Paintings in Miniature for Jewelry

My humble beginnings selling Jewelry, I would mount some of my beadwork earrings onto miniature watercolour paintings. This didn’t last, especially when these sold as soon as I put them on the shelf.

A couple of days ago I took some of my small originals to the market and someone wanted to purchase them (shown below with jewelry), a moon and mussel shell watercolour as well as a stream in forest. I declined. I guess some things are hard to part with, especially since I’ve only done 3 watercolour stills (not counting those teeny ones), the largest “Driftwood and Rocks” is  20” x 26”. The ‘stream in forest’ is a small  9” x 12”. I’ve done 2 acrylics one of which is “Hot Springs Cove Park”. This is in my eldest daughters possession (without the watermark which is for Internet purposes only). I’ve done a few pen and ink drawings as well, one of which is in my Fathers possession (along with my first ivory carving of a 3 D octopus holding a rum bottle, complete with cork! lol. I’d love to see this one again and should ask if he can send me a photo)

I don’t consider myself a painter as I’m not trained enough. Maybe someday when beads are becoming too hard to see…but then perhaps I’ll use polymer clay as my medium on canvas.

Anyway…here are some of my paintings turned into resin jewelry…am thinking these might also look nice as Aquarium Pendants which I promised a few of you I’d  turn into a tutorial at some point. Fall is here and soon I’ll have more time for that as well. Pretty neat how a computer and printer can be so handy, eh? (Note the triplicate whale tail…Google Picasa magic)

Good to the last drop

We usually say that about coffee, but here I actually mean that about resin. Not the UV resin you’ve heard me talk about so many times before, but the Little-Windows.com resin. Yes, it’s definitely my new love! It’s a 2:1 ratio resin rather than a 1:1 ratio that most other resins use for combination of Resin and Hardener. I find I just can’t go wrong with this one. I posted a little about it back in April. I’ve tried 1:1 ratio resins but sometimes ended up with beautiful but unusable tacky pieces which I sadly had to toss. And UV resin, while it has great uses, the annoying thing is that you can’t mix opaque stuff into it. And for the LW resin, I don’t have to wait for the sun to shine (here in the North, haha), or plug in my Aluminum foil lined Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) UV oven. Blablabla…ok here is a little idea with a bit more blablabla attached, lol. Notice the teardrop ends of the beads? I’m entering these in the 52 earrings a year which I have fallen behind in. I’m planning on catching up!

I normally use these cute silver little headpins with the round ball ends or the plain flat hammered end ones which I have so many of. Then this idea hit me…why not make some!!

When done working with a batch of resin, as instructed you can wipe the cup with a paper towel to then being able to reuse the cup. But now I make use of those last few drops before wiping it. Well,in case you’re wondering how I then cure them…here they are…

I just used Scotch Tape and taped the pins onto the shelf above my head. They’re not drippy at all, but you could place a sheet of printer paper underneath just in case you have your coffee there or whatever, lol.

Mine are black because I used Fran’s magical black powder that is used with her Dichro tutorial (the video of which you can watch in my April link above). You could also use glitter or colorful embossing powders.

Stay tuned for asap…

Busy Bee

And how to keep up with it all. I’m buzzing like a bee, both mentally and physically…back and forth from item to item, things to photograph, chores to be done like laundry, things to be written up and tagged, my turn cooking dinner, appointments, and some days I have that sense I didn’t get much done even though I really have when I look back. It’s been almost 2 weeks since I posted and meant to much sooner. It’s become too easy to use Facebook, but am realizing THAT part is becoming almost too overwhelming. For a while I got added to a whole bunch of different Groups and there are so many for polymer clay now. I mean how much can you handle and keep track of!? I decided to stick with a couple, but needed to go ‘no notification’ just for a while. I’m almost afraid to be left out of the loop!…but just don’t have the time and energy to social network as I’d like to. I know it’s good PR, but something has got to give. I also belong to a Beader’s Cafe since I also do beadwork. And the swaps I’ve participated in. I really enjoyed those and they really help renew that creativity. Just mailed my last item. I hosted a Polymer Clay Swap on the Facebook Group with the same name. Window Ornaments is or was the Theme. I can’t show you yet as my partner Kimberly hasn’t received hers yet, but soon!! August 15th is the deadline and we’ll be doing a blog hop then.
Anyway…this past week I spent a lot of time making these!!

