I am a golden god(dess)!*

 

.... and I make golden creatures!

Stay tuned for a possible future project with these guys! And they'll be joined by friends. It'll be a grand ole woodsy time!

(If you want more of an explanation of this process, click here. I did use the gold leaf included in the kit on these creatures.)

*If I have to explain this reference to you, you might as well just stop reading now and walk away. We can no longer be friends. 

Golden Girl*

 

As a sort of homage to the Oscars(sort of) on Sunday night, I experimented with gold leafing. There were a few things I learned while experimenting with the joys of gold leafing:

1. Safety first (technically, I learned this while glass etching)
2. Gold leafing involves a huge time commitment as you need to wait an hour between each step (which made it the perfect project to work on during the Oscars. That show is long!)
3. This shit is addicting!!
4. If you have any perfectionist in you (and God help me, I do!), this might not be the project for you, but if you can get past the fact that your results won't be perfect (and this is where my stubbornness really helped), you can gold leaf ANYTHING!!
5. You should not gold leaf while in bed (just one more thing to add to my long list of things that should not happen while in bed)
6. Did I mention this shit is addicting? Yeah, it is.

Please enjoy this visual step-by-step of my Sunday evening. Enjoy!

(safety first! gold leafing is stinky!)

(the supplies. I used Rex Art Gold Leafing Kit. This is a six step process, but I skipped the antiquing step)

(the gold leaf. this isn't the gold leaf that came with the kit. I can't remember what kind this is and I can't find it. it's possible it's no longer available)

(the first step. these are my 3-D glasses I swiped from the theater after watching Avatar. I think you were technically suppose to return/recycle them, but the movie was LONG and I wanted a souvenir.)

(prepping my otter. remember? I bought him at Michaels)

(gold leaf applied. this is like, step three)

(drying after applying step 4, the sealer)

(modeling my new glasses! I intend on adding some more decorations to these, so stay tuned! after all, if you're forced to sit through long, sci-fi, 3-D movies, shouldn't you be rockin' some cool shades? I think so)

(my Cabbage Patch was jealous and wanted to try them on too)

(they look SO much better on her!)

Hope you enjoyed this! After gold leafing on Sunday, I was motivated to do some more later on. I'll definitely show you pics of those later!

* How perfect! I just noticed that this is my 50th post! Hurray for the golden one!

(Look, I got it right this time!)

   

Glass Etching, Part II

A Visual

(all prepped and ready)

(etching cream applied)

(the front side of my new Magic Hat beer cap storage container)

(backside)

(my new bank. it says, "What is the cost of the things you have lost." it's from a Magic Hat beer cap.)

Well, color my face red.

 

You know how you spend a good hour writing a new post and you put a lot of time into it and then you go to post it and realize you posted it to the wrong blog? No? Well, that's what happened to me tonight. Whoops! You can find my recent post here, at The Bitter Blonde. Pop on over there and check it out, and then let's pretend we never had this conversation. Thank you.

I'm crafty! -or- Michaels is crack and I'm a crack-whore

   

Okay, normally I don't blog about (insert random topic here) craft projects. Mainly because I don't have time to do them and haven't, in fact, done anything crafty since Christmas of 2008. Sad, I know. However, all that changed today because of some sunshine, a tapestry and two bottles of beer! (For an explanation on how those otherwise seemingly random items relate to each other, click here)

I started this morning out by experimenting with some glass etching. I was lacking some crucial materials, but managed to find some suitable replacements in my closet (it's like a gold mine in there!). I'm going to save that whole process and what not for a later post, but here is a teaser pic to get you excited...

After my glass etching experimentation, I became inspired to take a trip to Michaels, one of the best and worst stores to waste an hour or two or three in. I went there for letter stencils and left with about $20 worth of goodies (which is really GOOD for me. I can drop $60 in that place in 30 minutes. My current financial situation, however, forced me to restrain myself.) Without giving too much away about my future craft endeavors, I purchased...

a pack of these  

(or, something similar to these)

 

two of these 

(or, close enough)
 

a "toob" of these 

(which I have plans for inspired by these gilded goodies- alright, well, I can't find them, but I promise when I post about this crafty project, I will have a link)

I also purchased some little blue birds, but I can't find them online anywhere, so, that's that. After my trip to the crack house Michaels, I was super psyched to get back home a create some more! Here's a peak...

Alright, that's all for now. I'm distracted by the Oscars right now and have totally lost my focus of this post. (Ryan Seacrest is an idiot, and I can't figure out why E! is having Jay Manuel and Giuli-whoseherface critique people's outfits like they're doing a play-by-play for the Super Bowl, AND I'm really enjoying following Una LaMarche's live Oscar blog). I will catch you all up tomorrow... I think... wait, what? Sorry, I just saw Jake Gyllenhaal. Gotta go!