Lessons learned. Plates done (finally).

12th - 28th September 2021

Crochet project....

Sorry for they delay in the final installment of the lemon plates (finally, right?). Are you sick of these yet? I was distracted by making a crochet pouch and a handbag. Learning new stitches is fun too.  Yes, I have too many hobbies

...had learned a new stitch.

I ended up buying the decal paper off Amazon after looking at more reviews of different kinds of decal paper for inkjet printers. Altho this one cost a bit more, the reviews were better.  

The tips were pretty simple and I’ve added my own here :

• Print the images to the size you need (look up how to size your images - I use Pages on my Mac which gives me the exact dimensions of an image when clicking on it and sizing) on optimum dpi (at least 300) and high quality paper setting (they even say use glossy setting if you have it). Remember that any part of the image that is white will remain clear on the decal. So if you are applying a decal on a white surface it will be white - if you are applying on a surface that is off white or a different color, it will be that color.
• Spray a finishing clear acrylic sealant on the image. Be sure to let each coat of sealant dry thoroughly. Make at least 3 coats and be sure to spray moving in opposite directions between each coat. Be sure to let it dry even for the day after to be sure the colors will not bleed out. Try not to have droplets form. I sprayed my sheet inside a box so as not to spray everywhere in my attic room. Make sure you have windows open as the spray is quite smelly and toxic.
• Cut the images as close to the edges as possible. I made my first test on the tiles and the edges were easily turned overlapping on the bottom edge (if you don’t let it dry a bit, the decal will rip so be careful).
• Drop the decal images in room temp water wrong side down (the paper I bought has the brand logo on the wrong side). The decal will curl while the underside paper absorbs the water.  I expected from feedback on the product that it would be very difficult to remove the decal but it wasn’t - just wait long enough for the paper to become softened and unattach from the decal side (I noticed the whole decal just starts to sink). I did notice a little bit of bleeding in the water but only when I had moved on to the next step.
• Cover the surface where the decal will be transferred with water. I used a brush and made sure there was enough water on the surface to be able to manipulate the decal into position. Course it matters how you position from the get go - do your best to get it right the first time so you don’t have to manipulate the position of the decal so much. It took me a few tries.
• Use your moistened fingers to delicately push down the image a bit to get it to confirm to the plate and remove any air or water bubbles that may have formed on the underside. If you put enough water on the top of the decal while doing this, there should be no bubbles eventually under the decal. Be careful no to push too hard on the surface as it will tear.
• Let the decals dry sufficiently before adding any kind of further sealant or gloss finish.
  

Printed page of plates on decal paper.

Spraying the page inside a box to minimize the mess.

 

Floating the decal

Decaling each tile.

Finished tiles. Will use them somewhere in the house.

Plates. Less successful ones on top.

First trial. You can see where the decal rips and folds in places.

I did my best on some of them trying to get them centered but not all went perfectly. I am using permanent colored markers and acrylic paint to finish the edges a bit and the backs where I want them to be colored. I brushed some a gloss varnish for shine front and back.

Painting the back of one. The plate was not smooth anyway.

I’m fairly pleased with the final result and now have a bunch of ideas of things I can do in the limonaia house with decals.  Perhaps on the windows or even sections of the walls? It was worth learning this. I had a lot of fun with it.  Next, back to the painting and construction of the limonaia.

Finished plates thus far.

Three that I like the final result.

More lessons - making my own inkjet water decals....

August 29th - 1st September 2021

Continuing with the plates.

Now trying to figure out a way to make water decals. Why you ask? Because I only need them for this project and spending up to €18 euros for a package of water decals seemed excessive.  So, attempting to  manufacture my own decals.

I found a tutorial eventually (forget the english language errors in this video) and basically the idea is to print out the design, seal it with nail polish (normal polish, not gel), let dry and then scrape the paper off the back. The nail polish hardens into a sort of film. The other option was using clear packing tape (which I did find but will have to try out - seems too thick for what I need) so I’m going with the nail polish test.

I had some clear nail polish already in my hobby stash so after a few others posters online giving me tips I started covering the plate designs with layers of polish. The Della Robbia plate (dark green) was probably going to be easier since there is no white in the plate but the other designs have white in them and when I get to the point of removing the paper backing - which is white - it may not look right.  So I was curious to see how much detail and color is left in the design. 

Applying clear nail polish on the printed designs (normal paper)

After covering the images with many layers of nail polish, I soaked them in warm water and tried to scrape off the paper from the back of the image with a tool. Didn’t work at all really. I scraped one of the della Robbia designs this way and most of the color came off with the paper, so I used just my fingers and rubbing worked better. The only problem there is that very little detail remains. So, I tried a design with lots of white in it.  