…not enough! I need another batch this coming week, lol. If you feel like making these, I have a series of tutorials . And here are other things I’ve been making to turn into earrings and pendants…Maybe you’re familiar with my Batik and Shimmer (also found on ArtFire). I have two tutorials for this technique. A lot of people I meet ask me how I make them and when I describe it, it seems way over their head, especially for someone never having worked with polymer clay before. But…the occasional person will say “ohhh, is that like Fimo?” YES!! and that makes me feel excited in a good way. People don’t call it Philo or Filo anymore!! you know…that pastry stuff, lol. Used to get that a lot. Not anymore. Yay!

I’ve also made a few other pebbles for jewelry. Maybe I should just sell the beads…


There are many other things non-polymer clay but more resin in nature…


I could show you more things I made, but that would mean taking more photos. Next time! Tomorrow is a reward day. A visit with an old friend I haven’t seen in a few years and then a couple of hours at the Lake!! yay…see you soon.

Crackle Focals and 52 Earrings a Year #15

The polymer clay focals I made a few days ago, I assembled them into this necklace and earring set. I’m entering the earrings as my #15 which was an Easter Theme. While mine aren’t bunnies or eggs nor anything remotely religious, I feel the floral aspect and colours could be interpreted as Easter.

I’ve also made a few other pendants with my New Crackle. As you may have heard, this crackle does not leave any paint on your clay, but only the visible cracks. Here is a nice close-up…


I’ll be assembling these into a similar necklace and earring set as the one above.

Pearls and a new Resin obsession

Pearls and Polymer Clay: The last couple of days I’ve been assembling some of the many “Batik & Shimmer” and “Low Relief” pendants I’ve been creating and amassing into a rather large collection. I’m rather happy with these 3 and 5 pendant necklaces with pearl clusters and chains. The chains are a little longer than how I can fit on the bust and sit more in line with the beading.

Resin and Cabochons:
Besides my continual work with polymer clay, my usual application of surface resin has turned into a bit of a resin obsession. Right now I’m in the mood to create sparkly dichroic-like cabochons. These are actually my first pieces with a new type of resin I wanted to try. They will get better I’m sure, but am really very happy with these.

I am so impressed with this stuff. For one it doesn’t have any noticeable odour when mixing or curing. Second, it is easy to measure with a 2 to 1 ratio (rather than UV method, or the standard 1 to 1 ratios with the smelly types). If you are odour sensitive like I am, you will really appreciate this. Third, and I think this may be helpful with polymer clay creations…the resin stays bendy for a period of time before curing to its full hardness. This allows one to manipulate the resin piece into a curved shape! I haven’t tried baking a cured piece with my clay yet…will report if it’s ok or not…Fourth, the site has plenty of tips, projects, inspiration, even video tutorials and helpful supplies such as doming ‘drip trays’.

This resin and system is the brainchild of Fran Valera of “Little Windows”. I have to admit that I’ve had immediate success with this system, better than any other type. 1 to 1 ratio resins while satisfying when they worked, sometimes they would stay tacky, disappointing when you made a big batch of pendants! or my Epoxy UV resin would suddenly only cure on the surface and then slide off the project (NOT Magic Glos, that UV resin is fine) The other downside with the Epoxy UV resin, you can only cure thin layers at a time and wouldn’t be able to mix dark inclusions into this as light can’t penetrate dark matter to allow curing underneath. With this Little Windows ™ resin you can mix in all kinds of dry things such as embossing powder, glitter, mica powders, metal pulver…
Fran teaches you how to make these beauties with this and other fun videos…
Btw…if you do decide to make a purchase and want to try this for yourself, there is a little referral on the site. You’d make me really happy if you said Tina Holden sent you.

