Friendly Plastic Jewelry by Karine Collignon

Karine is one of our international artists from France. She loves to combine wire and other media to create unique pieces of jewelry.

This piece reminds me of the colors you would see in a tropical rainforest! I love how she's added glass beads as accents. These remind me of morning dewdrops!

Make sure you check out more of Karines work on her blog at: www.bijouxartcreation.blogspot.com

Design Challenge Inspiration from Jen and Jana

Today's inspiration comes from the other Friendly Plastic Queens - Jen and Jana.

Jen will always find ways to incorporate unique objects into her work. Below she uses some scrapbooking charms with ribbon mesh wire.

Enjoy the eye candy!

Just inked up a pice of white Friendly plastic, cut a circle, popped into an old K&Company finding, dropped a bling into it and covered it with Glossy Accents....then strung it with just a few simple beads:



and a scrap of Fracture n Fusion cut and popped into another K&Company finding. Maybe an hour tops?
But just too cute for the office or just for fun!

And here's one for formal nights. Used Linda's latest technique - Glisten and Glimmer in a Nunn Design finding.....
Jana Ewy shares some of her past and present pieces:...

This snow bunny was created for my sister many years ago.Thought you might enjoy seeing a little design from my past.

Tear-drop shaped pieces of Friendly Plastic have been attached to a beautiful brass filigree Butterfly. It is simple, yet elegant and can become a necklace, bracelet, or even a brooch.

Let your creative flow... try this same concept with marbled Friendly Plastic, or inlay pieces one on top of the other. How about making an impression into the plastic and creating a Friendly Plastic filigree Butterfly? Hope this has helped to get your creative wheels turning. Be sure to check out the AMACO site as well as the Friendly Plastic blog for more ideas and information on the 2010 Design Challenge.

Design Challenge Inspiration from Liz and Linda

The Open Design Challenge deadline has been extended! WHEW!!! NOVEMBER 18th is your absolute drop dead date that packages have to be post marked in order to be entered for prizes (of course ...if you just want to send us something...we'll accept! :o)

The above is one of the MANY beautiful pieces of alluring eye candy that Liz Welch brought with her from the UK for sale. Not sure if this piece is still available but if you're interested contact her thru her blog: http://www.rarelizzie.wordpress.com/

Just look at the loads of mixed media presented in this piece - all combined with friendly plastic. Even more stunning in person!

For my take on mixed media, I chose found objects...okay..sort of found objects...little watch parts, patina'd brass washers all combined with Artemboss Copper and hammered WireForm Brass rods

Two totally different takes on mixed media....isn't art wonderful??

Tomorrow...Design Challenge inspiration from Jana and Jen!!

Naming your Butterflies - Challenge Deadline extended to November 18th

Jen Lowe has been hosting Friendly Plastic party after party! I think this is a great idea she came up with to name your butterflies, especially since that is one of the categories for the Design Challenge at CHA in January 2010....read on!

We have had the most fun naming our butterflies this week. While I can't share photos yet of those that are being submitted, I can share mine.


Now this one was made with 100% scraps. Look at it closely! Nothing but scraps and loads of fun. Do you see over on the top left....the openings with the mesh? So we named her: "That one wing made it impossible to fly"


I think names should tell a story. So why not have fun with your project? Who says it has to be just one or 2 words - give it any name you want!

This next one is named: "Too puffed up to fly". Can you tell we were going with a whole theme here especially if you look at the last blog? None of my butterflies can fly. Hidden meaning - none are being entered since I was one of the winners last year. So see, put a play on the words! Have fun with it! We were just giggling up a storm around here!


And Rose, we named yours for you as well!!!







"Too Puffed" was made with ooze in cookie cutters.....but we also made up our own technique by oozing around a tool handle to create the center part. How fun is that? When you lay her flat, she looks flat....but she's really quite puffed up!


The rhinestones were in the net. The bottom layer was oozed through fantasy fibers. The centers were connected by using the hot water method and then shaped backwards.


I think I need to go shopping and find more things to oooze through. That or make some more butterfly girls! So much to do I don't know where to start!

