#jgmakes

Finally finished three bead art kits I got from CraftArtistStudio on Etsy (www.etsy.com/shop/CraftArtistStudio) - I am pleased with how they turned out. The kits provide (almost) everything you need (but the honeybee does not come with pollen baskets --read on).

Lessons learned: 1) Use a glue stick to secure the edges of the cloth: it's a very broadly-woven cloth and will fray like crazy. You'll cut off the edges later so it doesn't matter that you're applying glue at this point. 2) Starch the cloth lightly before starting your embroidery work; this prevents puckering (especially when adding the embroidery thread details). 3) The provided needle and the thread used for the beads is VERY fine; tie a knot in the needle end to keep it backing out because otherwise Thread Shenanigans. The cloth is broad enough that this won't impede your work, but it will save your mind. 4) I really recommend stitching no more than two beads when doing the long runs of seed beads (when you stitch on the next two, come up through the middle of the previous pair of beads), especially around tight curves (for the really tight curves, I did it one bead at a time). But you can (and probably will need to) go back through the beads later with thread to make sure they're secured and following the curve you need them to follow. 5) Provide your own needle for the regular thread embroidery if you value your sanity. 6) Stain the hoop (if that's what you're going to do) before you start work. 7) Get some kind of container(s) for the beads; working out of the little plastic ziploc bags they come in is a pain in the rear. I used one of these (kindly sent to me as a gift by Fire Mountain Gems*):

I think you could go to any dollar shop and find a pill organizer and use that -- no need to pay extra for fancy "bead organization" stuff unless you want to.

* Reader, be wary of this website, I implore you. It is Bead Porn.

I added pollen baskets to the honeybee myself using #11 rocaille, translucent luster topaz seed beads (from Fire Mountain Gems, here: www.firemountaingems.com/B4246SB.html) and french knots in "Medium Yellow" (#743) DMC 6-strand embroidery thread from Michaels (here: www.michaels.com/product/dmc-embroidery-floss-6strand-yellow-medium-743-527621847469326341), though I think "opaque orange" seed beads - www.firemountaingems.com/A9570SB.html - would have worked well in place of the french knots.

I should also note that the kit's large bead for the abdomen of the honeybee was about 2mm shy of what I think it was originally designed to be -- I think it was supposed to be a 12mm bead and the kit had a 10mm one -- which meant that the printed outline for the bead was significantly bigger than the bead itself, which meant that it would be visible after the bead had been stitched down. I found a 12mm bead, but the color was not quite right, so I stitched the kit bead to the top of its marked place, then added a third row of black seed beads to snug it into place (and cover the parts of the outline that showed). While the artist only provides you exactly the number of larger beads that the kit needs (and you have to be careful not lose these), they're very generous with the seed beads, so there were plenty left over to do this.

I did end up having some puckering issues with the beetle, but as anyone who works with fabric will tell you: Blocking is Magic. I took the piece out of its hoop and used a clothing steamer to lightly steam the cloth while I eased out the puckering. It worked like a charm.

Lastly, instead of the single circle of cardboard for the back that the kit calls for (at the end, you trim and hot-glue the cloth to this for the clean finish), I used two circles each of acid-free mat board in roughly the same color as the cloth. The first went in, color-side down, and I hot-glued it to the inner edge of the hoop to serve as support. Then I trimmed the cloth, turned it inward, and hot-glued it to the frame as well. Then I installed the second circle of mat board, color-side up, for a clean finish. I'm terrible at cutting circles, so you can tell this was hand-made, and I guess that's the point.

Finished the first kit from CraftArtistStudio in Ukraine, which I got from Etsy (here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1805316940/bead-embroidery-kit-green-dragonfly-diy -- these are 50% for the next three days only, according to the page).

All in all, an excellent kit. It is essentially an embroider-by-numbers kit, which is perfect for someone like me who has limited embroidery skills. Some things I figured out:

o The kit tells you to sew on three of the smaller beads at a time, then backstitch through all three. I did that for the first wing (upper left), and you can see that it made the curves more straight. After that first wing, I figured out that you can just stitch on the beads one at a time or do a "sew three one, backstitch through the last two (or one)" to preserve the curve, and it worked a lot better for the other wings.

o The kit contains a fine needle with a very fine eye, which is exactly what you need for stitching on the tiny seed beads. However, it is nearly impossible to thread with the thicker embroidery thread you'll use later, so I recommend you provide your own needle when you get to that step.

o The cloth weave is very broad. This is fine; it makes it much easier to sew, but it's incredibly shreddy. If you would not like to be wearing threads or having loose threads getting in your way, I recommend you use fray-check or white glue to seal the edges before you start (you'll be trimming the cloth away later anyway).

