Archive for the ‘Mylene Hillam’ Category
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Friendly Plastic can replicate so many wonderful looks. As Mylene describes, these beads look similar to those made from polymer clay...only these have metallic BLING! Enjoy Mylene's post:
I had a brilliant idea one night this week. It was one of those light bulb moments! You know the kind..... the ones that come just as you're drifting off to sleep.
Normally when an idea like that hits I would reach over to jot it down in my Little Book of Big Ideas but four months after moving into our new house, we still don't have bedside tables and so my Little Book was not there. So I went over and over the idea in my head, working out every little detail hoping I might at least remember something about the idea come morning. Do I start with a basic cylinder bead? Should I roll it into a ball? When should I add the stripes? Do I use the hot water method or stick with the heat gun...... so many questions. It's a wonder I got any sleep at all.
So what was my brilliant idea, I hear you ask? Well, take a peek below!
These are my first experiments.... you can just make out the beginnings of a swirl forming. 
Not bad, but I'm sure I can improve the technique. So I tried a completely different method for the second batch and got much better results.... a swirl is definitely happening here! 
That's much more like what I had in mind. It's a similar effect to polymer clay swirl beads but it takes a totally different technique to achieve the effect in Friendly Plastic. I'm calling them Swirl Beads because they look just like their polymer clay counterparts.
As with most of the beads I make from Friendly Plastic these will get a coat of resin so that they can be turned into jewellery and then they'll be ready for my next jewellery project.
I'm off to play some more with this technique so I have some finished pieces to share with you soon.
'Til then,
Myléne
Visit Mylene on her blog at:
www.milllanestudio.blogspot.com
Linda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.
Posted in Amaco, Animal Print friendly Plastic, Art Jewelry, Friendly Plastic Beads, friendly plastic swirl beads, mill lane studio, Mylene Hillam, Plastic Industry News | No Comments »
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.
Posted in art doll necklace, choker, friendly plastic marbeling, friendly plastic jewelr, Marbling technique, milllanestudio, Mylene Hillam, Plastic Industry News | No Comments »
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
Well.....I didnt do so good on the picture taking today....I really was too busy! The day just flew by.
Jen WOWed everyone with colourizing pellets - (sorry no pic...bad me!) showing how to use alcohol inks, die cut and emboss with pellets..a real hit!
Jana continued her fracture and fusion series - always popular!
And I continued the pellet series with colourizing and using molds - again...no pic!! I need more arms!
Before the show though I was able to sneak over to the ETI booth - makers of Envirotex, the clear resin that we use to make Friendly Plastic look like glass - and snap a couple of pictures they had using Friendly Plastic and Envirotex! Great Job Designers!
These ink pens were designed by
Mylene Hillam - well known to the blog...great job Mylene!
Tomorrow we will have the reception which I am priveleged to emcee and the winners will be announced! Congratulations to all our participants!!!
Linda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.
Posted in Amaco, CHA, envirotex light, Friendly Plastic, Jana Ewy, Jen Lowe, Linda Peterson, Mylene Hillam, Plastic Industry News | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Mylene has really been on a creative spree lately and her
blog is ooozing with all sorts of luscious creative goodness.
If you find that your Friendly Plastic is in need of a little flair....well get busy! WRITE NOW!!
Mylene shares:
Since I first started making these delectable Friendly Plastic pens, I'd been promising myself I'd find some nicer pens for the base.
There was nothing wrong with the pens I was using. In fact they are great for the budget end of my line of pens (check them out in the Friendly Plastic Gallery page at Mill Lane Studio). But I really wanted to also have a more upmarket end to the range and so I'm now introducing pens made with beautiful metallic nibs and ends. The ones below are all slimline pens but there will also be some wider barrelled pens too.
These new additions will be available for purchase from my website in the next few days, just in time for a last minute Christmas gift purchase for that special person on your Christmas list.
Linda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.
