SO…. I did a thing. I bought myself a Christmas present and I finally finished putting it together. It ONLY took 4 or 5 runs to Lowes and Home Depot. LOL
I bought a Dewalt 21 inch scroll saw. Oh my goodness but I love power tools!
I bought it with the stand and a light, though the light is very dim. So I ordered some LED lightbulbs that will be here next week. Though new shop lights would help the best! The stand assembly took me the longest. I knew that the machine was going to be heavy so I made a rolling stand. It raises it up pretty high but it is a perfect height for me to stand and work and I have a high shop stool that I could sit at. But since I sit all day for work then standing is good for me.
I bought a furniture mover from Harbor Freight. It was on sale and I also got another discount so it was less than $15. Then I got a piece of 1/2in plywood. (I cannot believe the price of wood!) After the stand was put together I drew out a pattern for the base and then cut it out of the plywood. I sanded it all nice and smooth. It did have a boo boo where my mind went “Bird” so I made and extra cut. Oops. It is in front of one of the legs.
Then I bolted the stand to the plywood and this is what caused all the trips to the home improvement store. The holes in the stand for the base are 1/2in. I bought a 1/2 in drill bit and the galvanized 1/2 bolts. The bolts were just slightly too big for the holes. SO back to the store I go. I check the stainless steel 1/2in bolts and they seemed a tad smaller. I bought them, tried them and they wouldn’t fit in the stupid holes either. So back to the store I go. This time I got the smaller size down stainless steel bolts, nuts and extra washers. I ended up putting a washer on each side and it worked great. Then I just used clamps to attach the plywood base to the furniture mover. That is so I can move the heavy machine by myself easily. Hopefully some day I will live where I can have it on the floor. But right now I have to be careful what I put on the floor because our shed has a tendency to leak from beneath the walls when it rains alot.
Yesterday I got the machine on the stand and all the screws screwed in. Some of them were very hard to do. Horrible angles and Essential Tremor makes it really difficult to put on washers and nuts.
Today I went out there and figured out the blades and played around with some scrap plywood before moving to my hard insulation board. THEN,,, I tried the spiral blades!! GAME CHANGER!!! With the regular blades on the scroll saw you can only insert the item in one direction for cutting. With a spiral blades you can push your item in any direction! That makes it a breeze to cut the curvy and holey pieces that I love to make. For inside cuts you have to drill holes in it so that you have a place to insert the blade. Inserting the blades will take some more practice.
I got this because cutting out my patterns by hand took hours and was very hard on my arthritic elbows. I am in love with this scroll saw and can’t wait to try more things. I just have to get better at putting that blade in for the inside cuts.
Here are what pieces that I got from a 12x12inch piece of 2in thick pink insulation board. I saved the inside holes in order to glue them onto other pieces like that boring one in the lower center. These are now ready for the paper clay process.
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There are lots of recipes out there for making paper clay. I have tried quite a few different recipes but have boiled my own down to one that works great for me. The finished product is hard and has a texture that I love. It can also be made to be smooth but I love the texture.
It starts with preparing your paper. I reuse all kinds of paper, except for cardboard boxes. I use shredded bills and junk mail, paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, egg cartons and sometimes newspaper. When using junk mail and bills you have to be sure to not shred the cellophane windows. Plastic and paper clay will not stick together. The integrity won’t be as strong where that shred of plastic is. So go through all the junk mail and the envelopes and tear or cut out all those windows out then put them in the trash. Then shred everything else. I use an office shredder and I store it all in a garbage bag until ready to use. For the paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls, rip them down to about 1.5in x 1.5in. Any paper based product is fair game. I also use drink holders from fast food restaurants, egg cartons etc. If you can rip it with your hands into small pieces and it is made of paper then it will work. Cardboard will work but it is hard to get into small pieces. So I just don’t use it much. Instead I use it to supplement the armatures if needed. I also don’t use anything that feels like it is coated with wax.
Get a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with your shredded and torn paper. Fill it to the top because it will shrink down once you add the water. Then fill the bucket with hot, hot water. I get very hot and steaming water out of my sink but you may need to boil water. Stir it around to make sure it is all wet. I put in enough wet paper to fill about half the bucket.
Then fill it more with hot water so that the water is about 3 or 4 inches above the sunken paper. I added more water after taking the above picture. The water will turn dark from ink. Don’t worry about it because there is nothing you can do The clay will be a blueish grey color with colored flecks. Unless you used a lot of newspaper then it may be darker in color.
