Archive for the ‘rings n things’ Category

Shout out to Cathy Frank! Polly’s Pick winner of Ring N Things

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

I must give a HUGE shout out to Cathy Frank for her design in Friendly Plastic winning a Polly's Pick award in the Your Designs Rock Rings N Things contest!

Artist: Cathy Frank (Pittsburgh, PA)
Polly's Pick, Found Objects & Miscellaneous

"After producing multimedia jewelry (Metalsmithing BS, Art Ed, SUNY, New Paltz ‘81), ornaments and Judaica for over 20 years -- the past 12 primarily with Friendly Plastic(R) -- I feel like I have been reborn! With the help and generosity of the online crafters community, I have begun to experiment with alcohol inks, imprinting on Friendly Plastic and fabricating thin sheet metal. How-to blogs, tutorials and videos abound and each artist is encouraged and invited to take their own artistic journey. Through experimentation new techniques emerge. I am very excited with my results!

"Technique: Alcohol inks are air brushed onto Friendly Plastic modeling sticks and heated in a small oven. Gold and bronze embossing powders are applied to stamp and pressed into the Friendly Plastic after about 1 minute of cooling and setting. Piece is then buffed with a soft cloth to remove some of the powder, trimmed and adhered to card stock. Metal work: Gold and silver wire is twisted together and formed around the Friendly Plastic piece. Wire is adhered to the front matte board template. ArtEmboss gold sheet is cut, adhered to the back, and burnished up and around the side of the piece, capturing the twisted wire and bezeling it in place. Holes are made carefully with a dental tool and all findings are attached."
-- Cathy Frank

Polly’s Picks are designs our editor especially likes despite the fact that they did not win a formal prize. These designs are often simple, practical and/or whimsical examples of how to use Rings & Things components well.

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

Posted in Plastic Industry News, cathy frank, rings n things | No Comments »

Award winning artist Cathy Frank shares her winning piece

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Imagine checking your inbox to receive this...

Cathy,
Congratulations! Although "Watercolor Owl Pendant" did not win an official prize in the 2010 Your Designs Rock Contest, our catalog editor Polly thinks your design displays a noteworthy use of Rings & Things stock in a practical design (winning pieces are sometimes too outrageous to be functional).

As a way to say "well done," we’re giving you a electronic gift certificate you can use this gift whenever you’d like.

To see your entry, plus winners and other "Polly's Picks," visit our online Design Gallery at:

http://www.rings-things.com/gallery/

Wow! That would totally make my day as Im sure it did Cathy's!!! We want to send out a great big CONGRATULATIONS! to Cathy for winning Polly's Pick!

Here's a little more about the winning artist Cathy:

Artist: Cathy Frank (Pittsburgh, PA)
Polly's Pick, Found Objects & Miscellaneous
"After producing multimedia jewelry (Metalsmithing BS, Art Ed, SUNY, New Paltz ‘81), ornaments and Judaica for over 20 years -- the past 12 primarily with Friendly Plastic(R) -- I feel like I have been reborn! With the help and generosity of the online crafters community, I have begun to experiment with alcohol inks, imprinting on Friendly Plastic and fabricating thin sheet metal. How-to blogs, tutorials and videos abound and each artist is encouraged and invited to take their own artistic journey. Through experimentation new techniques emerge. I am very excited with my results!

"Technique: Alcohol inks are air brushed onto Friendly Plastic modeling sticks and heated in a small oven. Gold and bronze embossing powders are applied to stamp and pressed into the Friendly Plastic after about 1 minute of cooling and setting. Piece is then buffed with a soft cloth to remove some of the powder, trimmed and adhered to card stock. Metal work: Gold and silver wire is twisted together and formed around the Friendly Plastic piece. Wire is adhered to the front matte board template. ArtEmboss gold sheet is cut, adhered to the back, and burnished up and around the side of the piece, capturing the twisted wire and bezeling it in place. Holes are made carefully with a dental tool and all findings are attached."

