Acrylic pour jewelry

the same techniques that allows acrylic poured paintings can be used to make lovely jewelry from either the spilled paint or purposeful pours for jewelry making, these will also be added to this years offerings,   I took them to work and they generated a good deal of interest. ,, I hope they do as well at a show.   $20

Acrylic pour, new product, new risk.

Acrylic pour paintings and jewelry are the newest addition to my portfolio as I prep for this years fall/xmas craft shows.  I consider this product as a huge risk as I need to have a good selection of pieces for a show but I have no idea if the market will bare what I think I must charge for them.

A single painting 10x10 
$2-3 for canvass
4oz of paint and pouring medium at about $2/oz  = $8
mounting/hanging hardware  $2





MISC materials $3 
disposable cups for pouring
craft sticks
silicon oil
varnish
nitrite gloves

cleaning materials

so at least $15 just to produce a painting before the added the cost of sales, ie renting booths at craft shows for up to $100 per day, advertising, travel, and of course my time which most customers totally discount.

Total selling $40  price for a 10x10,  there are however sizes bigger and smaller which are prices to scale.
Don't know if it will fly but if I want to keep doing it this is what is required. 
Anyways have a look at a sampling of my work

Pipe and board enertainment centre

I saw something very close to this on Etsy for just under $1000 dollars and decided to replicate it...

turns out those pipe fittings aren't cheap when you start using connectors by the dozens yet I managed to put this together with 2 inch think pine slabs, all the hardware, stain, finish for a sweet $340

The biggest issue with this project was finding enough of the pipe parts,, inevitably you'd find 1/2 the parts at one store and the next store carried a different brand that didn't quite match in finish or shape...   If your going to do a lot of this stuff open an account with a plumbing supply company which will make up your order for you, no dicking around at 5 stores trying to find that last matching piece.

Acrylic Pouring, yet another rabbit hole to fall into

Winter is hard around the studio as it's really my unheated garage, therefore I needed to find something free of torches and sawdust that I can move to the basement and acrylic pouring seems to fit the role.  I'm not going to go into great detail how I produced each of these mostly because I'm lazy and don't keep notes, further there are lots of educational videos on YouTube about the process.

All you really need to know

It's forgiving,
yes you occasionally screw one up but being abstract it's amazing how someone will still like it.

It's even more forgiving,
yes you have to pick colours that don't suck or clash but no real painting talent is needed.

It's quick.   prepping a surface or mixing the paints might take a some time but the pours themselves can produce a lovely result in mere minutes. (except then you must wait a month for it to cure)

It's relatively cheap.  you can spend big on profession paints but normal craft paints do a respectable job too


Anyways I'm posting my first attempts up here for your viewing,,

Comments appreciated.

there will be more of these I assure you,, just too much fun,

Playing with my new toy

Monetizing stuff you can't make yourself destroy

 One my personal dilemmas are the pile of items from my father's estate that I don't want to toss but also can't find a decent means of selling including a pile of some 60 or so 1949-53 pulp, science fiction magazines.. 

Looking at online the prices for these mags seem pretty low and also appear to sit for quite some time before selling.  Further I'm really leery of getting into the shipping racket when Canada post charges more to ship most items than I'd be selling them for.. Yes I know lots of people shop online and don't care about the shipping but to me it seems, "off" to buy stuff that costs $20 but ships for $30

So what to do?

My answer was to buy enough mats and click frames to do a sample run of salvaged art covers for sale at my next jewelry event,  if they sell I can order enough frames for the next 50ish covers.  Slightly larger reprints of this kind of pulp art sold as wall decals  can go for $60-$100, surely even flawed with age, matted framed original covers should be viable at $25-$30.  Yes? No?  I'd like some opinions.

Here is a sampling from my first run

First attempts at enamel

 So yes, the summer heat has made me lazy and reluctant indulge my torch work of late but I do have a something to share.  As I mentioned I was awaiting on some enameling supplies and while I haven't done individual shots for a gallery posting here is a sampling of what you can do with no training and a pile of powdered glass.  

They say you can start enameling in a day but can spend your life learning it.