Up until recently, we’ve had smooth Altoids tins on which to work our arty ways—but curses, Altoids has now switched to embossed tins with a raised logo that gets in the way of painting, inking and even collage work. What’s a girl to do?

One way to deal with that stupid embossed logo is to just cover it with a piece of chipboard, and then cover that with some metal flashing tape (available at most hardware stores, and also in small lengths at Ten Two Studios.) This leaves a metal surface that can be inked or embossed easily. You can also paint it or collage over it, by why you’d want to, I don’t know. Here’s how it works:

Start with clean, empty tins. Here are three that have some manner of obnoxious embossing on them. Sorry, I couldn’t find an Altoids tin—I still have a large stash of the flat tins that I’m hoarding for this year’s Christmas ornament kits.

Trace the tops of the tins on a piece of chipboard. Cut the shapes out slightly inside the traced lines. Test the fit, and trim if necessary before gluing.

Glue the chipboard onto the top of the tin using your favorite sticks-to-metal-things glue. I used E6000.

One of my tins had an embossed medallion surrounded by a border. I went ahead and trimmed down the chipboard to the size of the medallion before gluing it in place.

Cut pieces of metal tape, long enough to cover the top of the tin and extend down over the sides. Most small tins can be covered using two pieces in each direction, but my large, square tin required three.

Peel the backing off the tape, and apply the first layer. For small tins, this will just be the first piece.

Burnish the heck out of the taped top with your weapon of choice. I always use the handle of my scissors for this. A spoon or the back of your thumbnail will work, too.

Fold the extra tape lightly over the sides, and mark a cutting line with your thumbnail.

Trim away the excess tape, and then burnish it down over the sides. Burnish hard over any folds you make at the corners.

Apply the next layer of tape, and repeat the burnishing. For small tins, this is the second piece. For larger ones, this is probably the center piece. Go ahead and overlap as much as you want—the lines pretty much go away after burnishing.

Rotate the tin 90 degress, and do another complete layer of tape. So, you’ll do one complete layer from top to bottom, and a second from side to side. Tape and burnish, tape and burnish.

If you just want a solid, flat top, you’re done. Easy, right!

The bonus of this technique is that it can be embossed easily. One simple way of doing this is to just use a ruler to draw diagonal lines from corner to corner, and then create a grid pattern.

Another easy way to emboss is to use a screw or nail, and press hard into the tape to create circles. I used a drywall screw to create a sort of honeycomb pattern on one tin.

I started with books that were already pretty nifty in terms of their look. The covers are a lovely maroon, embossed with little flowers and ribbons on the diagonal. The spine is gilded to death. All I really wanted to do was find something pretty and gold to use as a binding stick, and a flat-ish gold frame for a portrait. Sounds pretty simple—but after much searching, I resigned myself to having to create items that matched the picture in my head. Fortunately, I have a pile of metal leaf, and know how to use it.

Metal leaf is the poor sister of gold leaf. It’s made of base metal—so, it’s sort of like junk jewelry rather than real gold. It has some of the same properties as real gold leaf without the ridiculous cost. The minus is that it’s incredibly brassy and bright, and more brittle than real gold, which makes it want to crunch into little shattered pieces rather than lay down in a beautiful, continuous sheet. It’s sold in some craft stores, in small square books, and is also available online from Dick Blick as Imitation Gold Leaf.

I started with three things I needed to complete my book cover: the binding stick, made from two spoon handles glued together and wrapped in the center with metal tape, a chipboard frame from K & Company, which was the right size and design, but totally the wrong color, and a large metal juice lid, which fit nicely in the round opening of the chipboard frame. You can leaf just about anything that’s not soft and squishy.

Because metal leaf cracks, the base color of objects often peeks through. To make sure they all come out the same color when they’re finished, it helps to start them off the same color. I gave mine a blast of tan spray paint. Real gold leaf is often applied over base coats of red or terra cotta, which gives it a warm glow, but any base color is fine. Even blue, if that floats your boat.

When the paint dried, I gave the pieces two good coats of gold leaf size. This is a glue that has a very long open time. Dick Blick sells gold leaf size as a spray, which is sort of like spray mount photo adhesive. It’s faster, but I’m notoriously bad about spraying glue all over the place, so this paint on stuff is better for me. The size I have now is designed for Renaissance Foil, and washes up with water.