Posted in decorated ink pens, friendly plastic pens, mill lane studio, Mylene Hillam, Plastic Industry News, Writing pens | No Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Mylene's writes one of my favorite artist blogs! She's an expert in so many areas and she's right! Friendly Plastic and Resin are a perfect combination. Enjoy her eye candy!
Well, if ever two things were made for each other, then it would have to be Friendly Plastic and resin.
Over the weekend I had a bumper Friendly Plastic session and knocked out 8 of my specialty pens, 9 Friendly Plastic tile components for 2 bracelets and a variety of smaller marbled pieces all combining Friendly Plastic and resin. I also cast 4 bangles. I have never been so productive! So expect to see a few of these items over the coming days as I have time to assemble and finish them all. In the meantime, here's a teaser:
The butterfly pieces were cast in the Krafty Lady domino mould using black as the base and clear resin to embed the butterflies. The butterflies are made from Friendly Plastic using a variation on Liz Welch's flower technique. So dramatic yet so delicate! These will most likely become pendants on elegant but simple gold chains.
The middle piece shows how you can combine "fracture and fusion" strips with other materials to create unique pieces of jewellery. This one uses a transparency overlay cut to exactly the same size as the heart bezel it sits in to add instant pizzazz to the Friendly Plastic strips.
This idea has lots of potential and I'll definitely be exploring it further but you know, I was educated in the school that said you never wear silver and gold together and yet combining metallic colours, in this case gold and silver, can produce some really stunning results. And I like this piece so much that I think it will remain in my own collection.
Beautiful work Mylene!! To see more of her work or to own your very own piece of her work visit her blog:
www.milllanestudio.blogspot.comLinda Peterson is compensated and endorsed by AMACO. The guests features may or may not have any affiliation with AMACO.
Posted in Friendly Plastic, Friendly Plastic Jewelry, Handmade jewelry, Mylene Hillam, Plastic Industry News, Resin and Friendly Plastic | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Read on as Mylene shares a quick lesson in complimentary colors and how effective they are when used in Friendly Plastic. Mylene writes:
Whilst finding new places for things in the studio (yes, I'm still unpacking..... and reorganising), I came across a few pieces of marbled Friendly Plastic which I hadn’t coated in resin yet. And as I’ve been casting with resin a lot lately I thought it was high time they got coated. So today I’m sharing a Friendly Plastic necklace with you.
The colour combination in this piece is a little bit unexpected – blue with shades of orange – opposites on the colour wheel.
Complimentary colours are always striking when used together but when you use variations of those colours (like peach and apricot with blue) they will play off against each other without competing. And so it is with this piece…. together the colours give off a lovely warm glow.
I’ve teamed the Friendly Plastic heart with glass beads and vintage lucite flower in similar colours to the oranges and pinks and finished the necklace off with rose-gold findings. I really like the softness of these colours.
But when it came time to name this piece I was completely stumped. So I enlisted the help of my daughter who pointed out that the colours were very Egyptian – blue, terracotta, gold and turquoise – and the marbled pattern looked like a chevron. Hmmm, yes they are indeed, but I hadn’t seen that at first glance. She started playing around with words and came up with the name “Egyptian Lilyâ€. Yes, I like it…… so, Egyptian Lily it is!
Visit Mylene's blog for more of her work or to purchase her designs.
Posted in Friendly Plastic, Friendly Plastic Jewelry, friendly plastic marbled, Mylene Hillam, Plastic Industry News | No Comments »
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
We've entertained this topic with in the past week or so when Jen Lowe shared that stamping into friendly plastic will clean the ink off your stamps. Today's post however offers a suggestion as to what you can do when friendly plastic sticks to your rubber stamps. It's an excellent story from
Mylene Hillam from Australia - Winner of the 2009 CHA design challenge.
It also shows us that techniques and ways of handling friendly plastic can differ from region to region or country to country......
