Skip to main content

Air dried clay and an egg carton

 

No, this isn't a saucer of sweets with holes in!  They're my attempt at homemade beads.  I'd wanted some chunky ones with larger holes in them for threading on to cord or ribbon, and saw an idea on Instagram.  So out came the pack of air dried clay and I rolled out these shapes.  
I left them to thoroughly dry out on a sunny windowsill, then painted the beads with acrylic paint.  After that dried, I dripped some alcohol ink on them.  In order for the ink to dry I threaded the beads on to cocktail sticks and balanced them on an egg carton.  
I want to add a layer of varnish, but don't want to buy a large tin from a DIY store, so I'm going to pick up a bottle of clear nail polish and try painting the beads with that for a glossy finish.  For a first attempt, they're a bit clumsy, but not too bad. 
I bought something from a charity shop today that I might try adding to the next batch of beads I make.  It's a roll of rose gold coloured foil.  I reckon I could cut tiny pieces of that and glue them on to the beads.  I also found half a dozen greetings cards, plus a whole stack of perspex blocks (to use with printing stamps).  A nice little haul for just £4.73.  
I've been adding more bits & pieces to my mammoth sized junk journal.  It really is getting to be a chunky beast.
I do love this 'Contents' page.  It's so silly! 
But I think these pages are my favourites.  Everyone's eyeing up everyone else ... 
I like to imagine what these people are thinking of each other.  
This wife definitely isn't her husband's No. 1 fan, is she?  That's a 'how on earth did I end up with him???' look. 
I love the randomness of junk journals.  The cardboard from a box of herbal teabags next to the packaging from a set of wax crayons.  The paper bag that contained porridge oats, glued to a page of the church bulletin and opposite a brightly coloured fruit pastilles pouch.  Only in a junk journal could this lot be combined together.  
I'll finish up with a look at my new 'toy', a mint green metal trolley, a.k.a. the art cart.  I treated myself to this, and it's already home to a load of craft supplies.  Hobbycraft sell this for £30 usually, but it was on offer at £25, plus I had a £5 voucher and there was free postage & packing.  I also added to my order a  couple of the plastic bins that hang off the side of the trolley, ideal storage for pens, scissors and rotary cutters.  I'm so pleased with this, I'm very tempted to order a second trolley for my sewing essentials.  No, I shouldn't ... should I?  
Hope you have a good evening, and let's see what joys the weekend brings.  Bye for now.  









 


Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous30 August 2025 at 02:04

    Hello again! It was a real surprise to see American Gothic in your junk journal! You may be relieved to know that the “happy couple” were not married and that Grant Wood modeled his painting on his sister and dentist. I know! 🙈:)
    Love your trolley! I have one too, and also considered getting a second one right away. So far I have managed to resist temptation, though. Mine is from IKEA.
    Love the look of your journal, btw. Very creative and inspirational! Have a lovely weekend. Sylvia, The Netherlands.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Valerie blogs at rubykittyruby6 September 2025 at 08:36

      Hi Sylvia. Lovely to hear from you again. His sister and dentist??? That's a weird combination. But in my imagination, that couple in the painting are definitely husband & wife, and she's irritated that he couldn't even bother to put on a collar. Plus, she's bewildered as to why he's clutching that garden fork! I'm having a lot of fun with the journal, so I'm glad you like it. Best wishes, Val.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Threads of Freedom and charity shop bargains

  It's Saturday afternoon, and I haven't done half the things I'd meant to.  Partly because I spent most of this morning messing about with paints, stencils and the gell plate.  Never mind, everything on today's 'To Do' list will join tomorrow's 'To Do' list ... it's hardly life or death if I don't haul the hoover around the room or pull up weeds in the front garden.   I thought I'd show you what I made on Wednesday.  I'd gone to my monthly StitchArt group, and this time we did something a little different.  There's a project called 'Threads of Freedom' which is working with various community groups across the city.  It's about creating little stitched pieces, some of which will be included in a textile panel to go on display at Leeds art gallery.  There was lots of fabric we could choose from to sew with, and I picked this vintage tray cloth with the roses embroidery.   My own embroidery's not a patch on those flo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Another week's flown by ...

  Saturday's rolled around again, and it's not been the most eventful of days.  Cleaning and hoovering, a walk to the shops to buy groceries, an hour on the allotment, then home to do some odd tasks in the garden.  The strawberry plants are sending out runners, so I've been dealing with those, plus deadheading the perennial sunflowers, and cutting back the gone-over flowers on the sage and marjoram.  I'm sad to see those blooms gone as the bees loved them.  This afternoon I spent a few hours finishing 'Dawnlands' by Philippa Gregory.   It's a really good book, a page turner where you care about the characters and want to be reassured everything's going to work out well for them.  Plus you become enraged about the corruption of the so-called justice system at the time of the Stuart kings and queens, about transportation of prisoners to the West Indies, and about the vile nature of the sugar trade in the 1600s and the vast profits made from it....
Post a Comment
Read more

Folding a zine and an alternative use for a bank card

  Hello again, and excuse me while I scratch my insect bites.  I don't know what it is, but at this time of year I'm invariably itching like crazy because I've been bitten by bugs.  It seems to coincide with blackberry-picking season, but whether that's purely coincidental I don't know.  Whatever's biting me, I'm obviously a tasty morsel in their world!  I might try using a highly scented oil like Tea Tree oil, see if that deters them.  Anyway, let's get on to more pleasant matters -  I'm having a go at making a zine style booklet.  Because I didn't have any paper large enough, I joined together two A3 sheets of sketchpad paper, using torn pieces of book pages for the joining.  I thought that'd look less noticeable than packing tape or similar.  Having chosen my colour scheme I used acrylic paint and an unwanted plastic bank card to apply the paint.  Plus a stencil, sponge and modelling paste.  Applying paint with a ATM card wa...
Post a Comment
Read more