Most size instructions will tell you to do two coats. Do them. There’s nothing more frustrating than starting to leaf, and discovering that your single coat didn’t get stickiness all over your surface. You end up with holes, lots of basecoat showing through—bleh. Don’t ask me how I know this…

Don’t forget to apply size to edges of dimensional objects. Let dry between coats according to the package directions, and be sure to check the open time—the maximum amount of time before the glue sets up and is no longer sticky.

You don’t really pick up sheets of leaf when you’re working with it so much as float them from place to place. They’re so thin that any little breeze will lift them—so, now’s a good time to shut off the AC, turn off the fans, and park yourself in a place free of dogs and children running by.

To lift a sheet, just touch it. You usually have enough oil on your fingertips to lift the sheet. If not, I know this is kind of gross, but rub your fingertip along the side of your nose, and try again. Don’t lick your finger and try to do this.

Float your sheet right over to the sized objects, and let it settle on them. I always work in a cardboard tray of some sort, or in this case, a paper plate. This catches the crumbs of leaf, which are worse than seqins or glitter for getting everywhere. Be sure to work on a paper or cardboard surface rather than plastic or styro, which will create static that gets in your way.

OK, you’ve touched your leaf for the last time. Keep your oily fingers off it until it’s been sealed, or you’ll get fingerprints all over it. Work first with a soft brush, pushing the leaf down onto the surface that’s been sized. If your surface is flat, it should go quickly. If it has curves and bends, it will require a little poking, and you’ll get a Rice Crispies crunch sound going. Unlike real gold, which is soft, and will stretch and bend to accomodate curves, metal leaf is brittle, and simply cracks. Go with the cracks—we’ll fix any huge ones in a minute.

Once you’ve pressed the leaf into place, use the brush to softly remove the excess around the edges. Just brush at it until it breaks away. Don’t pull it.

If you have big cracks, just lift some of the crumbs in your plate, and float them into place. Press the leaf into place with the brush, and brush away any excess.

This filigree piece took quite a while to leaf, because it was so curvy. I started by floating the excess of the first sheet over it, then just kept lifting crumbs from the tray, and pressing them into blank spots.

If there are big chunks of leaf left in the tray, float them back into the book. You can use them on your next project. If you have small crumbs left, and don’t want to use them for anything, slip your whole tray into a grocery bag, and tie it closed, then dispose of it. Do not dump these into the trash directly—the first item that’s tossed in on top of them will scatter the little bits, and they’ll float everywhere. You’ll be picking them out of your hair for months.

When the piece is completely covered with leaf, let it set until the open time of the size is over. My bottle said an hour, so I left it alone for two to be sure. I brushed the whole piece with a bristle brush, going in every direction, and not being particularly gentle. This removes any remaining crumbs of leaf, and starts to burnish the surface. Sometimes, if a piece is very large, I’ll also do this step with a cloth.

If you love your shiny gold pieces as they are, just give them a blast of spray sealer, and you’re done. If you need toning, which most pieces do, you can use acrylics thinned with water to create washes that can be added, then dabbed away. I usually use black and yellow to create different tones of muddy green for this.

My pieces needed some shading, as though they hadn’t been polished lately. I added washes of muddy green, letting them settle into low spots and dry just a little before wiping them with a paper towel. This keeps the high points gold, while giving the lows some serious grunge. When the washes are finished and dry, a quick blast of spray sealer will protect the leaf.

I used images from some of the Metal Tin Sheets from Ten Two Studios, which are sized for Altoids tins. I chose tins and images to go with them—remember, Altoids now come in quite a few flavors, each with their own uniquely colored tin. I applied a light coat of matte medium to both the top of the tin and the back of the image.

Working quickly, while both were still wet, I pressed the image onto the top of the tin, smoothing it from center to outer edges.

While the medium was still wet, I trimmed away any excess image that was hanging over the edges of the tin.

Right after trimming, while the medium was still damp, I applied another coat over the top of the image, paying particular attention to the outer edges. Making the image wet on both the top and bottom will help diminish rippling, and sealing around the outer edges will keep it from peeling away later. Now the tin can be set aside to dry completely.

I like a little glitter on my ornaments, so I applied a bit of glitter glue around the outer edges. I like to apply it by patting it on with my finger rather than squirting it directly onto the piece. Once again, the tin can be set aside to dry completely.