She writes:
I conducted a large workshop on the weekend and one of the techniques we used was stamping into Friendly Plastic with a red rubber stamp. It was a requirement that everyone bring along a suitable stamp but alas not one person did and so the stamp I brought went through the process 30 times. That's OK, no drama. It's a rubber stamp and able to withstand all sorts of abuse!Now, the lesson here is that I don't ink my rubber stamps with a lubricant when I stamp into FP. I simply press the image straight into the softened FP and plunge it into cold water for 30 seconds, which is usually all that's required to release it. But Saturday was a warm day (30°C) and the airconditioning was completely ineffective.. We had 4 heatguns running constantly and lots of warm FP being plunged into the tray of water. What I'm trying to say is, everything was WARM! We had all sorts of trouble getting the stamp to release from the FP and with every impression made with the stamp, more little bits of FP stuck to the rubber which in turn stuck to the next persons FP. We eventually resorted to inking the stamp with Versamark and were able to find iced water to dunk the stamp into and all was good. Luckily, the card we were working on was a little bit grungy and everyone's stamped piece of FP was OK. But, from now on I will tell everyone to use Versamark (or other lubricant) before stamping into the FP - lesson learned!!!!But at the end of the day the nooks and crannies of my stamp were very furry looking from all the FP that had been deposited onto it. It's one of my favourite backgrounds stamps for stamping into FP so it HAD to be cleaned. And here's how I did it.Take an old scrap of FP and heat it on a nonstick surface until it's very soft. Dip your finger tips into water and pick it up. Press it into the nooks and crannies and plunge into cold water for a few minutes to make sure it has completely cooled. Then lift the FP scrap away from the stamp and most of the stuck Friendly Plastic will come with it. Work on small sections at a time until it the whole stamp is cleaned. I also wanted to share a couple of other things I tried to clean it - neither of these worked!- dig out the FP using a needle tool - didn't budge any of it at all.- Placed the stamp into the freezer overnight and try to dig out the FP using the needle tool - didn't work either.So there you have it! Even those of us who have worked and taught with FP quite extensively still learn new things. And I wanted to share this with you so that you know even experienced people make mistakes!!Hope you all have a fantastic Friendly Plastic week!Cheerio,
Myléne Hillam Qld, Australia
www.milllanestudio.comhttp://milllanestudio.blogspot.com/Krafty Lady DT member: http://www.kraftylady.com.au http://community.webshots.com/user/mylenehillam 
Posted in Cleaning friendly plastic from rubber stamp, FAQ - Friendly Plastic, Mylene Hillam, Plastic Industry News | No Comments »
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
In recent posts, I've shown color charts for upcoming fall and spring 2010 fashions. Mylene Hillam shows you in detail, how color affects your overall design....read on!
Mylene says:
Have you ever had beads that left you unsure as to what colour metal you should use for your findings? Ever wondered how different a piece of jewellery might look if you chose gold instead of silver? Well I have. Some beads look just as good in one colour as they do in another. Take the following for example.
After making up my ugly duckling beads into a necklace, I still had a few beads left over so I decided to make the beads up into a necklace using gold findings and here's how it looks...........
Quite lovely - the gold warms up the beads rather nicely!
But then I had some doubt..... would it look better made up in silver? So I pulled it apart and replaced the gold findings with silver.......
Not bad either - lovely and cool looking - silver really brings out the red in the beads.
And for comparison, here's yesterday's necklace in copper. 
These beads were a little more copper than the second batch so they worked quite well with copper findings but I'm undecided on the gold and silver. At first I liked the necklace in gold but then I preferred it in silver. What do you think?
These three necklaces are all made using the same basic design and only the metals and complimentary beads have been changed, and yet they all have a very different feel about them..... isn't it amazing how the metal can change the look?!!
Posted in Friendly Plastic colors, Mylene Hillam, Plastic Industry News, Whats in a colour | No Comments »
Not bad, but I'm sure I can improve the technique. So I tried a completely different method for the second batch and got much better results.... a swirl is definitely happening here! 
That's much more like what I had in mind. It's a similar effect to polymer clay swirl beads but it takes a totally different technique to achieve the effect in Friendly Plastic. I'm calling them Swirl Beads because they look just like their polymer clay counterparts.
