Prototypes for June 6 Class, Part 1

Today, I designed the prototype for the enamel mug of flowers I will be teaching to a group on June 6. There are several parts to the day-long class, so I am going to try to do one prototype a day if time permits.


The mug is made of a recipe card cylinder, about 1.5 cm high, rolled around a pen to shape it. It has been painted with eggshell acrylic enamel inside and out, with rusty "chips" added using black and terra-cotta acrylic paint. The rim at the top is a bit of black buttonhole thread, and once the whole mug is dry, it is given a coat of clear nail polish inside and out. Hmm, the thread is a bit loose above the handle, I'll need to add a bit more glue there....


Joann Swanson wrote a booklet for the old, small size Nutshell News Magazine, entitled Granny's Kitchen. It is full of ideas for making enamel and metal kitchen utensils, using recipe card and manila file folder cardboard; there is no mug in the instructions, but it is easy enough to "invent" one based on the instructions for the other card items.


The daisies in the mug still need to be bent outwards a little, but I have to let everything dry. The bench the mug is sitting on is the basic bench we will be making, except that for this project it will be worn and painted in a pioneer colour, barn red, colonial blue, or dark green, rather than cheerful and flowered turquoise blue!


The daisies are made of a tiny, rounded yellow paper circle, glued to a wire stem, with a couple of daisy-shape white paper flowers added, along with some hand-painted paper leaves.


Once all the parts are finished, I'll post a photo of them grouped together for the project. There are at least 5 and possibly 6 parts to this project, and this one turned out pretty good, I think.