I used some lovely beaded trims on the bottom of the tins. I purchased 1/8 yard of each trim, and I think I have enough to do two or three tins from each piece—it just takes a few inches for each one. Although these trims are very expensive, I paid less than a dollar for each 1/8 yard piece, so maybe 30 to 50 cents per tin. I can live with that!

To cut each piece of trim to size, I applied a piece of masking tape to the ribbon or twill on which it’s based, wrapping it around the front and back. This will hold any anchor threads in place while cutting and gluing. Just cut through the tape to make a clean edge.

I applied some E6000 to the ribbon or twill, and pressed the piece onto the bottom of the tin, lining up the unbeaded edge with the back, so the beads hang in front. This glue has to dry completely before we can move on.

To cover up the area where the twill is glued to the bottom of the tin, and to provide a convenient place to add a hanger, I wrapped a ribbon around the outside of the tin, and tied it in a bow at the top center. A few dabs of E6000 hold the ribbon in place on the bottom and sides.

To add a hanging loop, I simply knotted another piece of ribbon or cord around the center of the bow. Alternately, a wire ornament hanger can be hooked into the bow’s center.

Fill your ornament with whatever you desire! Conveniently, Altoids tins are the perfect size to hold most gift cards. They can also be treated as pocket shrines, and filled with tokens and little bottles that are meaningful to you. You can also just leave the candies in the tin, or refill them with your own—but be careful to wash the tins well before you do this, because the oils used to make Altoids are very strong, and tend to flavor everything they touch.

The really wonderful thing about leafing is that it will go over just about any firm, stable surface. That means something hard, like wood or plastic, rather than soft like latex or braid trim. For these samples, I chose a resin sunflower I yanked off an ugly planter box, a face mold cast in air-dry clay, and a plastic lid from a spice bottle.

The first step is to base coat. Base coating is a personal preference sort of thing. Traditionally, many gold leafed pieces are based with a sort of earthy red tone, but any color works with metal leaf. Just remember that whatever color you use may show through in areas that crack—sometimes I use that as a design element. Here, I’ve base coated the face a bright red, the sunflower ochre and black, and I’ve left the black plastic lid as is.

When the paint is completely dry, it’s time for an adhesive. Generally, gold leaf is applied with gold leaf size, a pressure-sensitive adhesive that gets tacky very quicky, and stays that way for quite a long while before setting up. I couldn’t find my Mona Lisa gold leaf adhesive, which is a terrific leaf size, so I settled for a bottle of Renaissance Foil adhesive, which is a fairly good substitute. I like this stuff because it’s waterbased, so the clean up is quick and easy. I followed the instructions on the bottle: apply, let set, then apply a second coat and let set. This step took about two hours—gold leaf prep is not speedy.

I guess I should mention here that the really speedy, though sometimes messy adhesive for leaf is spray adhesive. I don’t love spray adhesive because it’s hard to handle, bad for your lungs, and very often turns the whole work area into a big gluey mess, but if you’re in a big hurry, it will work.

This is what most leaf looks like, whether it’s real or base. it comes packaged in tissue paper books of six inch squares, with the leaf just sort of floating on each page. The books should be handled very gently, and stored rubber banded between pieces of rigid board to keep the squares intact and flat.

Before opening a book of leaf, get yourself into a workspace that’s free of circulating air. That means closing up all the windows, shutting off any fans or air conditioners, and keeping clear of any running kids. This stuff blows around on any whisp of air, and once it escapes, it’s everywhere.

Here’s my usual leafing setup. I work in a box lid, which contains all the bits and pieces of leaf. Everything goes into the lid—the book, the sized pieces, and the brushes. I use fairly stiff bristle brushes to work with leaf, and then do my final buffing with a soft cloth like an old t-shirt scrap.

To lift the first sheet of leaf, just touch your fingertip to it. Usually, there’s enough natural oil on your finger to make the leaf stick. If not, wipe your finger behind your ear and try again. (Actually, I don’t wear makeup, so I wipe down the side of my nose—never fails.)

Float the leaf over a sized piece and let it settle onto the surface. It will stick immediately—don’t fight it. Gently pat the leaf down into the size. Don’t worry if it gets all wrinkly or cracks.

Use a bristle brush to push the leaf down into the size. Now, it’s really going to crack over any curves and contours. We’ll fix that shortly. Keep pushing with the brush over the whole piece, until the details of it become clear again.

Now, we’re going to remove the excess leaf by gently brushing it away from the edges of the piece. Don’t be shy. Brush away all the extra, and leave it in the box.