Now for the hardest part. Waiting…. It is best to let it soak overnight but I never do.. I will go check it after a few hours and see if it will blend up. If it won’t then you soak it for longer.
For blending I use a commercial immersion blender. I was burning out the motor of the small kitchen ones and having to replace them to often. The one I got is a Vevor brand and you can’t help but feel like Rambo when holding the thing.
Blend, blend, blend. Until everything is as small as possible. It will look like oatmeal. Scrap the bottom and sides to get anything sticking to them.
You then need a piece of muslin or another thin, strong fabric even an old sheet works great. I tried a towel but it was harder to get the water squeezed out and my hands cramped. So the muslin is what I use. If you buy it, it is pretty cheap at JoAnne’s*. About a yard squared is all you need. It will cost about $2.50 a yard or $1.50yd if on sale. I lay it across a colander and then scoop out the paper mash into it. I work in a utility sink but you could use a bathtub, or any other sink. You could even do this outside if you can keep the dirt out of it. I use a really large scoop to move it from the bucket into the muslin that is laid across the large colander.
The colander keeps it contained in the muslin until you start to twist and squeeze. When you have a good amount in the muslin then pick it up and start twisting all the ends together and squeeze. I squeeze and twist until I don’t have anymore water coming out.
When you open the muslin up then the paper will be in a clump (above) and you can easily put it in a bowl or a gallon size Ziplock* baggie. It is easy to scrape the bits from the muslin with your fingers. Do this for all of the rest of the contents of your bucket, then picking up the bucket and using a scraper to get all the little bits at the end.
Store the pulp in an airtight bowl or do as I do and use a gallon Ziplock* baggie. (Above photo, 5 gallon bucket yields about 1 gallon of pulp) You can then refrigerate it until your ready to use it. You want it to stay damp and not dry out for easiest mixing. So if it gets too dry then add a tiny bit of water. Though if the bag is airtight then it wont dry out. The muslin can just be hanged up to dry until you need it for the next batch. Oh and try not to get any pulp down the drain. It could stick and harden in your pipes.
This is the base for my art, both indoor and outdoor. I will go over the outdoor formula in a different post.
For the indoor clay I take out a handful of the pulp and tear it up into small pieces putting it in a bowl. I use about 4 cups at a time. Once it is in small pieces I put on gloves and add in some wood glue. I prefer the Gorilla* or Titebond brands of wood glue. I tried Elmer’s* wood glue but I just didn’t feel that I got as strong results. I start with about 1/8 cup and start mixing it by hand. I don’t measure and I just add a little more as I go. How much is up to you. Too little and it wont be strong enough and may crumble. I have used too much before. It worked but it had lost some texture and was sloppy. I like to just be able to see the white of the glue. It will hold its shape and will sound “squishy” as your mixing it.
Then I use small amounts at a time pressing it into place on the armature. Remember it won’t stick to plastics and some Styrofoams. Here is a piece that I am working on now. I got the circle forms at the dollar store and the paper clay will just not stick to it so I paper mached it with a water/glue mixture and paper strips for a first layer. Now the clay is sticking to it.
This one I am just starting to add the paper clay. If you have leftover clay then store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Be sure to label it so it isn’t mistaken for food and those containers will not be used for anything else again. That goes for all utensils you use for this. They will be strictly for the paper pulp.
If you want a smoother clay then use a hand mixer to mix it up with the glue. It will smooth out the lumps better than your hands.
Let it dry. It will take a few days to dry completely. Sand it if needed to remove any sharp areas. Then I brush it with Golden GAC 100* to seal it. It is then ready to varnish if leaving natural or gesso it and paint.
Other products that I use are Nova Color Paints*, Golden Paints* and Golden High Gloss Varnish*.
* – I am not affiliated with any company so there are no links to products in my blogs.
I used a cement clay for this flower. Each petal was constructed separately and hopefully with the instructions included here you can create your own. I will be making more of them and hopefully making videos of the process which I will then put on my YouTube channel. Just learning all of that though with help from my daughter over text messaging so that is slow going.
To start I use heavy sculpture wire and bend it into a petal shape with longish ends, about 5 inches. I then harden the wire into my shape by hammering it on a flat anvil. This will stiffen the wire so that it will stay in place. I then used masking tape to go across the petal on each side. I bought plaster cloth rolls and cut it into strips. Lightly dip the strip into water and then lay it over the masking tape. Overlap the strips and making sure that you go around the sides. Go down to the bottom of the petal. With a damp finger rub the strips lightly to spread the plaster into a solid layer.