-- Cathy Frank

Job well done Cathy!!! Can't wait to see more!

Polly’s Picks are designs our editor especially likes despite the fact that they did not win a formal prize. These designs are often simple, practical and/or whimsical examples of how to use Rings & Things components well.

View more 2010 Polly's Picks. Or, check for details about our most recent contest!

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

Posted in Plastic Industry News, cathy frank, friendly plastic contest, jewelry contest, rings n things | No Comments »

YOUR DESIGNS ROCK! ENTER RINGS AND THINGS CONTEST AND WIN!

Monday, February 8th, 2010

GOOGLE ALERTS ROCK!! Look what it brought me in my inbox? This contest is sponsored by Rings N Things...and the best part?!?!? THERE IS A CATEGORY FOR FRIENDLY PLASTIC!! How awesome is that?

Here is an excellent chance to get some exposure and win some wonderful prizes! Details to the contest are below. If you do happen to enter...please email me and let me know! See the details below:

Your Designs Rock! – A jewelry contest

This contest is open until 28 February 2010. That means you have approximately 18 days remaining to attend. Read on to find out more details about how you can enter.
This is a free contest, which means that you can enter for free and without the need of paying an entry fee.
Winners announcement expected: beginning of June 2010.

Note: Contest Watchers uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). All calculations are approximate and based on UTC.

Rings & Things invites you to show your favorite handmade designs. Designs don’t have to be jewelry – they can be anything! Winning entries (with credit to the designer) could be featured in Rings & Things catalog & promotions – that’s exposure to more than a million people a year, worldwide!
You can turn around and use this for “as seen in” promotions of your own.

Objective

Your main concern is creating beautiful jewelry in the following categories:

Glass & Crystal: Designs focused around glass, seed beads, E-beads, fiber optics, Cosmic Crystal™ and/or CRYSTALLIZED™ – Swarovski Elements.
Gemstones: Designs focused around gemstone and/or pearl beads and pendants. Stones can be natural, enhanced or manmade.
Mostly Metal: Designs focused around chain, wirework, chainmaille, metal beads, charms, filigrees, cloisonné and/or findings.
Metal Clay: Designs focused around Art Clay™ Silver and/or Art Clay Gold.
Found Objects & Miscellaneous: Designs focused around natural materials, ceramics, recycled parts, trade beads, resin, cording (like leather or rubber) & Friendly Plastic^®.

Prizes

Winners will be contacted individually by email (or postal mail) approximately the first week of June.

Grand Prize: $750 R&T gift certificate
Category First-Place Prizes: $250 R&T gift certificates
Honorable Mentions: $75 R&T gift certificates

Grand-prize winner will be selected from first-place category winners.

Rules

Entry must be an original work for which you retain all rights, and which you have the legal right to submit to us.
Entry must be a newly-made creation (made since March, 2009).
Piece may not be currently entered in another competition or have won any contest in the past.
Entry must be primarily made from items purchased or available from Rings & Things, with the exception of found objects and parts you have made (handmade glass or ceramic parts, wood carvings, etc.). See Your Designs Rock! frequently asked questions if you’re unsure about what materials you can use or which category you should enter.
2009 winners may not enter a category in which they won first place during 2009. You are, however, encouraged to move out of your “comfort zone,” expand your creativity and enter a different category in 2010!
Entrants under 18 years of age must provide a parent or legal guardian co-signature on a print version of their entry form, ensuring that all guidelines have been read and agreed upon.
Limit three entries per person or design team.
Incomplete entries and entries that do not follow these guidelines and our image requirements will be disqualified from judging and disqualified from our Early Bird drawing and New Entrant drawing.
Rings & Things employees are not eligible for “Your Designs Rock!”

How to enter?

