So... Tutorial Tuesday... better late than never!

Let's talk  for a moment about this gorgeous thing - I'm callin' it a reliquary. Its got a little photo of a Buddha statue that I photographed while in South East Asia a few years ago and its special to me... so a relic? Not officially...A reliquary? Why not... OH! and mine is little enough that I attached a pin back to this baby and wear it on my coat! LOVE LOVE LOVEEEE LOVE

If you're building a reliquary it might start with a box as mine did... one I hand made, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I really started with a collage... a tiny 2" collage if image, paint, glitter (duh!) and a little watch gizmo or two. 

Here's where it gets fairly technical... ok, not really, but you'll see... good times ahead!

Once your piece begins to come together you will want to decide when to add the sides to your box. Once the sides are in place it becomes slightly more challenging to arrange the little tid bits, but some items will be supported by the side walls or floor. 

You'll want to measure the overall depth of your piece. If you are using something fairly flat you can make it basically whatever depth you like... I don't like to make them too much deeper than ½ - ¾ of an inch otherwise your piece starts to get a bit like a tunnel and is quite a bit harder to solder. On the other hand, if you're using a 3D object you'll want to use its depth plush a “skosch”.

Measure around piece to figure overall linear length and cut a piece of mat board that is a bit too long... trust me on this one... you'll want a little extra... there is very likely some algebra that would allow me to figure that out exactly, but Algebra and I parted ways yeeeeears ago and I never really measure in inches or centimeters... I typically use a piece of string to get my measurement. And then call it a sckotchy bit... 

If your piece has curves (and who doesn't love curves!) you'll want to score the mat board about 1/3 of the way through the thickness from the top of the strip all the way to the bottom. Make the scores pretty close together and be sure not to go through too far. IF your piece has only square sides measure and cut a piece of mat board for each side.

Now, if you started with a precut piece of glass (like the opticians lens I used in the above example) follow the same steps, but when it comes time to glue the sides in place you'll be placing your sides on top of the base where you collaged your background.

On the other hand...

If you're using mica to enclose your piece your sides will be glued around your base. This is the exciting part!

When gluing my sides on I use Aleen's Tacky Glue and I typically start an arched piece by putting the arch around first leaving longer legs on each side of the piece and then measuring a “floor” that slides into place once the side is secured. For the square pieces I find that starting at the top and building around one piece at a time works best. For circles and ovals I just score all the entire length and start gluing it into place at the top.

Once you have measured, cut and scored the side piece(s) you will go ahead and glue it into place.  I put an even amount of glue all the way around the base of the reliquary and then I set it on my non-stick craft surface and begin to push the sides into place. Once I have it in place I will put a rubber band around the sides as close to the bottom as possible. This allows the piece to be held together while you work it into just the right place. During workshops this is always where someone says “ooooh, I was wondering what those are for”... Taaaaah Daaaah! If the rubber band is up too high on your sides it will collapse your box. Careful!

Now, check the back to see if its level. Place your piece back on your craft surface. From the inside you can press down to flatten your base to make it perpendicular to the sides. If the ends of your sides over lap a little its fine. (I will HAVE to make a video for this process!) That can be easily trimmed – if your reliquary is a circle or oval you'll want to trim a little at a time until your two ends meet up and then put a little glue there - once the piece is cured using either a box cutter or really sharp, sturdy scissors you can trim away any excess. Keep in mind all of the sides and a little of the front and back will be covered with the copper tape later.

Finish your reliquary scene I like to add embellishments of the sparkley kind to the seams and sides it brings light and dimension and texture to the whole piece. Smooth glue all along the inside of the sides and sprinkle Vintage Glass Glitter or Ultra Fine Glitter from Art Institute. ( LOVE LOVE LOVE their glitters!)

Ok... the stage is set, you have everything just where you LOVE it and its as sparkley as you can stand take a deep breath... ahhh isn't that better? Meee tooo... (: We are right about to get to the GOOD STUFF...

