bottle tops

Good afternoon ladies!  I hope you're all well of a Friday afternoon?  Now, I don't want you all to panic, this post isn't about the Zakka Style Sew Along.  I know, incredible isn't it, I'm actually talking about something else!
A little while ago I told you all about the mixed-media jewellery making workshop that I attended.  One of the products was Pebeo Fantasy Paints.  I had a thought and fancied giving it a go.  Out came my big bag of bottle tops, aquired years ago at a craft show.  I used to use them in cardmaking but they'd been put aside for a while.  I got to work filling them with the paint and swirling two or three colours together in some of them.

Please excuse the rather dark, badly-lit, badly-shot photo and the crappy old placemat.  I wanted to get a shot of them before they dried, and so waiting for optimal light conditions was out of the question, as was moving them! 

I love the effect.  We were told at the workshop that you have no control over how the paint comes out.  This isn't strictly true if you've worked with them a little as you get to know how they behave and so can manipulate the paint.  There was one big flaw.  I didn't take shrinkage into account and they shrunk so much that I could see the inner circle of the bottle top on many of them.  Quite predictably, on my favourites!

I added some more paint and got my cocktail stick out again for more swirling and swooshing and other onomatopeic words.  Hey, big fancy word there, eh?  Spelt wrongly I don't doubt!  You can still see the bottom in some of these, but I've only noticed it on the photo, not in real life.

I did one each of the colours alone, though I don't seem to have done a red one for some reason.  They didn't turn out so well.  The light blue one on the left is how they should look, with that strange patterning.

Then I went to town swirling and mixing.  Some I love, some I don't like so much.  In some cases I loved the first go, but when I tried to replicate it as they were too empty, it didn't quite work, despite all my talk of learning how the paints work!  I suppose they're just not that precise.

It used a lot of paint.  I think next time I'll half fill the bottle tops with ordinary acrylic paint, then use the Fantasy paint over the top.  So you're all sitting there thinking "but what are they for", I can see it.  I'm thinking of adding brooch backs or even bails to make them into necklaces.  I'm wondering about drilling them to string a few together - but that's got to wait until I get a Dremel.  I'm saving up in Amazon vouchers that I get for doing on-line surveys, I'm half way there!

This lovely parcel plopped through my letter box this week.  Well, in all honesty, it plopped through my parents' letterbox and they passed it on to me.  I won this gorgeous panel from my lovely bloggy pal Susan.  She very generously added the perfect co-ordinating FQ and some flavoured teas.  I'm looking forward to getting to work on this one, I just hope I don't mess it up!
In other news, my lovely friend Allie has just started selling her patterns.  She's incredibly talented, so please go and take a look.  You can see her work on her blog and I'm sure you'll all agree that her patterns are amazing.  You can buy her first pattern (below) here.