Soaking the designs, paper side down.

Crappy scraped result....

 

 

 

 

 

 

It had soaked up quite a bit of water and while “scraping” the back with my fingers, I realized that the image was getting very soft and malleable. 

You can see how thin the decal can get.

This means that I don't even have to clean all of the paper completely off the back - the “decal” is flexible enough to try and apply to a plate.  Basically, it softens up and dissolves out a bit of the paper backing so I can mold it into the plate.  I used varnish on the first plate test and applied the design - but it was so quick to dry I couldn't even adjust or center the decal the way I wanted to.  I let it dry a little, then tried a bit of clear nail polish to see if that would stiffen and make the plate solid enough to sand. But the reaction between the varnish and the polish wasn’t a good idea - I picked up the plate and a layer of the nail polish stuck to my finger… OK, will just let that plate sit untouched and harden as much a possible.  

The Della Robbia plate decal.

The della Robbia plate was working out much better till I tried to rub the decal into the plate’s indentations - I had used the nail polish to apply the plate here and it softened the first layers of the decal. So a little of the design scraped off a bit while trying to get it to conform to the plate.  Still, the nail polish is the best bet - I could center the design no problem before the decal started to dry in place. The designs are a little bigger than the plate (millimeters) and I thought I should trim them but turns out, it’s better to just fold them around the edge when they are still a little wet. 

You can see the messed up one and better version

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The finished Della Robbia plate

And so, here is my learning curve :

Left side yellow one is decoupage, middle is using varnish for glueing, and last one using nail polish.

Left image is before soaking. Middle is the decal.

And after all of that, I am still considering buying a sheet of decal paper.  The whole process washes out so much color (or maybe because I didn’t “seal” the inkjet paint before layering over the nail polish) that decals may be the only way to get the intense color I want. You can see how much color comes off the decal during scraping in the foto.

I did find someone who sells pages instead of packages - course, by the time I purchase it and pay for shipping it’ll cost just as much as a full package.  And the more I think about it, I realize I can probably use the decal paper to decorate some of the smaller tiles instead of decoupage. I just may end up being successful with these little limonaia objects (which will be so small that no one will realize all the testing I’ve gone through to make them ! Haha!)

UV Gel Plate tests

 August 9 - 15th 2021

Continuing with the UV gel plate tests and have had quite a few failures.

First thing was to try and find some cheap semi-permanent nail polish that hardens with UV light. I did find some white paste like gel at the dollar store (altho it cost €8.79 euro for 30ml - not a dollar) and still needed to be mixed with the clear gel I bought specifically for this (10ml for €9.00) so that product is not quite the right thing, but the plate test did come out a bit better. So my next test involved using some nail polish that I found at the local mall. I bought some white polish and made a plate from it no problem. Didn’t even need to add any of the UV clear gel. It hardened under the UV lamp in under two minutes. Next was to try and add in the design.

First thing I lost around two days installing a new printer. I had to test the printer to be sure I could install it on my Mac (which is pretty full) and that went no problem. Then I had to find some ink jet cartridges for it. My old printer works fine (even nicer than this one) but the HP cartridges are hard to find now (not making them anymore) and at €49 for two, the newer printer and it’s cheaper cartridges (€34 for two) makes it a better choice. I am not a huge printer of things but when I print out mostly for my mini stuff I need the color printer. So I’m hoping these will last me a few months at least. After having removed and re-boxed the old one, I printed off the labels on normal paper high dpi on the new one and they’re good enough since I will be applying other medium on top of them and they will lose a lot of details anyway. I attempted to use a new clear UV gel sandwiching the plate design between that and the white nail polish but when you squish the plate mold the white overflows into the design in front. Not only, seems that this gel is really only good for adhering the semi-permanent polish to fingernails and not as an outer layer. So will have to continue to use the pure white nail polish to make the plates and find another way to add the designs. First fail.

You can see the difference from plate one to the mixed medium plate. Better but not perfect.

Trying sizing on the design into the silicone plate mold.

How the design would eventually fit in.

Full white nail polish result from the mold.

Result after hardening - the white invaded the top side of the plate - so, not acceptable.

In the meantime, I wanted to also run a test in adding color to the white nail polish. I used a green chalk pastel to the white but also this was a failure. The ratio of powder to liquid makes the nail polish too diluted to harden sufficiently. I ended up re-enforcing the underside with the specific gel I bought for the silicone molds and coaxing the plates out of the mold. Even after many minutes under the UV lamp, the plates just weren’t hardening sufficiently, so I added a little to the top too. I don’t think these green ones are salvageable - no matter how much I add on top the inside is still not cured (even after leaving over night and back under the UV lamp the next day). Fail two.

