Making Metal Magic - Part 1

It's hard to know where to start to describe the various fabulous adventures we had last week at the ArtBLISS Metal Magic workshops. 

I flew into D.C. last Wednesday around noon and my dear friend Heather met me at the airport and took me to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch, where we did not actually have cheesecake with our meal but only because we meant to go back another day to do so when we weren't so full and as often happens, we ran out of time!  Then we went to the mall, where Heather did a little shopping (because it's always a good time to buy a new pair of shoes), checked into our hotel, unpacked, had a little show and tell with some of the goodies we had brought and then headed out for a visit to Target and dinner at Burger King.  All of which time was spent in delightful anticipation of starting class the next day with none other than Stephanie Lee!

Heather at Target

Thursday and Friday were spent making little books with metal covers and plaster pages, what Stephanie calls a "Handbook of Elements".  The morning of the first day, we made the plaster pages for our books. 


Anne, Lois and Karen making book pages

After a delicious lunch provided by the Potbelly Sandwich Shop (yes, the sandwiches were yummy but it was their chocolate chip cookies that I wanted to write home about!):

Stephanie gave us a soldering demo:

and then we each got to work making our metal book covers.  Here's what the outside front and inside back of my finished covers looked like:

(Stephanie very kindly told me that the extra blob of solder on the inside of the back cover "gives it character".  I'm pretty sure she was just being kind, 'cause she's like that.) 

After that, we started decorating the front covers.  Some people, including myself, added bezels and filled them with all manner of things.  Others soldered miscellaneous bits and pieces directly onto their covers.  At the end of day 2, which we had spent binding our books together and finishing our covers, Stephanie showed us how to pour resin into our bezels to keep everything stuck inside for all eternity.  Here's what my filled bezel looked like:

I have not yet finished my book so photos of my final creation will have to wait (hopefully I will get it done this weekend) but here are some of the amazing books created by some of my fellow oh-so-incredibly talented students:

Book by Bette Brody



Book by Anne Savage



Made by Michelle

Lois' dear little book

and my personal favourite, the cowboy book:

Created by Leslie Brier

And finally, here's a picture of Stephanie with her two newest best friends: