Saturday, March 29, 2008

Fun Foam Embellishments

I had some free time this afternoon and decided to try a technique from Sherrill Kahn's book Creative Embellishments For Paper, Jewelry, Fabric, and More. I used some black fun foam, my heat tool, stamps and some metallic paints. Things didn't turn out as good as expected but remember this was only my first attempt at something like this.

These pendants were not a success for me as I had a very hard time getting the foam to stick to itself before it melted into a bubbly mess. I did not attempt making beads since I was having trouble with this technique. So I moved on to some small square embellishments that I'm pretty pleased with. They will make a nice embellishment on something.

What did I learn from all of this?
I need a better assortment of stamps that are deep etched so that it will work with this technique. I actually raided my kids stamps for the small square ones. Good thing they weren't home.


I need a better assortment of paints. I own one color of Lumiere paint and one small bottle of copper acrylic. I'm sure my end results would have been better if I had more paint choices. Adding to my supplies list just keeps getting longer and longer. Who is nice enough to send me a gift certificate to Dick Blick or another one of the many online suppliers? Hey a girl can dream, can't she?

Will I use fun foam again? You bet I will, after all it was fun : )

Creative Embellishments is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. I don't usually buy books since funds are limited and I would rather save it for supplies but this is one investment I don't regret. I'm very happy with the book and I know I will learn alot from it. I just love Sherrill Kahn's style!

7 comments:

Pat said...

Your experiments turned out wonderfully well! I am excited to try this technique. Must one have little kids to know what FUN FOAM is? I really don't have a clue. Help me out, please, because I think this looks like a great way to do some fab embellishments!
Pat
PS: I wanted to send you a gift certificate to Dick Blick but, er...
I spent it on myself. : )

Christy said...

These turned out lovely. I don't have the book so I don't know what you were comparing them to, so with my 'innocence' I view them as beautiful!
-Christy

Heather Pregger said...

They are beautiful! I love the Creative Embellishments book, too. How do you plan to use them?

Jill said...

Your FF embellishments came out great! I have a lot of yellow/green/red FF, but not black. There's a FF technique in Bernie Berlin's book too-have you seen it? Can't wait to see how you use these in your artwork.

Anonymous said...

This fun foam looks like...FUN! I'm not sure what it is, I have played around before with sculpey clay and stamps and paint. The results look great, I'm anxious to see what you do with them!

Bonnie / Graybonnie said...

I have been wanting to try this. Thanks for the insight.

Anonymous said...

Those are really cool Danielle! Did you apply the color before or after you heated them? I have a shade or 2 of Lumiere paint and have no idea what to do with it!