Mixing the green pastel chalk...

...under the UV light for hardening....

Nada, this was a throw away trial.

I figured the problem was the thickness of the actual liquid in the mold. If I put too much polish in the then it cannot harden thru - especially when I’ve corrupted it with pastel.  To test this, I filled a mini croissant mold to see if the polish would harden thru. I put it under the light for around 3 minutes and it did come out ok - seemed hardened thru. But I tried to sand and shape a bit a bigger one and it cracked and gel oozed out. Not hard enough all the way thru. Back under the lamp till they harden up. It was just a test anyway since these molds are actually for use with Fimo type clay, not really with the UV gel. So, thickness makes the difference. Pseudo fail.

Croissant mold test....

...after curing but still not solid all the way thru.

The next test was using acrylic paint to color the white nail polish instead of chalk. So I added some yellow acrylic paint and two drops of the UV super gel then used a paint brush to dose out the amount of product in the mold. It took a few tries to fill it sufficiently. When you squeeze the mold it fills areas too so once it seems covered I stuck the plate under the lamp. I eased it out of the mold on one side, under the lamp again then eased it out the other. Success! The trick is the acrylic paint. Seems it doesn’t inhibit the hardening of the gel. But still, once I started to sand down the plate I found areas where the gel was not hardened completely. So still, not the best solution.

Filling the mold with colored gel polish....

...result after sufficient hardening.

The learning curve. From first to last plate.

Lessons learned so far? If I want intense colored plates, I’ll have to paint them after making them.  It’s way too much work and waste of the product to mix the white polish, acrylic paint and drops of the super UV gel. It’ll be faster if I make all the plates white and apply the designs onto them. The whole point of making these plates from a mold is because I was not able to find white ones that are this thin and delicate looking. So I think I am on the right track! Next step - finding a way to make my own decals to transfer the Amalfi type designs onto the plates… we will see how that works out…..

Not enough hobbies....

August 3rd 2021

Yup so I totally blew off July - I got distracted.  

I ended up catching up on a few other hobby things that I wanted to finish (I had bought two Japanese themed fat quarter fabric squares to use for some masks plus I had a some clothing that required mending) so I pulled out my sewing machine and did those things. Course, once you start something there’s always something else that needs fixing or mending too. Anyway, I got somewhat bored with going back to painting the last two panels so instead, I decided to dapple into something I have never done before.  UV curing resin.

Basically, you make objects out of gel that is cured (activated) under a UV light. It’s the exact same thing when you get a gel manicure.  So, I found a tutorial and bought a plate mold and some UV hardening gel and, of course, a cheap UV manicure light.  My first test was today.

So this is what I learned in my first test :

First UV plate test - learning experience...

• The mold needs a lot more gel in it than I thought it would. So, given the price of clear UV gel, I’m going to test making plates using UV gel nail polish. It comes in tons of colors so I won’t have to make my own (which I did in the test - I scraped some white chalk pastel into the clear gel and it came out grayish - not happy). Plus, I should be able to find it cheap at the dollar stores here (basically Chinese owned junk everything shops).
• Better to overfill the mold once I get cheap gel then trim the plates. Course, it’ll be important not to over cure the plate otherwise it’ll be too difficult to trim. So more tests to be made.

In any case, this gel stuff is pretty smelly and I have no idea if nail polish gel will respond the same so I’m fairly excited to make a few more tests.  In the meantime, here is a peek at what I am planning to put on my plates :

Deruta

Deruta

Della Robbia

Alcantara

Course my idea is to print them on decals but if I can cheaply make lot of plates I will try and decoupage them onto them - since finding decals will be another adventure as I have already checked into it.

And here is a nice recipe again with my favorite - lemon. I have been dieting since around my birthday in May so eating a lot less pasta but doesn’t mean you have to….

Queen Mab has arrived....

 June 1st - June 18th 2021

Well, been a bit busy of late. Full scale life got complicated and summer has finally arrived. Up until about a week ago, it was tolerably hot.  Now it’s boiling. The sun scorches your skin even before it’s at its highest peak. I take out my beagle Max every day at noonish and it’s getting more difficult due to the sun’s relentless attack. I do not like summer much. I am not a beach goer (more a lover of lakes and mountainous scenery) due to my super pale skin (yes type I) and the constant need for 50+ sunscreen (that ends up attracting kilos of sand) and my own self image issues (I hate showing off my puffy white thighs in a bathing suit) so living in Italy does have its downside - for me anyway.  So much good food that puts on layers of fat and a sun I cannot enjoy.  Oh, the irony.

