Melting - my new hobby

Made a couple more pin dolls - I have to get three done and in the mail this week for the swap on FOCD. I did some multi-media work on them so I was using my heat gun and my mini-iron. The two of them tried to set my studio on fire today. When I wasn't looking the cord from the heat gun draped itself over the hot barrel of the iron. The vinyl cord melted all the way through and when the wires hit the hot metal - KAPOW! There was a huge boom and then fireworks. The two of them sent sparks flying! I nearly had a heart attack. Luckily the pins were done except for their backs. Phew. Here they are ...

I like the green one best - so does Kai. They both started life as a piece of ecology cloth - which is an unbleached rough muslin. I stamped the face with Staz-on ink and then colored it with watercolor pencils. I colored the bodies that way too - just wet the whole thing down and then blended different colors together. When that dried I cut some pieces of stitch witchery into thin strips and, using the heat gun, melted it to the fabric just enough to stick. Poured embossing powder on it, shook off the excess, and then melted it all. Makes some great texture. After that I just added various papers to the two of them. These were pretty quick - which was pretty cool!

Click to enlarge

Pin Doll

So .. hubby fixed the heat gun for me by cutting the cord down and resplicing it together. The mini iron has holes in the barrel and it's pretty much full of melted vinyl. Not sure if I can use that again or not. Grrr. So let this be a lesson to you ... don't turn your back on your tools - they're sneaky! Keep your tools out of trouble!

Posted by judi at July 31, 2005 7:22 PM
Comments

I agree - don't turn your back on the tools. I have recently just started using "electrical" tools, heating elements, etc - in my art projects... so "I have been burned a few times". So glad you are okay. Your dolls look lovely. I admire your work. Glad to be a part of Embellished Circus with you. You also inspired me to make a "Fabric Postcard"! I finished my first one today. Perhaps we can trade 1/1 sometime!

Posted by: callavisage at August 2, 2005 3:20 AM

Hello Judi,
I love your work. You always come up with something new and creative. Pins are lovely.
Glad nothing more disasterous happened than just the fireworks. Take care
hugs
Shashi

Posted by: Shashi at August 2, 2005 12:13 PM

I love those hotel irons that turn themselves off after ten minutes - I would get one except that, on the whole, they are crappy irons! I guess I love the idea of them... I once melted the back of my hand to the faceplate of the iron while watching TV (I was ironing pillowcases for a nickel apiece - my Mum's way of teaching me housekeeping. I wish she'd paid me a nickel each for all those potatoes I had to peel - that's all I ever learned about cooking!!) I wrapped a linen napkin around my hand and asked Mum to take me to the Doctor. Well, we ended up in Emergency at Sick Children's Hospital. When the nurse took the napkin off my hand, Mum fainted. Suddenly there are tons of nurses, interns, doctors and spectators clustered around my Mum, making sshhhhing noises, "Give her air!", "Fetch the ammonia" etc. Meanwhile I'm sitting on this awful vinyl chair, looking at my crispy hand (which didn't really hurt, funnily enough) wondering if it would scar and I would have Show and Tell in the September. Mum was plied with orange juice and rallied around magnificently as the doctor finally took a look at my hand, smeared it with ointment and gauzed dit up. All he said to me was;"You're grounded off the TV until it heals".
And it never did scar. I felt ripped off all the way around!
VBG,
Kathy

Posted by: Kathy White at August 3, 2005 2:07 PM
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