OK, let’s fill in some of those cracks. Pick up the pieces you’ve brushed off, and place them in the exposed size. They’ll stick where it’s sticky, and where it’s not, they can be brushed away. What usually happens is you start with really big pieces of extra, and gradually and up with lots of tiny ones as they’re brushed off the already leafed parts.

This is another personal preference thing. Some people want to cover every single bit of the surface with gold. Others like to leave big sections of base coat showing through. Just get the piece to the point that looks right to you.

Occasionally, a space without size will show up. You’ll have to go back and apply more to the bare spot, let it get tacky, and then go back to leafing. Trust me when I say you should leave the room and not mess with the piece if new size is applied to it—it’s a big gold leaf mess waiting to happen if you handle it before the new bits of size are ready.

This sunflower is leafed to my satisfaction, so now it’s time to give it one last brushing to knock any little extra bits off, followed by a buffing with a soft cloth. The cloth will usually end up filled with tiny bits of gold, so plan on tossing it after use, or you’ll be picking up little bits of leaf all over the house for the next year. Don’t ask me how I know this…

Now, some people like to tone or age gold leaf, either with watered down acrylics, or alcohol inks. I opted for no toning or ageing, and went straight to sealing. Once a piece is completely dry (check the size instructions for the true time on this, because it could be 24-48 hours), it does have to be sealed. Whether it’s metal or gold, it will react with the air and whatever’s floating in it, body oils, and anything else that comes in contact with it. Seal it!

I used spray sealer for this—just plain old Krylon clear gloss. There are sealers sold for leafing, so if you’re buying size, check if there’s a sealer to go with it. I do not reccomend using any kind of sealer that has to be brushed on unless you’re very experienced in working with leaf. It’s fragile, and easy to disturb at this point, so sprays are the easiest way to go.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/metal-leafing/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/texture-metal-sheets/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/texture-metal-sheets/#comments Sun, 16 Apr 2006 23:37:52 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=190 This week, I’ve been building a very large shrine for the nice folks at Amaco. They shipped me an armload of their products to use in the piece, including rolls of lightweight metal. You’ve probably seen these in craft stores—metals and foils in different colors, rolled up in a clear tube. They’re lovely to play with on a small scale, but I’m covering yardage here. My goal was to add some visual interest and texture to the metals, without spending all day about it. Here’s what I did:

In amongst the loot Amaco sent were texture plates. Theirs are clear plastic, but other companies also make them in various colors and sizes. These are designed to texture either lightweight metal or polymer clay.

I placed a texture plate onto my work table, and put a sheet of lightweight metal on top of it. Some people might prefer to apply a little tape to the sides of the plate to hold it in place, but I just held mine in place. I rolled over the top surface of the metal with a hard rubber brayer, which raised the pattern of the plate on the metal.

To raise the pattern even further, I rubbed over the whole surface with a large paper stump. The stump is hard enough to raise the pattern, while soft enough not to leave any extra marks on the metal. I tried this with a hard rubber stump, and ended up with creases in the metal—not pretty.

In case you’re not sure what a large paper stump looks like, here’s the one I used. It’s from a box of goodies from Ten Seconds Studio, where all good metal tools are born. A fine art supply store might also have one this large.

My textured sheet, ready for use. My bad photography doesn’t do justice to the lovely fan patterns swirled onto the metal.

Since the exterior of my piece is gold, silver and copper, I broke open a roll of the really lightweight gold foil. This stuff is prime for texturing, although unlike the lightweight metal, it does have to be applied to a sturdy surface after texturing, or it will crumple up like aluminum foil. I swapped texture sheets for this piece, to something a little smaller, thinking that the lighter metal would respond better to the small pattern.

Same deal: roll with a brayer to raise the pattern. Make sure to hold the metal firmly in place if you’re not using tape.

Next, a good, firm rubbing with a paper stump. You can see in this photo how defined the circular pattern is on the foil.

I had a section of my piece that required a very large textured section. Since the plates I was sent are small, I had a choice: either try to match the patterns to texture the full sheet, or come up with a way to texture it without the plates. I decided to try something I like to do with paper.

I gently crumpled the metal in my hands. It’s so lightweight that it was easy to do—but it’s also light enough to tear, so I did this carefully.

I uncrumpled the metal, again gently and carefully to avoid tearing it.

A quick pass of the brayer over the surface flattened the metal, while defining the creases.

