened if I left this bit out. All in the nature of experimenting you understand... I found the first 8 coats or so to be very easy to apply, and only after that did I experience the muneca sticking a little bit. I guess on balance, don’t mess with the experts, but if your object is small or an odd shape (i.e. not smooth and flat) then you can probably avoid adding oil.

Shellac Sealing Coat
Wipe the surface dust off with a tack cloth. This is to remove any surface dust so that it’s not trapped under subsequent layers.

To begin applying the sealing coat, make the core of your muneca moderately damp with shellac by applying a good few drops of your 2lb cut. You don’t want to saturate it – too much is not a good thing here! Fold up the corners and slightly twist the end in the outer fabric to make it easier to hold.

Tap it on the back of your hand to evenly distribute the shellac through the core, and then tap on a piece of paper to make sure you haven’t put too much in. You don’t want to leave a puddle of shellac on your wood – the idea is to apply lots of very fine thin layers that amalgamate together.

These first few layers are to act as a base for the rest of the shellac and should be applied along the grain of the wood. I started in the middle at the top and ended at the tip of the heart. You should keep your pad moving the whole time – avoid pausing at the start and finish points, many people recommend a landing and taking off action, like an aeroplane, to start and stop.

Use less pressure when the pad is wetter and more pressure as it runs dry. Replenish with a few more drops of shellac as it dries out.

Wait a few minutes between coats and apply 3 of these ‘sealing’ coats in total. Now, store your pad in a sealed jar and leave your piece to dry thoroughly.

Layering up the first few coats of shellac on the heart.

Using pumice (or not) to fill the grain
Some woods (e.g. rosewood) need to have their grain filled at this point, and this is what I would definitely do if I were using ‘real’ wood (with an open grain) instead of just plywood. As it was, I just rubbed down the surface in between coats using wire wool and I still got a pretty shiny finish.

Obviously this isn’t a purist’s project, as I tend to like to experiment, but if you want a beautiful glass-like finish, instead of one that’s just really shiny, then this is how you achieve it:

You’ll need some FFFF-grade pumice in a salt shaker, a new pad cover, some pure oil (olive is fine) and some alcohol.

Replace your pad cover, add 8-10 drops of alcohol to the core and shake a small amount of pumice onto the surface of the pad. Never apply pumice directly to the wood.

Using random circular motions, work the pumice into the grain, covering a small area at a time. Reapply pumice and alcohol when necessary – you will begin to see a real difference in the surface of the wood. This stage is finished when you’ve gone over all the areas and the grain is filled and the surface smooth.

I might still go back and do this stage just to see what happens – it’s never too late to fill the grain!

You can see the colour and shine developing.

The true French Polish bit
So if you have indulged in filling the grain properly (unlike me, being a renegade), you’ll need to replace the cover on your muneca pad. Add some 2lb cut shellac to the inner core, just like for the sealing coats, and after tapping it on the back of your hand and a piece of paper (like you should every time you re-charge it), start to apply it to the surface of your piece in random movements.

Don’t go with the grain this time, just move the pad all over without pausing or stopping on the surface. The idea is to apply lots of thin layers that will knit together, and the random-ness of your movements helps this. Some people use a figure-of-eight, or oval shape to move their pad in, and I don’t think it matters as long as there’s an even coating on all bits at the end of the day.

I rubbed mine down with wire wool in-between the first few coats, followed by a wipe with a tack cloth to remove surface dust.

You can apply quite a few thin coats at once, but then you should leave it a few hours to properly dry. If you are experiencing the sticky-ness problem and have been using a few drops of olive oil to lubricate your pad, then you should wipe the surface of your piece with alcohol to remove the oil before commencing with the next polishing session. Just charge the core of your pad with a few drops of alcohol and stroking along the grain is fine. This application of alcohol is called Spiriting.

You might have guessed by now that the trick here is LAYERING. A really good shiny finish is made by lots and lots of thin layers of shellac.

So you should repeat the application of layers of shellac, followed by spiriting if necessary, until you get the finish you want. You can see it develop quite quickly, but as you have to leave it between sessions the whole process can take a week or more.

The last few coats develop a deep richness to the colour and shine.

