Textiva Beads

I was playing with Textiva on Solace (tiny angel) and thought it might be fun and easy to make some sparkly beads with it too. I wrapped the Textiva around a wooden skewer and hit it with my paint stripping gun (could use a heat gun too). I found that when I wrapped fused Angelina around the outside of the beads, it kind of dulled down the sparkly-ness of the beads. However, when I put the fused Angelina on the inside, it created some wonderful crinkles and bumps on the outside. Very texturally sparkly! I took these to my Dolly group meeting they were a big hit. The trick with these if you try to make some, is to fuse the seam closed first and then randomly hit the rest of the bead with heat. You can get Angelina and Textiva at several places on the web. I got mine from http://www.dollmakersjourney.com/. They have a nice selection of colors and textures. http://www.joggles.com/ had some different kind of Angelina which was a little more nubby in texture.

Most of my work in the studio lately has been finishing old projects, but last weekend I cut out a bunch of egg shaped pieces from wool felt, dyed them with Dynaflow and then yesterday in the throes of a migraine, I painted them with Lumiere metallic paints. I think they are smashing (hehe). I am not sure what I am going to do with them - I thought maybe put some magnet dots on the back and hang them on the fridge, or make a mobile out of them, or add pinbacks to them to give away as pins. It might be fun to have an egg hunt at work but I'd have to come up with a nice prize. The one in the middle is my favorite - used up the last of the paint I had out to dye it which is why it turned out so colorful. You can get Dynaflow and Lumiere at most places that sell dyes and paints. Online, I tend to purchase a lot of my supplies at http://www.dharmatrading.com/. Jo-Ann Fabrics has recently started selling Jacquard Lumiere metallic paints and I purchased the Pearl Magenta, Crimson, Citrine and True Gold from Jo-Ann's (in Indiana they are $4.99 each but with a 40% or 50% coupon, much easier on the budget). I did not use the True Gold - it was more of an antique gold (sort of a greenish undertone). Instead, I had some metallic gold I used instead. Not sure from the photo if you can see the metallic paint but I painted the edges and spots and other decorative features with it. Fun! After dyeing the felt with Dynaflow, the felt gets a little stiff. Ironing to set the dye helps to soften the felt. Because of this unique feature of felt, it was much easier to paint the edges and decorations while it was still stiff and then to iron it to soften. I made an advent calendar this year using wool felt that was dyed with bright colors of Dynaflow - I will try to get a photo of it in the next couple of weeks. I think I know where it is packed. Happy Giraffe! Belinda