I use Mica Sheets to enclose most of my reliquaries – its a really Victorian vibe and shrouds your piece in a bit of mystery and really draws people in. Ooooh what's in there? Place a piece of mica on top of your box and trace the box with a pencil (or pen or scribe) you want the mica to come all the way to the outer edge so that it neither exceeds the edge fore falls in – that would just make you cry and we don't want any tears on our art! (=

Cut the shape out with ordinary scissors and glue into place. The glue is just to hold the mica in place while you work with the copper tape.

What's that, Julee, did you say COPPER TAPE?

Well... let's chat about the copper tape next week... mmmmmk???

Go get your boxes built and let me know how it goes! Shoot me some questions and have fun!!!

Go Get YOUR CrAfT on!!!

xoxo

jul

Walk on the Wild side Wednesday: word geekery and pretty pictures

If you've met me then its likely that you already know I can be fairly verbose and if you've met my child you probably have an inkling of my next confession, but I think its a safe bet that it is a relatively unknown fact that I am a word geek, you may be saying, no, not Julee. She's way too cool for that, but stay tuned and you're going to find out just how ridiculously true that is!

So, here it is... my mind has been dancing around the concept of rituals over the last few months... I'm not totally sure what set me off pondering the idea, but I suspect it has something to do with the last 4 months. Here in the good ole USofA the months beginning with "back to school" and ending somewhere around President's Weekend we are bombarded with "holidays" and a multitude of marketing opportunities. Everything from school supplies and costumes to turkey themed napkins and Christmas trees come trotting out in this sort of traditional ritual of events... before one event is over the next one is being marketed... I'm sure you catch my drift.

Ginger Bread Houses with Mom, sister and neices

Uncle Mike's Creepy Jack-o-Lantern

I love to decorate Easter Eggs!

But recently I began noticing more subtle rituals... hair cuts and soccer practice, Monday groceries and Friday pizza and a movie. The more I noticed these common rites the more they made themselves obvious to me... all the little rituals... in some ways celebrations - like weddings and funerals - in other ways habits or very simple acts... make up the web of life. We throw flowers

and erect monuments to mark them...

Here at Herrmann House we have a tradition called Holy Hour and it was passed from Opa (my husband's father) to Simon and from Simon to Alexia and I... Holy Hour is the observation of the sun's last 60 minutes of the day... we LOVE Holy Hour... 

As I started trying to put this all together in more than a series of fleeting thoughts, I noted that ritual and tradition are words that appear to be tied together in my vocabulary, which i didn't realize until I started putting words around these feelings. When I really think about it, though, we use the word tradition sort of loosely... I have been guilty of using the phrase "new tradition" which is a total oxymoron, right? Traditions are long standing and are by definition handed down from one generation to the next and don't become a tradition until it has been done over some relatively long period of time.  There are several definitions all using long standing or generational terms and typically pertaining to culture or the ways of a people.

One definition I found on dictionary.com says simply this: a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices 


On the other hand, ritual is defined as: any act or practice regularly repeated in a set precise manner

I can have a ritual of cleaning my bathroom each morning, but it is not a tradition. Now, there are traditions in the form of holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and the various Winter holidays that have their rituals that go with them. Plus, there are many holidays that ring in the New Year for different cultures which happen in different months throughout the year which have some simple and some very elaborate rituals.

Traditions in the form of change like a new baby, a marriage or a death all have formal rituals tied to them, too.

Then there are the more mundane things which truly are long standing and maybe even handed down through the generations but this is where the line gets fuzzy for me stuff like morning coffee, afternoon tea, and newspaper reading, weekend sporting events, the Super Bowl, playing video games and house keeping... ritual or tradition...?

Packer Backer and her DS - traditions from her Daddy!

I'm not really sure it needs to be settled right here and now, but its inspiring to me to just think through little puzzles like this... oh and I do love a spiritually uplifting ritual... how about statuary and flowers? Rites of spring? Love? Rebirth?

See? Total word geek...  if you're lucky I'll torture you with more of the same in my next post...

Ok, Go get Your CrAfT on... and let me know if you discover your artistic rituals... Inquiring minds wanna know!