I was happy after about 20 coats, but I lost track of exactly how many coats I applied – it’s easy to get addicted to the shine and the amount of coats becomes irrelevant. Just a few more coats, and it will be perfect…

I considered my heart finished after a good few layers of this last stage, but some people make it even more shiny by applying a few coats of a weaker cut of shellac, a 1lb cut is not unusual. There's lots of different recipes and techniques and more details can be found here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57229701/FrenchPolishing-01
http://milburnguitars.com/fpbannerframes.html
http://doit101.com/Woodworking/frenchpolishing.htm

And there's a great French Polishing trouble shooting/ Q & A guide here (with specific reference to guitar-making): http://www.guitarsinternational.com/article.cfm/ArticleContentId/11

The finished heart!

Red Wooden Heart - Sanding and filling!

First half pre-sanding.

Right, now you should have 2 separate halves of your heart, some sanding sealer and some polish.

For this next stage you will need:

• Coarse to fine sandpaper to fit your sander (I prefer aluminium oxide, 80 grit to 320 grit, but surface finishing may require some 400 grit wet and dry paper)
• A palm sander (random orbital sander), and if you have the luxury of owning one, a detail sander to get in the top crevice.  I don’t have one, and managed ok, but it would have been easier with one.
• If you need to fill some cracks, then pva glue mixed with wood dust, with a dash of red acrylic, or your more traditional wood filler.
• A dust mask - wear it when sanding, unless you want to cough sawdust for the next week..

Starting to sand the edges off.

I probably don’t need to say it, as it will become obvious pretty quickly, but if you don’t clamp your work piece, you’ll just be chasing it round your workbench with your sander instead of actually removing surface material.  

I’ve got a cheap workbench, the kind that has holes in the top where you push in plastic stops.  For most jobs it’s a completely useless bit of equipment, but for this, it worked ok. Basically I put stops in around one side and sanded the other side, pushing against the stops, then swapped it round. But anything that prevents the thing moving around will work.

Start with the coarsest sandpaper and work all around the heart, keeping the base plate of your sander flat against the surface. You want to get rid of the steps in-between the layers, making the whole surface flat and smooth.  Graduate up to the finer sandpaper as the surface flattens out and you’re just trying to smooth it off, rather than shape it.

The pink bits are home made filler; pva glue mixed with sawdust & paint.

You’ll probably end up with a few places that need a bit of filling.  Usually I’d use wood filler, but as I know it doesn’t take stain very well, I decided it would be much better to mix my own.   

What I didn’t know was how the coloured polish would react with my home made filler.  I could have tested it of course, but as this whole thing was a bit of a test, I decided just to go for it.

So, I mixed pva wood glue with some sawdust (plenty of that around!), and tinted it with acrylic paint to be pink.  I wanted it to be red, but it turned out more pink due to the pva being white.  Incidentally I did try using some of the wood dye to stain the filler, but it didn't mix well with the pva, so I gave up on that idea.

In hindsight normal wood filler would probably have been ok, as with this method of staining the polish, the colour sits on top of the wood rather than sinking in too much.  If I was staining the wood first and applying a clear polish layer over it, it would have been a different story.  

Well, whatever filling method you choose, it’s time to smooth it on to fill those gaps.  See the photo for the places that I filled – they stand out pretty well, being pink!

One half done, one half just started..

 Then while that’s drying, tackle the other half of the heart.  Yes, more sanding!!  Trust me, it’s all worth it!

When you’ve got both sides filled and sanded to a pretty smooth finish, it’s time to join the 2 halves together!  Use a load of wood glue and leave it overnight to dry, ideally clamped if you can – it’s a tricky shape to clamp, so if that sounds impossible, even wrapping tape round it will help. Double check the edges are perfectly matched before you leave it to dry.

If there’s a slight gap between the 2 halves after joining them, then fill and sand that gap away!  

You should now have a heart that is 3D, with all the major sanding done and only surface finishing to deal with!

The two halves joined together, although it's pretty hard to tell from this angle!

So, you guessed it, surface finishing is covered in the next post!