Adventures in Friendly Plastic with Melissa J. Lee

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

Deadline for Entries to the Open Design Challenge extended!!! November 18th

November 2009 - Deadline for Amaco Friendly Plastic Challenge 2010 extended Deadline Extended! Entries to be Postmarked by November 18, 2009 The deadline to enter the AMACO Friendly Plastic ' design challenge' has been extended until November 18. But don't wait to send in your entries - if your entry is postmarked by the original deadline of November 6 you'll receive a complimentary sample of Friendly Plastic. This challenge is open to all ages with cash prizes and awards given in 4 simple categories each of which require you to use at least 50% Friendly Plastic in your entry. All entries will be showcased in a gallery on-line at amaco.com and at the Craft & Hobby Association Show (CHA) in Anaheim, January 2010. All winners will receive an etched crystal award, $100 check, plus a $100 check to the charity of their choice. If you haven't heard, Friendly Plastic is back by popular demand! Remember that glitzy, bright, shimmering metallic jewelry from the 80's that crafters embellished with crystals, watch parts and beads?! It's back by design, because creative women like Liz Welch and Jana Ewy kept it alive, then helped reignite it with the help of Linda Peterson, Jen Lowe and their countless on-line friends in the U.S., UK and Australia! Butterfly Memory by Sara Romero. This is the second year that AMACO is honoring the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust with a challenge category called "Butterflies." AMACO invites you, your friends, and family members to make butterflies (as a symbol representing each child lost) to be installed at the Holocaust Museum Houston Butterfly Project. Cash prizes and awards will be given for the Best Butterfly made by an artist under the age of 15, as well as, the Best Butterfly made by an artist over the age of 15. Butterflies should not be any larger than 8" x 10" and should not have glitter, macaroni or perishables attached to them. In addition, two more categories are designed to shake things up, loosen creative ideas, and stimulate original artwork! Awards will be given for the Best Mixed Media/Altered Art Project and for the Best Mixed Media Jewelry Design. The Mixed Media/Altered Art Project can be anything from paper crafting to home decor, wearable or installation art. There's no limit to your own creative applications! The Mixed Media Jewelry Design combines Friendly Plastic Design Sticks or Pellets with other mediums that appeal to you! Here is a link to the on-line entry form. The awards reception is scheduled to take place on January 25, 2010 in the AMACO Booth at the Craft & Hobby Association (CHA-Anaheim). Stay tuned for more news on our Facebook page or Twitter! Learn all you need to know to get started! Find Friendly Plastic in stores or on-line.

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These rusty old balls could have fooled me! Friendly Plastic

When I first saw this picture, I thought...."Hmmmm...found objects...wonder what Liz is going to do with them" Being that she lives in England and everything is ancient there, I expected that she was showing us something she had dug up in her garden and intended to incorporate into one of her future works of art....Well...I was right...sort of.... okay...not really...

Read on to find out the real story from Liz - The Infamous Queen of Friendly Plastic:

Just a short post today. What do you think this lot is (and please don’t say a load of old junk!). To help you, I will tell you that the drums of rope are about 3cm tall (just over an inch in old money).

I haven’t got time to keep you in suspense today so I will explain: I am working on my next project for a textile exhibition with Nolitex, and these objects will form part of the work. They are not rusty old bits of metal but artfully disguised bits of Friendly Plastic (not the rope of course). I say “artfully” but that is a conceit as in reality they were the results of my experiments with some patination and rusting fluids which I purchased when I was in America. I do believe you can get the same stuff over here in the UK, the range is called Sophisticated Finishes by Triangle Crafts.

I used Friendly Plastic Pellets for some of the pieces, and lots of scraps that I recycled for others; the results were the same once I had coloured them and rusted them. The rope drums are made over pipe lagging using some very rope-like cord (patination fluid treated as well).

I thought some of you out there might be interested in seeing something a little different on the FP front, it might just set you off on some train of thought you might like to share with the rest of us. And you know of course, that if you do put a post on your blog about it, then Linda will capture it and tell the world via the Friendly Plastic Blog, so you will be instantly catapulted into Friendly Plastic Fame!!!

Well she could have fooled me! Actually she did! Is there anything Friendly Plastic can't do??? Im in awe Liz!!! Thanks for sharing! And just to add...she's right....If you blog about friendly plastic....Im going to pinch it when you're not looking and you will be a FP Hall of Famer!