Fish Ahoy!

My friend Carmi Cimicata (remember the Resin Crafts Blog…hope you’re following her) asks who will help her with a small Blog Hop featuring a new product from her favorite bead distributors John Bead. OOH OOH…I love beads..pick me…pick me….  YAY… she said I could help… so I open the box when it comes:

Goodies from Carmi

Um… rockin’ awesome leather scissors (seriously, you NEED these)… a cool brass cuff bracelet.. and ..um.. skin?  It says Tilapia Leather… really? ick! Um.. Ok….

Apparently it comes in 12 colors. Yeah.. I got gray. It looks like a dead fish. It spent 3 weeks in the box. Everyone asked me if it smelled like fish… but I hadn’t even opened it. I took it out of the box and tried stamping on it (no, it doesn’t smell like fish, it smells like leather). It’s got a beautiful, glossy surface, but is not very ink friendly. Everything wiped right off, including Copics. Ok…so I guess I’m not stamping on this.

Then, while watching a resin clay video on ETI’s website, I saw a gal making eyes for fur costumes using resin… oooh.. what if I made my bangle look like a Fish! So I sat down to work. (Way more inspired by the eyes than the leather!). I found this leather astonishingly easy to work with . It cuts like a dream, is very very soft, and glues to anything just beautifully. I was actually pretty impressed!

I started out by sanding my bangle a bit to help the glue, then I glued it on with Beacon Adhesives Quick Grip at an angle to let some of the brass bangle show. Then I embossed the edge by using my VersaMarker to ink along the leather edge and add Aged Silver Embossing Enamel and Silver Crushed Glass Glitter for an Encrusted Jewel Look.

Embossing on Fish Leather

But adding the glitter was a little harder, the bracelet got hot when heated, so I put it on a water bottle to heat the powder and sprinkle the glitter on. (Yes the bottle melted a little, but not enough to matter)

Encrusted Jewel Technique on Fish Leather

So now for the fish eye. You can watch the video above for a much better tutorial about how to make eyes, but basically I mixed my resin with a bit of our Shaved Ice for an iridescent look, then I molded it in a craft tray (this one is from Wilton for painting with  Chocolate and I bought it at Michaels), then waited 24 hours for it to cure.

Mixing Jewelry Resin with Shaved Ice

Then I found a real fish eye picture:

Real Fish Eye from Google Images

And I painted mine to match:

Painting the Pupil with acrylic paint

Adding Some Color

Mixing Silver and Micro Glitter

Adding Fishy-ness with Silver Background

And I forgot to take a picture of it, but I coated the whole back with black acrylic paint to give it a lot of depth. I think I achieved Fish Eye Ness!

My Resin Fish Eye

You can see that I added some Encrusted Jewel Technique around the eye. I glued the eye to the bangle with Quick Grip and let it dry. Then I applied a thin bead of tacky glue around the eye to hold the embossing enamel. I sprinkled in the glitter as it melted, again using my water bottle as a holder. See my finished cuff…

Admiral Ackbar by Laura Weed

I like it so much I’m making earrings to go with it. I’ll share them when they’re done.

So the Tilapia Leather proved pretty fun, and I know that Carmi’s other victims probably did amazing things because they chatted a bit about their plans and I was jealous of their ideas for purple leather and so on. Carmi will post the Blog Hop on her site on Wednesday. As soon as I have a link, I’ll update it here. Here you go – the Metal Complex Second Skin Blog Hop – wait until you see what everyone did with this product. It’s mind-boggling!