Archive for February, 2010

FREE LIVE FRIENDLY PLASTIC DEMO – Stamped Copper Pendant – Cool2Craft

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

 Join me MONDAY March 1st at 12pm Eastern time (That's 11am Central, 10 am mountain, 9 am pacific and 5PM in the UK) on Cool2Craft Live for a Friendly Plastic demo.  We'll be creating a pendant similar to this one in just 5 minutes!! Okay...it may take you a little longer...but it really is an easy pendant to make in a fairly short time!  So Join me and all the other guests of Tiffany Windsor or Cool2Craft TV see you there!!

Check the website for more information:  www.cool2craft.com 

If you can't make it at the scheduled time, the show will be archived for viewing at your convenience.  Have  a great Friendly Plastic day everyone!


Linda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.

Friends and Friendly Plastic by Jen Lowe

Saturday, February 27th, 2010


































Not much I need to say.....I think this canvas says it all! What do you think???






Linda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.

NEW VIDEO!! Friendly Plastic TV – Zentangle Beads!

Friday, February 26th, 2010
A couple of days ago I wrote about Zentangle.  Have you heard about it?  It's the latest and greatest rage sweeping the arts and crafts industry.  ANYONE and I mean ANYONE can create amazing art just by drawing a line, circle or any geometric shape and combining them in a repeating manner. 

Taking that concept, this video will show you how to create beautiful artbeads.  I hope you enjoy getting entangled in ZENTANGLE.






Linda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.

US Embassy design highlights ETFE

Friday, February 26th, 2010
Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene is making architectural headlines again, this time in the design of a proposed new US Embassy in London. The Los Angeles Times' Culture Monster blog had a nice review of the design this week. Here's what blogger Christopher...

PET recycling in the World Cup spotlight

Friday, February 26th, 2010
PET recycling is getting a lot of media attention today, thanks to Nike's decision to use recycled polyester to make the soccer uniform shirts for all nine Nike-sponsored teams in the 2010 World Cup. Teams from Brazil, the Netherlands, Portugal,...

Using plastic trash to make art

Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Here's another one of those posts where you have to click through to see the photos. The io9 blog has a photo gallery post today titled "Nothing Is Ever Junk When It Can Be Reembodied." It features the work of...

Simple yet Stunning Friendly Plastic Marbled Jewelry by Mylene Hillam

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

 Mylene Hillam of Milllane Studio shares her story of creating this elegant chocker and how she solved a rather common problem when making jewelry.  She writes:

Here's another piece I've made up using the samples from my demos at the Brisbane Paper Crafts Festival. This was a marbled strip in lovely shades of turquoise and purple which I cut with rectangular cookie cutters. I loved the colour combination, especially with the hint of red to spice it up and I knew straight away that it was destined to be made into a piece of jewellery.

But when it came time to assemble into a necklace it proved to be a little bit of a challenge. The striking colour combination was competing with every bead and colour combination I tried, which is a lesson in itself - sometimes, it's better to simplify! So with that in mind, I came up with a simple stringing idea - just a few crystal set dangles in between the rectangles and it's become an elegant choker - simple but effective!


Before I assembled anything, I gave each rectangle a coat of resin - that's five fronts and five backs and left them to cure overnight. Then I took a length of 18 gauge non-tarnish gold wire and bent it into a gentle curve. I laid out all the backings, face side down, on a non stick mat using the curved wire as a guide. I left just enough space between each rectangle for the dangle to be attached later. Then I heated the back of all 5 pieces with the heat gun until they were softened and placed the wire down into the Friendly Plastic. Make sure you have wet fingers when you do this because both the wire and the plastic are hot and of course, the Friendly Plastic will stick to you. One by one, I placed the top pieces in place, pressing them down gently to sandwich the wire securely in between. I let the whole piece cool down on its own rather than plunge the wire into a water bath - no sense in encouraging rust! I turned loops on the ends of the wire and hooked on the chain adding a clasp on the other end to finish it. Finally, I added the crystal set dangles.

And there you have it - Friendly Plastic...... simple and stunning!






Linda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.

Entangled in Zentangle and Friendly Plastic

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
"ZENTANGLE".....that name is fun to say!  But what is it?  Well....that's what I wanted to know when I listened into last Sunday's Inspired at Home Radio show.  Suzanne McNeill of Design Originals was a guest speaking about two of her latest books on that very subject.

Simply put..Zentangle is a higher form of doodle art!  It's perfect for those of you who tell me that you dont have a creative bone in your body or for those of you who say you can't draw.  But it does involve a bit more than that. It involves the whole creative process of sinking yourself into creativity and just letting your thoughts flow.  It's a huge stress reliever and requires no thought process.  It's done in pen and ink - so there are no mistakes and no erasing.  It's a journey thru life....you know  - life, when you make mistakes, want to erase them but you can't so you find another way around the obstacle....that kind of thought process.  It's discovery....

So....after the show I went to Design Originals website and ordered both books.  Being the impatient person that I am (and Im working on that....) I didnt want to wait for the books to arrive...I wanted to dive in!  So I did.  And naturally I thought....how can I combine this process of Zentangle ....with Friendly Plastic...

I struggled with a few ideas, made alot of mistakes and had some not so happy flops...but the journey led me to this...and while it may not be true Zentangle....it was a creative process that I will be developing as the days go by........


 This is a bead that I made with Friendly Plastic sticks and pellets combined.  And it was loads of fun...not a quick process but it was a fun discovery.

Next, I decided to keep the plastic flat, rather than develop it into a bead.  This design was inspired by Moorcroft Pottery and a trip I took to their factory back in April 2008.


Details on how to create Zentangled beads will be featured in our next FPTV video - which will be taped tomorrow and hopefully live on Friday.

In the meantime, you can listen to the archived Inspired at home radio show by clicking here.

Here are other relative links:

Suzanne McNeill's blog: blog.suzannemcneill.com
Inspired at Home:  www.inspiredathome.com
Cool2Craft : www.cool2craft.com  and www.cool2craft.blogspot.com
Linda Peterson Designs:  www.lindapetersondesigns.blogspot.com

DONT FORGET ABOUT THE LIVE FRIENDLY PLASTIC DEMO on COOL2CRAFT TV on MONDAY - check the website for details

Now.....get entagled in Zentangle!!!
Linda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.

A peek behind the BPA ban in Canada

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Sarah Schmidt, a reporter for the Canwest News Service, took a close look behind Canada's 2008 decision to ban polycarbonate baby bottles, and found that the decision was very controversial. After looking at more than 5,000 pages of documents from...

Update on Tesla plane crash

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Tesla Motors has released more information on the victims of the Feb. 17 crash of a private plane owned by one of the company's executives. According to a blog on the company's Web site, the victims of the crash were...