So, here I am up in my hobby attic - dollhouse building, sewing, drawing etc. and thank god we installed a decent AC unit. We actually upgraded it in 2019. The other one was more than 15 years old, so this one works rather well.  Without it, no way I could sit up here and play.  
In fact I went back to playing with the tiles since the ink pens arrived. They were not as great as I had hoped but will be workable. The ink refill bottles are perfect for the job of inking up the images I need with a brush then applying the clear embossing powder.  Works a charm. In this picture, you can see the printed tiles I will be using (I have 12 small spaces and 4 larger ones that need tiling) and you can see the reflection of the pebbling effect from the clear embossing powder.  Now I just need to mount them on the white backing for inserting into the panels (which I still have to paint two more - I got side tracked making the tiles - they were more fun than painting).

Embossing the printed tiles - you can see the pebbled surface I like

.

I had bought a long time ago when it was on sale a series of pub signage.  It was a large frame, a sandwich board, a wall board and a hanging sign for outside all in one package.  I had found an image which I really liked of an art Deco style woman holding a flower of some sort with little children or “putti” holding her dress.  I liked the subtle colors and the image and decided I would put her in the large frame. That meant that once I printed it to size I had to cut the frame to size as well.  First issue was that my printer started acting up.  I had bought new ink cartridges last year but as usual, they never last as long a they advertise. When I went to buy more, I found that the prices were getting out of hand (€47 euros for two cartridges and only on Amazon!!) especially when I can buy a new HP multifunctional printer here for €59. Ho hum…. So, I managed to print out most of my colored tiles (seeing as it was the black ink that was acting up - probably due to the heat in the attic when the AC is off) and the deco Dandelion lady. I will deal with the new ink cartridges later. Then I set out to cut the wooden frame. Easier said than done. My dremel attachment (a diamond type disc) wouldn’t stay in place so I ended up having to hand saw the frame. No problem, I have lots of different saws and vices so that just took around an hour to cut and glue.  Once dry on the next day I got to sanding all the edges to smooth it out. To be honest, I am not very happy with how the cut shows but since I had decided to gold leaf the frame I figured it wouldn’t show that much.

Deco Dandelion lady and the now cut frame.

Yes, a bit crappy but was going to be covered in gold anyway.

Adding a little embossing shine to areas inside the image.

Getting back to the Dandelion lady, I could not read the signature on the image and I wanted to label it. I wanted to figure out if, in fact, she was Deco (since I was going for the idea that the limonaia would have been old but updated around turn of the last century) and upon doing a Google image search, I found out all about it.  She would be a version of “Queen Mab" from  a book about fairies called Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens illustrated by Arthur Rackham -1906. Turns out he illustrated many books - not just fairy tales and such - and his work is a bit frightening yet beautiful. I found a nice entry  from the same blog listing all the books he has illustrated and mentioning that he knew Tolkien and influenced some of the tree imagery for Lord of the Rings. We can even see influences in Disney’s nightmare in the woods sequence from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  He also illustrated The Wind in the Willows which is a favorite book amongst many young people even today.  So, yes, this image would work well.  As I said she is a version of “Queen Mab” - who rules the gardens - but not always.  She has morphed in many different literary works from someone beautiful to even one of the most famous evil queens - The Queen of Hearts - in a retelling of Alice in Wonderland (Andrzej Sapkowski).  So, yes, after enjoying all the information and imagery I believe my Queen Mab will fit into the limonaia just fine.

I managed to find the actual glue I had bought a hundred years ago for gold leaf but it was pretty melma (slime) like.  Almost like snot. (Sorry). But it did work better then the other glue types I had. Soon enough, after around 20 minutes I remembered how much I disliked gold leafing. I did cover most of the frame (but not perfectly - it is supposed to be old), then varnished the gold to set it into place as the actual leafing glue was not 100% guaranteed to hold. Then, I found a darkish Burnt Sienna acrylic and lightly sponged areas of the frame to “age” the gold, sponged the back and the inside and just needed to frame the image.

Glueing the gold leaf onto the frame...

...covering as much as possible.

Sponging in a bit of bronze coloring....

...finished frame.

You can see that the external sawed edge is practically invisible. Inside will be under the image.

I set to work aging the image of the Queen Mab and even added a little bit of texture to the surface (by pressing the front onto a small piece of netting) to give it the look of canvas.  Then I aged it with some more chalk pastel and set her into her frame. I think she looks fairy-ly regal. Will just need to decide where to hang her inside the limonaia. I am still working out how the room will be decorated. Anyway, slowly making progress and still having fun.

The image on the left before aging onthe right.

The piece of netting I used to give the image a canvas look.

Close up of the canvas texture.

An idea of size - I like that it's large.