The sheets I textured above, glued and nailed into place with metal tacks, on the piece I’m building:

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/texture-metal-sheets/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/background/polished-stone-on-metal/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/background/polished-stone-on-metal/#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2005 16:37:33 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=99 Last month, I told you how I prep my metal tins to be altered. This lesson will show you one way to get some sheer color onto them, without adding bulk that will keep them from closing. This is a variation of the technique usually referred to as polished stone.

You’ll need:

• Tins or other metal surfaces. These should be bare, with no coatings or paint on them. My burnt Altoid tins worked great. So does bare metal flashing from the hardware store. The non-plastic coated side of bottle caps will take this technique, as will the inner surface of juice lids. I don’t know what’s on the outer surface—some kind of coating that makes the alcohol inks bead instead of lay flat.

• Alcohol inks. I use Ranger Adirondack inks in the little dropper bottles. They come in lots of lovely decorator colors.
• Alcohol Blending Solution, also from Ranger. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is just alcohol in a convenient dropper bottle. If you’re using another brand of inks, use whichever extender is offered with that line.
• An applicator. I have a wood block with a piece of the hook side of Velcro attached to it. On this goes a strip of plain old kid’s felt. It’s cheap and it works. Ranger sells a tool like this with a handle—I’m not sure what the real name of it is, because we always refer to it as Tim’s Tool at the office, because it was designed by Tim Holtz. I think a cotton ball would probably work for this, or a little piece of sponge.

I’m starting with a pair of nicely burned and buffed Altoid tins. There’s no paint left on these—if you need a lesson on how to get them to this lovely metallic state, try this lesson on how to make Altoid tins flambe. These were brushed off with a soft cloth after being burned and scuffed with sandpaper, to remove all the dust and ash.

Here’s my handy little felt tool, laying on its back. Onto the felt goes a quick dash of alcohol ink. For these tins, I used Red Currant and Caramel. Any combination of colors that floats your boat is fine. Do a little blob of each color on the felt, right next to each other.

Flip the tool over and pat the inks on the tins. Be blotchy and random about it—don’t worry about getting nice, even coverage. Since this is a textural technique, we’re going to embrace all the weird imperfections along the way. Turn the tool this way and that as you’re patting the color on. If you seem to be drying out, flip the tool back over and apply more ink to the felt.

If I use this technique on paper, this is where I usually add a few dots of metallic, using a leafing pen from Krylon. Because this is being done on metal, I skipped that step—but if you’d like more fun in your finished piece, do a few dots here and there. They’ll be blended into the inks in the next step. (Psst—Tim tells me that he’s just put the finishing touches on some metallic alcohol inks for Ranger—I’m thinking those will be fabulous in place of the Krylon pen. Watch for them at your local stamp store this fall.)

Alchol inks dry very quickly, so let’s move along…

Here’s my little tool, back on its back, getting a quick dose of blending solution. This is applied right to the dirty, inky felt. The solution will reactivate any color left on it, adding to the mix.

Pat the blending solution onto the inked tin. Watch the colors—they’ll do a sort of sunburst thing as the ink is applied. If you like the pattern, stop patting. If you’d like something a little more blended, pat more. This is a trial and error sort of thing—you can see that my two tins at the top look completely different, even though I did them at the same time. One got very little blending solution, and is really blotchy, which I prefer. One got a little more solution, and is smoother.

Let the tins dry completely before you handle them too much. This shouldn’t take too long, even in humid places—let them sit for an hour or so, and they should be ready for whatever else you have in mind. Some folks like to stamp on top of polished stone, or layer transparent images over it. I’m not sure what my tins will get yet, because they’re going to be drawers in an altered book.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/background/polished-stone-on-metal/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/prepping-tins/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/prepping-tins/#comments Sat, 14 May 2005 23:35:24 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=189 This week, I’ve been reading messages from people trying to alter metal tins. The most often asked question has been how to get paint to stick to them. The key to this is preparation. You can’t just slap some random paint on an Altoid tin and expect it to stick.

I’ve prepped tins three different ways:

Metal Primer

This is pretty simple: go buy a can of metal primer spray paint, and spray a light coat on the outside of your tin. Light coat means you’re just turning the tin grey, with maybe a tiny hint of the original tin design peeking through. It does not mean spray it until the paint runs down the tin in little grey rivers! The paint you’re after will be labelled metal primer, and it’s usually available wherever spray paint is sold.

