The Brick Project ... Done!

Hi Everyone,
My brick project is done! I had so much fun exploring new craft supplies with this project. I played with supplies I already owned and bought a few things along the way too.  First and foremost the best part of this project was the reading and research involved.  I happen to own 3 books about Woodbridge so it was fun to get them out and really look through them.  I learned a lot about Woodbridge history and that as you know, is a good thing.  I also went online and found out that my local library is part of a network of archives that has uploaded all kinds of media in regard to their local area.  That was awesome.  I was able to download the actual program for the celebration of the dedication for the Memorial Municipal Building from 1924! This little program booklet even had pictures of the floor plan of the building.  I was amazed by looking through all the media that my local library had available online.  It was wonderful.  So I chose my picture for the key-chain and as you know I had to figure a way to embed my little sliver of brick.  I had tried the UTEE embossing but its yellow cast was just not clear enough for me.  I am told the longer you melt it the more it will take on that yellow tone. So I will save the rest of my 2 jars of UTEE for bottle cap projects.  Next I tried cold cure epoxy.  I must say that it is a fun resin to work with but 12 hours later in my dusty craftspace, I was simply annoyed.  You know I cut paper and paper has a lot of fiber, when you add that to having a cat walking across your work table . . .  well . . . . let's just say I could not get a clear cast to save my life. Plus the mixing and pouring and waiting . . .  there was just no instant gratification.  So then I moved onto UV cure resin.  HELLO . . . love at first try (well, love at about try 10).  I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up a bottle of Lisa Pavelka's magic gloss.  Now you need to know I already own a UV lamp. That would be my Teresa Collins Stampmaker. OK, so I bought it, used it once, and true to form it sits on a shelf (laughing at me) Well wait a minute . . . It did get me through that ping pong ball project from 2011! but I haven't used it since.  So I knew I had like 36 watts of UV power just sitting on the shelf. I did some research and found in the big box craft stores there are 2 brands of UV cure resin. Judikins (Gel du Soleil) and Lisa Pavelka (Magic Gloss).  I chose the Lisa Pavelka not because we share a name (only she spells it kinda funny, hehehe) but because that is the brand Hobby Lobby had. $9.95 for an ounce.  It's OK because I had a 40% coupon that took off $4.00.  Then I chose some bezel pieces from the jewelry section.  $1.99 each.  I didn't know what I was going to do so I picked an oval, a rectangle, and a square (2 each).  Well, the rectangle won and the rest of them will happily live in my craft stash (most likely for 10 years or so)  Cha Ching . . .  that's $8.00 that won't see the light of day for awhile.  Ok, now I am onto the graphic, I got all these cool supplies, I know the size of the bezel piece, I am ready to design.  I open up my CA2, I get the shape on my mat, I got the graphic I am jones'n! Oh, I like it! Perfect I say to myself. But wait, what kind  of paper?  Let's try photo paper. Wow it looked great! Yes, it looked great right up until I poured the Magic gloss on it, then I watched the ink spread in to a big blurry mess.  Oh well . . . back online for more research, and sure enough you need to seal the image so that there is no reaction between the resin and the ink.  I read lots of ways to seal the image and I settled on using packing tape.  If you do this make sure when you lay the tape on the image you have no air bubbles or fuzzies caught on the tape or the image. Once I got a handle on that it was smooth sailing, yup as smooth as a boat on dry land.  Because the next issue is bubbles.  So here is the deal with that.  Once you pour the resin you absolutely have to pass either your embossing heat gun or a mini butane torch over the piece to remove all the bubbles.  You just can't pop them with a pin. The heat will draw them to the surface and they pop.  It is the same with the cold cure resin.  It's all about the bubbles. In Champagne, bubbles are good . . . in resin, not so much! I get all that worked out and then I decide I want to dome the back side of the key-chain as well.  Sure enough every time I got a good front, I would mess up the back or vise-verse. If I had a  good back the front was messed up.  I tore the darn key-chain apart about 8 times before I finally got a hand for what I was doing.  I found it easy to use a Dremmel tool to break apart the resin without to much damage to the bezel blank.  Still with all the issues I fell in love with Lisa Pavelka Magic Gloss and I actually went back to Hobby Lobby to get another bottle of it. Here are a few more pictures:

I have to tell you all that I did have to enlist the hubby dude to cut the brick.  Hard as I tried I just could not cut as nice of a sliver as he could.  For some reason he was able to maintain that long thin brick like appearance. I kept breaking it while trying to get it as thin as needed. It is only about 2 mm thick and 10 mm long. So here is my "shout out" to the hubs . . . Thanks Paul!  I am so happy with the way this brick project played out, because I learned some things, bought some new crafty good supplies,  used a tool that I already owned that was gathering dust but mostly because I got to use the brick in a way I can share with some of the people around me. I am so happy that I am still inspired by an old piece of clay as that tells me I have not yet hit my crafty wall. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you check back soon.
Lysa 

The Brick Project!

Hi Everyone,
Check out my really cool brick! Ok, So to you all it is a normal run of the mill brick. To me though it is so much more.  I have a whole long winded back story to that little brick.  Let me start at the beginning. I live here in New Jersey in a very large "small" town called Woodbridge.  I wasn't raised here but I like to think of myself as one of those die hard Woodbridgeians. After all I have lived here longer than I have lived anywhere else, so to me I qualify as a native. This town is very old and we have wonderful history.  Chartered in 1669, the town has grown to become a hub for central Jersey.  I could go on and on with historical facts and such but what I really want to tell you about is that brick.  The brick is from the towns original Memorial Municipal Building that was dedicated on June 14, 1924. The building was dedicated and named for our serviceman.  We carry that on to this day. We truly honor and appreciate all who have served and currently serve.  That brick is almost 90 years old!  The day the building was dedicated the whole town came out to celebrate and honor our deceased servicemen as well as those who returned. The thing is the building was demolished in 1994 to make way for our new modern and safer Memorial Municipal Building.  When the building was demolished all these awesome bricks were left in a pile waiting to be hauled away for recycling or trash.  Many people as they passed by picked up a brick.  Lots of people saw them as a keepsake or a souvenir. Maybe they just saw them as a memory of a building that they loved.  Really, when you think about it what are you going to do with just 1 brick other than look at it every now and again.  Yet, all over the place I would see these bricks. I mean, I would see them in peoples houses just sitting on a shelf.  I see them in peoples cubicles at work, just kinda laying around.  Well, the more I saw them, the more I wanted one. I mean like, I really wanted one.  I actually started asking people if they would part with their precious brick but I was always met with a firm "NO"!  How is it I never picked one up?  I lived here in 1994 when the building came down.  I guess it didn't hit me back then that it was a pretty cool brick.  Well as the saying goes "good things come to those who wait" (and I have been waiting since 1999) and sure enough back in December a friend (Hi Mary C.) tells me there are some bricks up for grabs from someone down at the Chamber of Commerce who is getting rid of some things.  YES!!! I could not respond quick enough.  "I'll take 2, thank you very much!" (as I type this I can hear my inner voice screaming SCORE!) So there you have it, I am now the happy (and crafty) owner of not 1 but 2 bricks! Then I started to think of what am I going to do with the bricks.  Oh please .... Its always scary around here when I start thinking.  So I get it in my head that everyone and his brother is going to want a little keepsake.  Something more than an old brick laying around or just propped up on a shelf. (here comes the part where I start to drift off and I hear music faintly in the back of my brain) Yes, I remember I was in Donna's car driving to a Christmas luncheon . . . her ignition keys were swaying back and forth, kinda clanking together . . . and that's when it hit me.  I turned to all in the vehicle (Hello Joanne, Hi Nadine, Hey there Donna) and I said "I know what I am going to do with my brick!, I am going to shave little pieces of it off and embed it in acrylic and make a key-chain out of it!"  Oh yeah! doing the happy dance in the seat of the car! and wait, "I know . . .  I am going to give the first one to the Mayor! He will love it!" Than I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief because I knew I had an idea. Once I returned from lala land and looked up I noticed all in the car were giggling and laughing at my crazy idea. Really people, laughing! It's an awesome idea.(oh please, all the greats are laughed at)   I can't believe you 3 can't see the key-chain dream. "Don't like key-chains, well how about a refrigerator magnet"? (insert more laughter here) and so it goes. . .  Here I am a crafter with a key-chain dream.  Now, just like any awesome crafty good project, research is involved  and as you know from my UTEE post burnt fingers were involved as well. Plus there would be research for the perfect graphic too. So with out boring you even more for today I will leave you with this picture of "old" Town Hall. It's clear to see this building not only did its utilitarian job as it stood proudly in the center of our town, it captured the heart of our community so much so that people felt the need to pick up a brick and save it.