Red Wooden Heart - Mixing the Shellac for French Polishing

Today I'll describe how to mix the sanding sealer and french polish for our pretty red heart.  You'll need:

• Blonde dewaxed shellac flakes 250g 
• Methylated spirit 500ml  - 750ml, depending on the size of your project.
• Ultra fine (0000 grade) wire wool
• A tack cloth (I bought a pack of 10 but only used two)
• Wood dye for French polish in red and black (Only using red would make the red much brighter, I preferred a darker colour.) (n.b. This is a link to their ebay shop, as I couldn't find it on their website, but if the link dies then contact Endless Green direct.)
• A couple of glass jars
• 3 plastic spoons for mixing the dye. ( 1 for red, 1 for black and 1 for mixing)

Blonde dewaxed shellac, Powdered wood dye and a tack cloth.

A note about Shellac: I chose the blonde dewaxed variety as it is well known for drying clear – I wanted to have a good clear base for mixing the dye, without tints of brown etc.

A note about methylated spirit – in the UK, meths is dyed purple, which can affect the final colour of your polish. I didn’t mind the purple tint for this project, but if I wanted to be sure of a pure, clear polish, I would have used Spirit Thinners.

First up, mix your sanding sealer – what’s the point of that I hear you ask? I mean we’re going to slap this sealer on our piece and then just sand it off – why bother? Well, it soaks into the wood raising and hardening the wood fibres, which then are easier to sand off and it fills the grain in the process. Which means the end result will be smoother. It also stops the following coats of polish from being absorbed into the wood, which gives a better shine. So if you like really smooth shiny things (and who doesn’t) use sanding sealer!

Sanding sealer: 1 part Shellac to 5 or 6 parts methylated spirit.

Put the ingredients in a glass jar, give them a stir and a shake and leave them until the shellac has dissolved. This might take a few hours. Persuade it a bit by agitating it occasionally. Don’t worry too much about getting the measurements exact, vaguely right is good enough.

Label and DATE THE JAR! I know it’s not jam, but it still goes off. After 6 months it might not dry properly, which is why it’s so much better to make your own sealer and polish, as who knows how long the ones in the shops have been sitting there for?

And unfortunately for those people living in sunnier places than Britain, it’s best to store it below 24°C (75 °F). So yes, it might rain a lot here, but at least we can store our sanding sealer and polish.

(Incidentally I’ve read that some folks prefer 1/3 shellac, 1/3 meths and 1/3 boiled linseed oil (not raw) for their sanding sealer – apparently it extends the drying time, useful for big pieces I guess, but I’m not sure what else – has anyone used this mix??)

The mix of French polish is referred to as ‘The Cut’, and is traditionally expressed in lbs per gallon; meaning how many lbs of shellac are dissolved in a gallon of meths. E.g A 2lb cut is 2lbs shellac dissolved in a gallon of meths. A 2 lb cut is very popular – and it's worth noting that the more shellac you add, the harder it is to work. Some folks use a 4lb cut for ‘knotting’ to seal that pesky resin in, when working with knotty wood.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I started storing gallons of meths in my loft I think the fire brigade might have something to say about it, and I’d have to be polishing night and day to use that up within 6 months.

So, scaling things down a bit, a good ‘cut’ to start with is:

French Polish: 1/4lb (113 grams) dissolved in 1 pint (500mls) of meths. 

(This is still classed as a 2lb cut but without using a gallon of meths! And to be honest for this project you could probably half this, as you’ll still have loads left over.)

Label the jar with the ‘Cut’ and the date, then shake and leave it, just like the sanding sealer. Some folks strain it through cheesecloth when it’s dissolved, but frankly I didn’t bother. Some recipes for French polish also suggest adding linseed oil and sandarac (a kind of natural gum) which helps improve resistance to scratches, but I left these out as well.

Lots of layers will give a deeper colour.

At the moment, the polish is slightly purple (from the meths). To get that deep red colour, wait till the shellac has dissolved and add some dye. To control the process, I dissolved some of the red dye separately in a small amount of meths, with a tiny bit of black. Add the black in really small amounts (it’s really strong) until you get a good colour – then add to the polish a bit at a time to get the colour you want.