Once you’ve lightly sprayed the outside of your tin, let it dry over night. Seriously. Don’t play with it for a full 24 hours. The tin should be completely dry, and a little rough to the touch. If it’s tacky, don’t play with it yet—you live in a humid place, and it needs more drying time. This happens to me when I prime things here in Texas during the summer.

When your tin is dry and feels good, it’s ready for paint. Use metal paints, spray paint, or acrylics. Paint lightly, and let the coats dry completely. Try to use as few coats and as little paint as possible, since each layer makes the tin just a little fatter, and will make it just a tiny bit more difficult to open and close. When all your paint is dry, seal your tin with either a spray sealer or a brush on product like Diamond Glaze. As before, make sure you apply your sealer lightly, then let it dry completely.

Oven Cleaner

This is a technique best done when it’s nice outside. Please don’t try this on a rainy or snowy day.

Get yourself a large paper grocery bag, and a can of oven cleaner. Open your tins, and spray the exterior. Place them in the grocery bag. Fold the end of the bag over a couple of times to close it, and set the whole thing out in the sun for the afternoon. Rinse the tins. They should be pretty bare when you’e finished.

Barbeque

There are an infinite number of variations to this technique. Some people swear that only “real” fire will work. I don’t have a barbeque or fireplace, which is just as well, because I’d rather not do this where the fumes get into the house or into anything coming close to my food. This is what I do:

This is a propane torch. You can buy the gas (which is the lower, blue part) and the torch separately at Home Depot or Wal-Mart. I bought my first ones packaged together, and now just replace the gas cans when they get empty.

(This particular brand gets my vote for silliest product name: Bernz-O-Matic.)

To make fire happen with this item, you just rotate the little black dial until you can barely hear the gas hissing, and then wave a match in front of it. Actually, I use one of those long fireplace wand lighters, because I’m not usually smart enough to make matches work quickly.

Once the gas is lit, and you see a little blue cone burning from the torch, you can dial up the gas, from slow to nuclear.

Did I mention you should do all of this outside? Unless you’re a plumber, please don’t play with propane torches in the house. I do all this out in the garage, with the doors open. I have a nice, non-flamable concrete floor out there.

Open your tins and place them on a non-flamable surface. Apply the torch to them, and watch the paint catch fire. It really does flame occasionally, so beware. Don’t stick your nose over this, because it lets off fumes.

I usually line up half a dozen tins, and flame them all in a row. By the time I’m done burning the paint off the last one, the first one is cool enough to flip over. Be sure to burn off all the paint, so that all surfaces have ash on them.

Once everything has been burned, I wipe down the tins with a soft cloth, to remove the ash. I have old scrap towels laying around. If you have car wash towels in the garage, steal those. Be careful, because the tins do get very hot. Don’t stick your fingers onto the metal.

My last step is usually to just give the tins a little brush with a sanding block. That roughs up the surface just a little, and makes them shiny again. If you like the dullness of the burned tin, you can skip this part.

Below, you can see the original tins I burned, and their new, bare look after burning. Nice and shiny, and ready to color. Bare metal tins can be colored with inks—dribble some alcohol inks on them, and see what happens.

Did I mention you should remove the contents of your tins before you burn them? Clearly, I shouldn’t be playing with fire today…

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/prepping-tins/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/juice-lids/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/juice-lids/#comments Fri, 14 Jan 2005 23:33:44 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=188 Last summer was all about bottle caps for me—I ordered them, I designed stickers for them, I taught 800 people how to flatten them. By the end of July, I was sick of looking at bottle caps, and ready for something new. What else could I play with?

Fortunately, I didn’t have to look very far. Since I’d been playing with round metal things for several months, I was oddly aware of round metal things. Somebody flipped a juice can lid at me, and I turned it over a couple of times, and decided that would do just fine. I waved it around the office, and nobody seemed very excited about it. I didn’t care. I found a source for juice lids, ordered a bunch, and started playing.

Naturally, the first thing everyone asked me was, “What can you do with them?” Asking me that is always dangerous. The first thing everything turns into around here is a book. I made a lovely little juice lid book with paper pages, and hung it from a watch chain. Then I made a second one from six juice lids, so it had metal pages. (That’s how the little green book at the right is made.) I cut photos and glued them to the center, and on the back side. I painted them and turned them into magnets. I wrapped them with wire. I used them for captions on scrapbook pages. If you could put something in it or hang something on it, I did.

