This time of year is the best! I like the daylight around the clock because you can be active outside until bedtime. At summer solstice the sun sets at 00.04 and rise again at 01.04. It never gets dark and it’s wonderful!
I was out in the garden taking pictures at midnight. The lilacs are blooming and the fragrance is overwhelming.
I was amazed that there where no mosquitoes because they are usually very active at night. Here are some more pictures.
/Monica
I got a new idea to make latex moulds to cast concrete flower balls. They hopefully will look fantastic as garden decorations. I hope they will turn out great, and if so, I will make more of them!
I have bought a bunch of resin flatback flowers to use for this. I also bought some big styrofoam balls in different sizes and some modelling clay (that does not dry). The biggest ball is 14 cm in diameter. I cut a bit off from the styrofoam balls to have a flat bottom for my balls to stand on. Then I put on a thin layer of clay and then gently pressed the flowers into the clay. I filled the gaps between the flowers with small half round pearl beads.
This is the first ball I’m working on. I will make more of them (different designs) if this turn out as good as I think it will do.
Now the long process starts to make the latex mould. The ball has to be covered with liquid latex in several layers. I can put on two layers a day. It will take about two weeks to finish. It is very important to remove all trapped bubbles when putting the latex on. I use a straw to blow the bubbles away. Here I have just put on the third layer of latex.
I really long to cast this flower ball!
/Monica
This spring has been so fricking cold! We have had snow showers each and every day.
Some days ago I spent the whole day cleaning the pond so I could start the pumps to get the water and the fountain running. The water is freezing cold and the last ice melted about a week ago. It’s a struggle each spring to fix the pond but this year I had bought a special vacuum cleaner for it. It took just as long to clean the pond but it wasn’t as back breaking as it usually is. Now I’m prepared for summer!
I also put down my pond monster. My hands hurt from the cold water although it just took a minute to get him there! Isn’t he cute? Everyone needs a monster in their pond! 😉
There is not much greenery yet but we have some early spring flowers that are blooming. I fear that many perennials have died this winter because we have had so much snow alternated with thaw so there has been a lot of ice this winter. We will see!
/Monica
Now I have painted all the small ducks. They are so cute! These are the last ones:
The work on the big duck mold is progressing. I have finished the latex mold and have made a support for it using plaster bandage. I have made it in two halves to make it easy to remove it. On the first half I made a small ridge about 10 mm in from the edge so the other half gets good support. When it had hardened I trimmed it with my dremel so it looks nice.
When the two halves was finished I needed something to keep them together when casting. I used a strap for this but needed something more to hold it in the right position. I filled a small plastic jar with plaster and put the head down in it. I had put a thin plastic film on the head so it didn’t got stuck in the plaster.
Now I was ready to try it out! The mold and the support worked very well. It was easy to cast and everything went well. When I removed the mold, I saw that the beak was a little too thick in the upper part because I hadn’t put in a support for the beak in the two halves.
Now I have fixed this and I hope the next big duck will be perfect!
/Monica
After a very long break from writing here, I’m back again! I hope to continue with regular updates from now on. I recently lost my job, (not because of the Corona pandemic), and therefore I have plenty of time to do my hobbies.
I have been quite busy with making moulds for garden decorations. My funniest project is to make small ducks to have around my pond. It will look silly and so nice! I have made latex moulds on different rubber ducks and now I have cast more than 100 small ducks to put in the garden.
I’m still working on a bigger duck mould and hopefully it will be ready for casting within a week or so.
To paint all the ducks is very painful for my shoulders so I can only paint about 15 ducks a day. I use Inka Gold when painting and it looks so good!
/Monica