The petals in the back layer should be a little larger and flatter. The petals for the upper layer will be smaller and can have some bends for more shape.
I made a ring from the wire and hooked the back layer of petals onto it, trimming the ends as needed. Be sure to leave some space to attach the top layer of petals. To hold the back petals in place and add some more structure I used a metal ring that can be found in the floral department of craft stores and attached it to the back of the petals. I also started applying the cement clay to the other petals and to the back layer.
Attach the top petals to the ring and then add cement clay underneath those petals to stick them in place to the lower petals. To hold the petals in place at the ring, I used some epoxy clay first and after that was dried overnight I started using the cement clay on the center to build it up for the center of the flower. When building up the backside with the cement clay create a wire hook and embed it in the cement clay by making a loop and then flay out the ends in opposite directions and cover with clay. Bend out the top loop portion so that it sticks out from the back of the flower in order to have a “hanger” to hook the wall hanging on a heavy duty nail or screw.
This is a time consuming process. You can only work on one side at a time as you must give the cement clay time to harden and cure before flipping it over and working on the other side. That can take up to 24 to 48 hours depending on your conditions.
Here is the completed front side. The different colors of grey is just the colorations the cement clay goes through as it cures. It will also be cold as it cures.
Here is the back side of the completed project but you can see the hanging loop.
When done with all the cement clay then let it sit and cure for at least a week. It needs to be completely dried before the next steps.
Now for the painting. The first layer will be a primer. I used Gesso as that is what I had on hand. I painted 2 layers of it on the front and back. The cement will absorb the paint so doing this will make your actual paint colors more vibrant. Then paint your flower as desired. I actually painted it at first with yellow and purple but I didn’t like what I ended up with so painted over it with gesso and started over. I used yellow, indian yellow and a little _______. Sometimes mixing the colors as needed for the petals. I used ______ for the center and for the back. For low lighting the edges and the undersides of the top layer petals I mixed a tiny bit of the __________ with the indian yellow to make a darker hue.
For the center I also added dots of black and gold paint. Let the paint dry completely. Then seal both sides with a good exterior sealer, 2 layers.
Here is the cement clay recipe that I used. cement clay
Other items that I used:
Paints: Nova Paints I also used their Exterior Varnish as my sealer. It is listed under their mediums tab. These paints are wonderful and it lists on the bottle all the ways it can be used including on masonry. They are wonderfully priced and they ship fast to the continental USA. You will have to check their site for other shipping options. Easy water clean up is a bonus!
I have slowly been experimenting with creating vessels.
So far this gold one is my favorite.
It was created with wool roving, ribbons, metallic threads and beads. All worked on water soluble film. The wool roving and ribbon is sandwiched in between two pieces of film and then heavily stitched using free motion with different types of threads and then the film is rinsed out. After it was dried, I sewed on beads to add more sparkle. This one was formed into a vessel with a felt bottom.
The grey and black ones were started the same except there isn’t any beading on them. Instead they each have a piece of velvet that has been melted and then sewn on as a focal point. They were then formed into a vessel shape and coated with Powertex Clear to stiffen into shape. There are the three different sizes and shapes.
I enjoyed experimenting with these and plan to continue experimenting!
I am experimenting with needle felting and am loving it. I have a bunch of wool and silk roving already and in the past I have worked with it by sandwiching it in between two sheets of water soluble interfacing and then free motion machine stitching it all over. Here I have gray and silver roving sandwiched in the film and am starting the free motion stitching.
After rinsing, the film leaves behind a little of the “glue” creating a sheet of fabric that I can cut, stitch or use in other projects. Here is a gold piece that I am still stitching beads onto.
Recently, my mother was in the hospital so I packed up a bag of roving, some felt, a foam pad and some felting needles and “basted” down some roving in an abstract pattern. I also bought the Brother Felting Attachment (SA280). It only works on certain sewing machines so if this is something that you are interested in be sure to look up the models it can be used with at https://www.brother-usa.com/products/sa280. If you don’t have a brother sewing machine be sure to check your manufacturer to see if they have an attachment for your sewing machine. Below is a video link of the attachment in action.
The attachment doesn’t work on my Brother XP1 but my previous machine was a Brother VQ2400 that my mother has been using so I have commandeered that machine for felting. It is easy enough to remove the attachment for her when she is ready to start sewing again. I worked the project that I basted in the hospital with the felting attachment and now will add to the piece with embroidery, beading and whatever else I decide. This piece will ultimately become a wall hanging or maybe a sculptural formed piece. But, I am still thinking on it. This is a bigger piece at about 1.5ft x3ft.
