Green, purple and a bit of black

The title sounds like bruises, doesn't it? Well, my arms and fingers feel a bit bruised after wrestling with different gauges of wire. Yep, I've been mixing media again. First I was using bits of wire for my polymer clay flower chain (see below). This involved hammering some jumprings with a ball pein. Then the idea of making some big rings got in the way. Then the green stones led to the creation of a cane for the green bangle (and matching necklace and earrings) and now I'm back to purple pansies. And how was your weekend...? Tomorrow is Monday and I'm back to writing (shhh...another tutorial in the works)

And there goes that necklace

Remember the necklace I made a couple of posts back? Well, didn't take long...first market it shows up and woosh....gone. I think it really suits Julia of Victoria, BC who was kind enough to pose it for me. Looks great on her, doesn't it? It was a great Market btw. We actually had some fabulous duo singing in the most professional way, on occasion even sounding much like Sarah McLaughlan. They came all the way from Florida.

Bright Idea...

Well....bright in colour anyway. As per suggestion by a friend I thought I'd give VanAken Matte Magenta Tempera a try...on Blue! I used Blue Metallic clay by Fimo...well the one with the sparkles. Have had it for a while so can't remember the name on the package. For these beads I've also used bits of clay that I used my mixture of crackle on (april 2008 issue of polymercafe). Anyway...the whole thing does look a lot more like purple than blue, probably due to the visual effect of magenta and blue together....

Gift or Prezzie? Batteries included....

Well, while my work doesn't require batteries, I spent some energy the last couple of days finishing some beadwork for my polymer clay focal pieces. I took some pictures including of some caps I'm making to match the pendants. There is also a picture of some faux bone pieces I had done. I find I make all these beads, pendants and cabs and then don't use them because I always make more, lol. Then they end up in a big box. I've started to sort through and put them up on Etsy, individually and in bulk. Lots to go, but a few up now. Maybe some other beaders would enjoy incorporating these into their work? What do you think? Single or bulk...? Please vote in the poll on the upper left.
Anyway, I'm putting them up pretty cheap, considering the time spent to make these, but I'm tired of looking at them and not getting time to use them! Well, I might as well keep going with my 'Commercial' plug here, lol. I've got a sale happening as well as offer LOW shipping (2 Bucks!) and over $50 includes free shipping. Pretty good, huh? Not done!! lol...I also always include a FREEBIE or PREZZIE!! ok...enough screaming. The prezzies depend on the purchase. The bigger the purchase, the bigger the present. You know what....I don't really like saying 'gift'. It translates as 'poison' in German. I assure you, my presents are NOT poisonous! I guess I like to treat my customers like *I* would like to be treated.Another pendant where I incorporated a hammered swirl.

Waterlily pendant and covered brass clasp.

Inukshuks and new beads

Its beadmaking day...inukshuks from polymer clay and other beads and pendants with various inclusions. Now that they are made, assemblage required...almost like 'batteries not included'. Will have to put on my thinking cap. The inukshuks are fine on just simple buna with clasps, but the other beads...

PEBLS, Toggles, Wire and getting wired...

Using some of my handmade polymer clay Pebls alongside one of my new toggle clasps which I made a few days ago. Hammered and forged some heavy wire links.
I'll be doing a demo at the upcoming "Sojourn" and figure I need to be prepared a bit better than having my supplies on hand. I'll have 30 minutes to show various techniques and am not too used to having a time-limit, so this evening I'll use a timer and do a 'step by step' for my daughter and see what I can fit in. There are so many techniques for wire, almost endless possibilities, but I'll keep my focus on earring hooks, hoops, wire frames, how to manipulate wire and texture it. I guess the only thing I'm not looking forward to is bringing my heavy tapping block as I'll be carrying not only my pastamachine and clay by bus, but also this 2 lb block of steel, lol. I think I'll better plan on a 'rolling' suitcase, although I'll still have to limit myself to what I can lift! Boy, that won't be easy, but I'm getting wired to GO!

Color Scales in Polymer Clay (part 1)

There's been much talk about colour mixing. Here is a great tutorial by Maggie Maggio . The link will take you to the pdf to print out the template. This is part ONE of two.

Toggles and Beads

Decided to spend a day making Polymer Clay Toggles and a few Beads. Never could find any pleasing CLASPS to go with my polymer clay work, especially when I don't always want to use metal ones. Sometimes I like the look of a functional clasp in the front that can act as a pendant. Now comes the hard part....trying to decide how to string them, whether to use just polymer clay beads and a few other types of beads or whether to go out on a limb and do something a bit more elaborate which includes wire or wire crochet. Will see. I may do a bit of both. These pics really don't do the toggles justice, but I just didn't have time nor the place to set up my lightbox. My daughter is moving....can you imagine trying to work around piles of laundry? lol

Tomorrow I make some toggles in other shapes...