The kits from this artist are gorgeous. Shipping took a while but considering it was coming from an active war zone, I was impressed that it got to me at all -- the Ukraine Postal Service is awesome! I'm very happy to support a Ukranian artist and if you're the crafty/sewy type with a crow brain that craves the shinies, I recommend you check out the shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraftArtistStudio.

Zeroing in on my process to make these pyramid-shaped pattern weights (the “ribbon” is made from leftover cloth). I’m not 100% there yet.

I filled these with (rinsed and dried) crushed stone instead of the rice everyone else seems to use - part of me kept thinking “but what if they get wet”? The stone will end up being dusty again sure, but I feel like rice would be too (for a given variety of rice, I suppose). Might try glass seed beads, as I’ve acquired a bunch that I will never use for actual beading, and I see that one can get “crushed glass” fill (which looks like it’s been lightly rolled in a rock tumbler to smooth out the edges) and that might work too.

Learning

I'm preparing to make a silicon mold for these soul gems. I had originally built the box without thinking of volume, but some part of me (or other me on the worldstree with more experience) said, "hey, maybe you should figure out if you don't have to use all your silicone/won't have enough silicone".

Smooth-On has a handy-dandy calculator for the silicone I bought (Mold Star 16*): https://www.smooth-on.com/support/calculators/#pour-mold and that helped me understand that yes, the original mold box was way way too big and would have required more than twice the amount of silicone that I have. Science!

*I should have gotten Mold Star 15 now that I think of it, as the only 6-minute pot time of 16 is imo cutting it close for a first attempt at this.

I rebuilt the mold box, and you can still see the outlines of the original box, so I cut it down quite a bit. This should use about 1.6 pounds of the 2 pounds of silicone that I have. I'm going to mix up all of it, though, since I'm not entirely sure I mathed it all correctly. But the next barrier is that the clear plastic cups I bought for mixing will not hold the complete 2 pounds of mixed silicone and the 6-minute pot life means I need to find a bigger mix/pour container.

Soul Gem Files from KAGR3NAC's Soul Gem Holder project on Cults3D: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/skyrim-soul-gem-holder

Now that the building phase of MMC is over, I took a nap and then watched Predator: Badlands, which was very entertaining.

Finally got what I think will be the master set of these credit tokens (aka "chits") printed. They're done in ABS-like plastic and after sanding them down, I've coated them with a matte clear acrylic coating courtesy of the Better Half (a fine-scale modeler).

I was having a lot of trouble with Chitubox, which deforms the mesh slightly when it joins the supports to the mesh. The Better Half informs it that you can adjust the software so it doesn't do this; however, the other thing that Chitubox does that I do not like is that it will record your screen even if you have expressly disallowed it from doing so in the system settings.

Instead, I used ELEGOO's own SateLite slicer software and after a couple of false starts, it worked fine. It's a much more basic software package but very easy to pick up, and its join of supports-to-mesh doesn't deform the mesh. You still have to be careful (the plastic likes to detach and leave a pit), but with careful sanding you can fix the worst of it, and since likely these would be weathered (once cast in pewter) by running them through a rock tumbler, I'm really not stressing minor imperfections.

I haven’t stopped working on these. This is the latest batch, sanded down (you CAN sand too far). I haven’t finished these obviously (the plan is a clearcoat to hopefully even out the print lines in the places I can’t sand, then some acrylic washes followed with Rub & Buff). Of course I forgot to save the actual slice file. But it’s okay, I can reconstruct.

Anyway, the next batch will be for setting up a pewter mold. And I still need to model the 10 & 2 CR pieces.

So the credits/tokens printed out fairly well, and they're currently awaiting the drying of the clearcoat I applied after the world's crappiest paint job (which is fine; they're meant to look weathered and will, once the Rub & Buff is applied). I'll post pictures when I'm done. But what I've realized is that a) they need to be a little thicker and b) I need to make sure I'm printing everything just a bit proud so that when I sand it down (to remove print lines and/or the nubs left over from the supports) I'm not sanding down too far.