OK, I suppose I should shut up about the wonders of juice lids, and show you how to make something from them…

This is how to put holes in juice lids: they’re stacked half a dozen high on a scrap of two by four, and I’m using a real drill with a titanium drill bit made to go through metal. DO NOT use cheap drill bits, because you’ll break them. DO NOT try this with a Dremel. (Don’t make me show you a photo of the trusty Dremel whose motor I blew up while drilling 800 juice lids for February’s CHA make-it take-it. Not pretty.) If you’re just punching a hole in a couple of lids, a hammer and nail will work just fine. More than that, get a drill.

Some day, I’m going to conquer one-handed close-up photography. This is a slightly blurry photo of how to slide a ring through drilled juice lids. I usually use split rings for this type of project—you know, the kind with two layers of metal they put on cheap key rings, that always end up breaking your fingernails. My boss hates these because she can’t get them started. I use the edge of the first juice lid as a wedge, driving it against the start of the ring and pushing it up. Then, I slide the rest of the lids right behind it, moving them as a group. If I’m making a book with paper pages, I sandwich the paper between the two pieces of metal, and move the whole thing as one piece.

There you have it: six juice lids joined together by a split ring, ready to be decorated.

Here’s a two lid book with paper pages. A 2-1/2 inch paper punch works just fine for large lids. I joined this book with the ring that comes with these metal edge tags—I usually toss those rings, because I have so many of them. It’s nice to be able to use them for something.

Now for the fun part: decorating.

I tried using some alcohol inks on the juice lids, thinking that would be a fast-drying way to color them. Wrong. The ink beads off the front side of the lid—it’s got some kind of coating on it, I think. Same thing with my Colorbox Chalk inks—I got a little bit of color on there, but it was speckly and pale. Bleh. Don’t use inks.

On the plus side, just about every paint I threw on these looked good. The piece at right is made using gesso, glitter glue, and a transparency. It has kind of a funky shabby look to it, which I encouraged with my painting.

First, I coated the lid with gesso, using a bristle brush. Rather than stroking the gesso on, I poked at the lid with the brush—smoosh, smoosh, smoosh. I wasn’t too worried about covering up every bit of silver. It gave a nice texture to the lid.

While the lid was wet, I cut a 2-1/2 inch circle from a transparency sheet, and laid it right on the wet gesso. Then I went away and left it alone until it dried.

Once the gesso was dry, I applied some glitter glue randomly to the edges, to make the gesso look more like snow. I usually apply glitter glue just like paint—I squeeze it onto my palette (or in this case, my work table), and use a brush. Once again, I poked at the piece rather than stroking the glitter on. Randomness is good, right?

I also painted lids with both Adirondack Acrylics and Lumiere. Both gave excellent results. The Lumiere is a little denser, so the color was completely opaque. The Adirondack let a little of the metal shine through, especially when using lighter colors. The green book at the top of the page is done with Adirondacks (the acrylics, not the inks—remember, don’t ink!)

Added after the article was posted:

Some of you have written in asking why I didn’t just go buy a box of mason jar lids. I did. I didn’t like them—there’s a wicked coating on the inside of the lids, and a red ring I didn’t care for. However, if you must go buy a box and try them, they’re cheap and readily available in just about every grocery store. Knock yourself out!

My current obsession: smashing bottle caps. My boss turned me on to a box of uncrimped bottle caps in our warehouse, and asked me to figure out what to do with them. Last weekend, I went to ACCI, where I went through 800 bottle caps, teaching people how to work with them. Here’s the quick lesson:

Keep in mind, these are virgin uncrimped caps. This technique absolutely will not work with the cap off your soda or beer bottle—those caps have been through a crimping machine, and are shaped differently.

OK, line up your bottle caps on a hard surface, crown side up. I do mine at home on my concrete garage floor. At ACCI, we packed hardwood cutting boards and eyelet mats, and those worked pretty well at protecting our tables.

Give the caps a couple of light taps with a rubber mallet. This is just to get them started—we’ll do the real smashing on the flip side. Do not try this with a hammer, or you’ll end up with deformed bottle caps. A mallet will distribute the pressure evenly.

Flip the caps over and place them on your work surface crown side down. Beat them with the mallet like you mean it. With a little practice, this takes two or three good whacks. The outer edge of the cap with roll outward, and you’ll end up with a lovely round metal embellishment that looks nothing like a bottle cap.