Mixing Old or Hard Polymer Clay

Must say, I have one of these blenders and I haven't used it yet, but then I have avoided my old stock of Fimo far too long. This easy to follow tutorial makes it a breeze....time to make 'popcorn' (I think it resembles 'cottage cheese' more closely)

Polymer Clay Butterflies - Crafts Beautiful December 2007

Oh what fun....

Day 2 for the Chakra Canes

It was day 2 for making chakra canes, but boy oh boy!! was it ever COLD out there today. What was I doing outside? Well, for now my polymer clay making is confined to the 'sun-room' which has no heat and isn't a sealed room, so its like sitting outside with only protection from wind and rain. No sun today, but rain and the thing with the cold...I had to keep my clay in my bra otherwise the conditioning of it would have taken forEVER, lol. Wellllll, it did take a long time because I used my Fimo clays because I have so many of them stocked. Each cane took about 2 bars including black and pearl.
These are the two I came up with, they're not perfect as I worked pretty fast, but reperesent the Solar Plexus and Heart Chakras quite well, I feel. Perhaps you can see the sparkles because I only used Pearl white for the filler. I have no idea yet what I will do with these, but maybe something similar to the Harmony jewelry pieces I make. The next canes will be the Throat and Brow Chakra. The Throat chakra cane shall be tricky as I need to put 16 petals around the outside. But it won't be as tricky as the last one....the Crown Chakra with a 1000 petals!!! I don't think I can do a 1000....will see....

Imitative Ceramics in Polymer Clay

Hubby says to me this morning:"Why would you want to make imitate ceramics with polymer clay when its so cheap?!" Wellll...I don't have a good answer for that except that I wanted to try a nice glaze on my face cabochons for beadwork and I don't have a kiln (which IS expensive). I used pinata inks mixed into liquid Kato Polyclay. I dabbed on a little mica powder onto the faces, then coloured 'glaze', then baked and gave the pieces a glossier finish with Fimo Varnish. The effect is a little dimensional and I'm pleased with the result. I only did a scan here and scans aren't showing dimensionality too well...I guess I should get out my camera.

Inspiring Polymer Clay Artists on the WWW

Blogs seem to be the link that binds artists together. Do a google for "polymer clay Artists" you get 1,130,000 results! For singular 'polymer clay artist' and you get 249,000 results and for "polymer clay blogs' there are a staggering 71,600! Not surprising, Polymer Clay Daily is #1 and is the most popular blog among us. I was, however, more than a little surprised to find myself on the 5th page between the 41st-50th result, quite interesting since I'm a newbie! Feels kinda good, I tell 'ya! :)
I was curious WHO is out there in the blog world and found some interesting Europeans. Just a few listed here that I thought are interesting and have a lot to offer:

Here is a neat tutorial for an Eye Cane by Kerstin (sorry Kerstin....you don't tell us your last name!). She kindly grants permission to link to her tutorial pages. Kerstin has some other interesting tutorials such as a snowflake cane and sanding lentil halves and gives instructions in both German and English!
Another wonderful artist is Naama Zamir who lives in Israel. Beautiful, beautiful cane work and also lots of tutorials on her pages which are both in Hebrew and English.

Need to keep an eye out ;-)....there are so many wonderful artists to visit....what a lovely thing to do on a rainy afternoon!

Then there is Parole de Pate who teaches us how to MICROWAVE polymer clay! UPDATE!! BTW...microwaving clay does NOT properly fuse polymer clay. An oven and thermometer is still the recommended method. Many, many wonderful tutorials and work on their blog though. Too bad my time ran out, I need to go cook dinner now!

More Triangle beads

Made some more mokume gane, translucent with red pinata, gold leaf, copperleaf. Made some triangular beads and carved them a bit after baking and giving them a bit of antiquing.

I love Pinata Inks

I simply love Pinata Alcohol Inks! They work so well with Polymer clay. Here are a couple of pieces I made by using Pearl Premo clay as the base. Drop random spots of the inks, using a brush to spread, leaving spots of the white pearl. I used small amounts of rubbing alcohol to give a sunflowering effect on the surface. Let it dry and run through 2 successively smaller settings of the Pasta machine, just as you would with a sheet of clay that is covered with gold/copper leafing. It will give a slight crackling effect and the mica of the pearl will add to the chatoyant effect. I use Fimo Varnish to protect after baking.
I've linked my a recent tutorial on here that I posted in the 'future' from this one...in case anyone wants to see....

I guess its Angels!

I've been looking at my angel cards and they have often held a clue for some inspiration. The card I drew is "Practice makes perfect". How true is that! The leaves and triangles matched, so I made some Angels.

A few more cabs....

A few more cabs, not taxis, but Polymer clay cabachons that is. Donuts too. It was a dreary day to take pics, very dark in the house and not much natural light to be found, but these have so much depth to them. I used a mokume gane with pinata inks and foils, probably my favorite technique.