You can enter using our online entry form or you can complete and mail-in our printable entry form on the following address:
Mail to:

Rings & Things
Attn: YOUR DESIGNS ROCK!
P.O. Box 450
Spokane WA 99210-0450

Ship to:

Rings & Things
Attn: YOUR DESIGNS ROCK!
304 E. 2nd Avenue
Spokane WA 99202

Entry fee

There is no entry fee for this contest

For more information go the official website.

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

Posted in Beginner Friendly Plastic, Plastic Industry News, friendly plastic contest, rings n things | No Comments »

Adventures in Friendly Plastic with Melissa J. Lee

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Melissa has been making beads and designing jewelry since 2007 .

She is an award winning artist taking second place in the "Necklace" category of the Bead Arts Awards, 1st place in the "Metal Clay" category and 2nd place in the "Beyond Glass" category of the British bead awards this year!! CONGRATULATIONS MELISSA!

Now Melissa has taken an adventure in Friendly Plastic and she shares her story:

So, I finally had a chance to sit down with my stash of Friendly Plastic, courtesy of the good folks at Amaco. As I mentioned earlier, although Friendly Plastic has been around for years, I'd never used the product. Playing with all of those mouth-wateringly bold colors was really appealing to me. Amaco offers significant product support for Friendly Plastic on their website, including a number of sample projects (of which my favorite is this one).

One thing I will say, having spent several hours with the product - it did take me a little practice to use it, even to create the simple graphic pendants I made for this post. Friendly Plastic becomes moldable when heated, but the melt point is low enough that it's easy for a neophyte like me to shoot past the target range and end up with a too-gooey substance. I think this is where the choice of heat source becomes crucial. I used my craft toaster oven, and I found it a real handicap not to be able to see how pliable the material was becoming in the heat without taking my non-stick sheet out of the oven every five seconds. I think an electric griddle (the recommended method for heating up Friendly Plastic) or a heat gun would be definitely preferable.

However, Friendly Plastic takes cutters beautifully, and it's a much more forgiving method of using the product with the toaster oven. Even if the plastic is quite soft, it will still take a cutter well (as long as you are careful to wait until the plastic cools to lift the cut-out from the non-stick sheet to avoid distortion). Given this, and - well, frankly - because the bright colors of plastic reminded me of superhero costumes, I decided to focus on creating some bold, colorful pendants with the material.

Because Friendly Plastic will bond to itself when heated, it is relatively easy to create nice inlay designs with the material. I wanted as little distortion as possible in my designs, so I did not completely inlay each of the pieces in these pendants. The UV resin I used to seal them - Lisa Pavelka's Magic-Glos - domed over the designs (with one exception, above, and I liked the paper-mache effect it gave the piece, so I did not apply a second coat), so the raised surface of the pendant really didn't affect the finished product.

My product samples are all metallic sticks (the material is also available in pellet form), but they are metallic only on one side. When I wanted a more matte-looking surface, I simply flipped them over (the blue moon, above, is an example of using the reverse side of a stick). I also discovered that, when I use the sticks in this way, and use cut-out pieces as inlay, the edges curl up just enough as it softens to create an interesting metallic border around the cut-out piece.

To finish the two pendants, I used bails from my stash that were provided to me earlier, courtesy of Rings & Things. I simply attached plastic button shanks to the other two. (By the way, in case you're wondering - it was quite easy to punch stringing holes in the Friendly Plastic, but I discovered after several aborted attempts that I could not cleanly drill through the Magic-Glos the way I would with other types of resin.) I think the Friendly Plastic colors look good strung with brightly colored lucite and resin beads. I also think these simple designs would make excellent, funky rings - just attach to ring blanks, and they're good to go!

Thank you to Amaco for giving me the opportunity to play with this fascinating product!

You can view more of Melissa's work on her blog at: www.strandsofbeads.blogspot.com

Posted in Amaco, Art Jewelry, Friendly Plastic, Melissa J Lee, Plastic Industry News, friendly plastic artists, friendly plastic pendants, necklaces, rings n things, strandsofbeads | No Comments »

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