Remember you’ll be layering up the polish so the more layers you put on, the deeper the colour will be. I must admit, that bit can be kind of addictive as you see the colour developing – just one more layer…

But before we can get anywhere near polishing, there’s a bit of sanding to do… all covered in the next post…

Red Wooden Heart - Cutting it out.

Ok, in my previous post I gave you a template that you could resize. I should probably say that if you’re going to make it really small or much bigger, then you’ll need to change the thickness of the wood accordingly.

So for a small heart (say 15cm/6in across) maybe use 9mm ply and one larger than 25cm/10in, use 18mm ply. Otherwise the small one will be really fat and the large one will be really thin in proportion to the outline.

My heart is double sided, which means you have to cut everything out twice, and join the 2 halves back to back. But you could just do one side, with a flat back, and then it could be hung on a wall.

Adjusting the footplate to 45 degrees.

The angled plate, looking from the front.

I cut my heart shapes out with the blade of my jigsaw at 45 degrees to create an angled cut. You could also do this on a bandsaw by tilting the bed, but if you don’t have one a jigsaw works just fine. To change the cutting angle of your jigsaw, change the angle of your footplate – there’s usually a nut of some kind underneath the plate that will allow this adjustment. Mine needs an allen key (hex key), but they’re all different.

You must clamp your work securely before cutting the pieces, and beware of hitting things with the blade underneath the wood, as the blade is protruding at an angle you may not be used to! I drilled 10mm pilot holes to make it easier to change direction at the tip and at the top of the heart where the two bumps join in the middle.

I started at the bottom and cut round in one direction. It’s a bit awkward in the middle at the top, and if you find this too hard to change direction in this tight spot, then cut one side and then change the footplate to be angled 45degrees the OTHER WAY and cut the other side from the bottom up as well.  If you do it this way and don't change the angle of the footplate to do the other side, the angle of the edges will be different on the 2 sides.  One will go 'out' and one will go 'in'.

Or you could always cut it out with a regular 90 degree angle blade and do lots more sanding!

When you’ve got all your layers cut out, glue them together (using wood glue), keeping the 2 halves separate for now. Start with the biggest piece and work up to the smallest piece. I added a couple of panel pins as well, just avoid the edges if you follow suit, as you’ll be sanding some of the edge away, and sanding down nails isn’t very easy!

One side glued and pinned - leave to set overnight.

You need to leave the glue to set overnight before commencing sanding, but in the meantime, you can get to grips with shellac. I decided to keep the shellac mixing and methodology all in the next post, instead of breaking it up..

Red Wooden Heart - Making The Templates

So to make the wooden heart, the first step was to cut out lots of concentric heart shapes from 12mm plywood.  I used exterior ply as that's what my local hardware shop had, but almost any ply would do as long as it's flat (so don't use shuttering/elliotis ply which is often warped).

Below is an image with the outline of all the hearts in different colours.  Just download it (using the arrow button on the bottom of the window) and resize it to your requirements by opening it in Illustrator or Inkscape (a free program you can get here: http://inkscape.org/download/?lang=en )  Each individual heart layer should remain editable in these 2 programs by just ungrouping the image - not that you'd probably need to do that, you can resize the whole thing all together by just pulling the corner arrows.

Or alternatively, just print it out and use a photocopier to enlarge it and copy it, cutting out the size of heart you want for each layer.

My red wooden heart is approx 25.5cm (10in) in width and height.

If anyone has problems with this I can email you all the individual layers separately if necessary, just leave a comment..

So when you've got your individual heart layers the correct size and cut out, stick them onto your plywood with glue so they won't move. I usually use display mount, but pritt would work or a similar paper glue. You want it to be stuck on mainly round the edge you're cutting out - so it's not necessary to put glue in the middle of the image.

Cutting out the wood and making the french polish will be covered in the next post..

Red Wooden Heart, an Experiment in French Polishing

A wooden heart is the next experiment I’ll describe over the next few blogs.  Cutting out some heart shapes and glueing them together is not especially difficult, but I’d never worked with shellac before and I wanted to try out French polishing - I thought it was a bit of a challenge to French polish the end-grain of plywood.   

This is end result and it's a long way off from being perfect, I could have done way more layers, but the colour has a nice depth and ultimately I was pleased with the result as a first try.

I’ll break down the process over the next week.