Now, what the heck can you do with flattened bottle caps? Fill them with things. I designed a line of cardstock stickers for Design Originals that are specifically for bottle caps, but a 1″ round hole punch will do the trick for those who want their own images. Punch the image of choice, dab a little E6000 glue onto the cap, and position the image. Images can go inside the flattened cap, or on the back side.

Caps can be colored with alchol-based inks, which lets the metal shine through. They can be painted with acrylics or Lumiere, dabbed with Rub n Buff, rusted or patinaed with products from Modern Options. We sprayed them with spray paint and webbing spray—very grungy. We dabbed them with chalk inks and heat set them—a nice mat finish. Use your imagination.

Want to make holes for jump rings? Try a 1/16″ paper punch. I know it sounds impossible, but the metal really is soft enough to allow a simple paper punch to go through it. Alternately, try a drywall screw and a block of wood—a couple of taps with a mallet against the screw, and you’ll have a nice hole. We went nuts at the office making jewelry with these, including the bracelet at the top of the page.

]]> http://gomakesomething.com/ht/metal/bottle-caps/feed/ 0 http://gomakesomething.com/ht/mailart/metal-flashing/ http://gomakesomething.com/ht/mailart/metal-flashing/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2004 23:23:53 +0000 Lisa Vollrath http://gomakesomething.com/?p=184 Artist Lynn Dewart turned me on to using metal flashing from the hardware store as an art material. I had always struggled with sharp edges, but Lynn cut hers using dull scissors, creating a safe for the fingers edge. Since I learned this, I’ve been going nuts making metal stuff! Flashing is cheap, comes in all different sizes, and is readily available. Plus, I needed a roll to line the door of my hot water heater cabinet anyway.

At right is a set of metal envelopes I made for Graceful Altered Envelope swap on Alterations. The purpose of this swap was to make envelope art without actually filling the envelope with anything important, so I used the following method for making permanently sealed envelopes.

Materials:

Metal flashing

Old, dull scissors

Metal ruler

Envelope template (try Red Castle, Mirkwoood or By Donovan for free printable templates)

Metal tape from the duct section of the hardware store

E6000 Adhesive

Masking tape

Collage materials of your choice

Instructions:

Tape your envelope template to your roll of flashing, and cut around it. I tend to do my big cuts first to get the piece off the roll, and then do detail cuts afterward.

Now that the envelope has been cut away from the roll, clean up your cut lines and do any detail cutting. My envelope template had for little triangular notches, and these were easier to cut when off the roll.

Place a metal ruler on the fold line of the bottom flap. Gently fold flap upward while pressing down on ruler. Slide the ruler out, and remove the pattern. Press flap down as far as it will go.

Flatten crease with a mallet. I generally do any mallet work on my garage floor, because it’s a smooth surface that I can’t hurt too much.

Using the same method as above, fold the side flaps of the envelope inward. (Remember those notches I cut? Those told me where the fold lines for the remaining flaps were.) Flatten crease with a mallet. Fold the final flap down, and flatten crease with a mallet.

Once all your creases have been flattened, apply metal tape over the cut edges on the back side of the envelope, and burnish with your thumbnail. I found that my envelope still wanted to pop open, even after working with the mallet, so I glued my flap closed and weighted it until it was dry.

Decorate your envelope. On mine, I did some layering with acetate, then burned the edges of my adress and return address and applied them. I heated my envelope and sprinkled it with embossing powder—this is best done in small sections rather than trying the whole envelope. I work on a ceramic tile when doing this type of work, to protect my work surface from prolonged heating. I also stencilled on the metal, using a Sharpie. Metal flashing will also accept paint, though if you’re doing anything detailed, it’s best to use metal paints.

At right is a metal ATC I made for a non-paper swap on the ATC Hub.

Materials:

Metal flashing

Old, dull scissors

ATC template (I used a die-cut playing card that was the right size)

Masking tape

Collage materials of your choice

Tape the ATC template to your flashing, and cut it out. (When I’m mass producing blank metal ATCs, I trace my template lightly in pencil, and do a whole row of them, side to side.)

Decorate it! For my card, I used a piece of origami mesh applied with a glue stick. Over that is an acetate print of a geisha photo done on a black and white laser printer. The peace symbol is stamped with Brilliance ink, and then embossed with orange embossing powder. Be sure to use tongs or a mit, or to lay your card on a tile when you’re using a heat tool on it, because a piece this small heats up very quickly.

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