Thanks for visiting and if you want to see what happens to the brick check back in a week or so.
Lysa

I Love UTEE, and Love Hurts!

Hi Everyone,
This is a blog post that would require an alternative title! Let's give that a try ....
"Always follow manufactures instructions" or
"Don't do this" or
Mom said " If you play with fire, you will get burned"
Then I thought I might make a list of the craft supplies that my hubs has taken away because of minor side trips to the ER like the scroll saw, the power stapler, the nail gun, the toaster oven, the Bunsen burner, the Xacto knife etc. . . . (easy to see why I am a papercrafter now!)
So anyway I have a project that involves a brick and I am looking for a way to preserve a little sliver of this brick into a key chain bezel. (you will understand at some point when I get to that project). Well I start doing some artsy research so that I can decide if I want to use air dry (cold cure) resin, UV cure resin or some sort of acrylic.  I remembered in my craft supplies I had UTEE. You know that Ultra-Thick-Embossing-Enamel. Guess what?  I had 2 (not 1) but 2 un-opened jars just sitting waiting for me to play with.  Yup . .  here is a picture:

OK, so how funny is that, I didn't even open the first jar and I felt the need to buy a second. That is just so Lysa!  Stop it now because you and I both know you are just like me!!  I bet I used a coupon on both so hey it was like 2 for the price of one. I also have a large collection of bottle caps.  Who doesn't like to use them for a quick embellishment on card and such.  I even save the real ones from parties.  I also had a lot of left over graphics from the kids Valentine favors so I thought a great experiment would be to make a little bottle cap magnet for Rory. Oh! but wait I don't have a melt pot, Ummmmm let me think, oh I do have a coffee mug warmer (here is the first warning Don't and by that I mean DON'T do this) I'll just see if that will melt the UTEE and hey I am good as gold! but wait (brain cells in full motion) I am not only going to embed the graphic into the UTEE, I am going to embed the magnet too! Who wants to glue a magnet to the back of this cool bottle cap. Wow, I love being crafty!  Here are some pictures of the set up.

Looks good, right? Yeah No! See the little neo magnet? Well, it stuck to the platten of the warmer so tight and when you couple that with picking it up to soon you get this:

OUCH!!!!!!!! (and you should see it a week later!ughhhhh!)
People, do not do this! It hurt. Pouring melted plastic across your fingers is . . . well . . . just not awesome crafty goodness!
(here comes the goodness)
After jumping around the room, along with a cold water rinse, lots of words that I won't say here I got right back on the "horse" and made Rory this magnet (which, by the way she loves!).

In conclusion, UTEE, is awesome crafty goodness and it is only user error that creates a problem.  If you want to use this great product take the time to learn and purchase the right supplies.  With proper care you will have no crazy accidents.
Thanks for stopping by and I can't wait to start showing you my "brick" project.
Lysa