A Suntan bed for my Polymer Clay

Fall has arrived and with it, shorter days, less sun and cooler temperatures. If you've been following my blog on Polymer Clay Bytes!, then you know I've been posting quite a bit about resin. I've been bemoaning my two nail art lamps that have been doing double duty and there have been many times with me running outside to quickly lay out a tray of pieces only for the sun to go into hiding.
The nail art lamps are quite reliable for Magic glos, but since I have a quart of industrial resin that I also like  to use, unfortunately it also requires more lumen or output of light than the lamps could handle.

So check out this cool suntan bed my hubby built for me. I'm so stoked! It's fitted with 2 ballasts that hold 15 inch long BL 350 tubes . The plastic covers were removed and anchored inside an aluminum foil lined box. The aluminum helps reflect as much light as possible. The interior of the box can easily handle 40 pendants on its 9 x 18 inch area. I have two glass shelves that can be lowered and raised via 2 blocks for items with varying heights. Ideally, the resin cures best about 2 or 3 inches from the lights. There is a hinged door to close the unit as it's in close proximity to where I'm working. For these type of bulbs protective eyewear is recommended. I'll  be sun tanning my clay a lot more now!

About my other lamps, the single bulb 9 Watt lamp has only a 2 x 6 inch area and the larger with four 9Watt bulbs has a 6 x 6 inch working area. Those lamps cost on average $35 for the small and $60 for the large, but sometimes Ebay has great deals. I guess I'll put mine into storage or find a hobby crafter who can use one or the other.

There is a lot more to UV these days than suntans and light bulbs. UV can cause chemical reactions, cause many substances to glow or flouresce such as when checking for biological hazards in public places or to detect counterfeit currency would be a couple of examples. UV wands for your purse are now available to kill bacteria  if you are sensitive to chemical sanitizers and sprays. We all know the effects of UV by way of sunburns, but the UV spectrum has many other effects, both beneficial and damaging, to human health. You can read a lot more on Wikipedia about  UV and Black Light and differences.

Anyway, a big thanks to my friend Gera Scott Chandler who first blogged about her home built UV lamp that reminds her off a Lunar Excursion Module and well, I kind of thought so as well, lol. Well, it IS complete with Space blanket! You can see Gera's innovative LEM lamp and an update is found here. In general, her blog is well worth the visit.
 

Dragonflies and Butterflies

Am having a good response to these crackled resin and polymer clay insects to which I'm adding a little hardware or watch gears. Am having a lot of fun with making dragonflies and butterflies, arranging them on barrettes, as pins, earrings and pendants. Right now the barrettes are in the oven as I decided to attach the metal clips with clay strips. The 2 part epoxy I had applied yesterday...they just snapped off when I pried them. Perhaps I wasn't totally accurate with the mixing of hardener and resin. As I mentioned before I have a hard time with 'measuring', lol.

 

  

 

Ancient World meets Future - Myriad Polymer Clay Pendants

While working on these polymer clay somethings, including some spirals (not shown), the first thought that came to mind was Archimedes. I was looking for a name for these pendants to be and had to ponder why that word would jump out like that.

Archimedes was a Greek astronomer, inventor, engineer, physicist, and mathematician.

The watch gears hint of steampunk, and yet the pendants don't look anywhere near Victorian which is a major criteria for something to fit into the Steampunk genre. I know that a lot of people stick some gears and bolts in some clay and call it Steampunk, however, true Steampunk does not contain an iota of plastics, only metal, glass, leather or the kinds of things that were around in the Victorian Era. And frankly, polymer clay or PVC was not invented until 1933 in Germany by Semon B.F. Goodrich. Check out this interesting time-line of polymers.

So what do I call my pieces that are more inspired by 'Ancient World meets Future' along with gears, nuts and bolts, resin, inks of the now...I was trying to guess how many pendants I have created since I started claying, beading etc and a wild guess would be in the thousands. 10,000 is a Myriad in Greek...A Myriad of Polymer Clay Pendants, or just a few.
Stay tuned...I'll be blogging about a wonderful new component resin.

Ancient? Vintage? Modern?

Really had fun with rings today. Creating these big Polymer Clay rings made me think of old as well as modern. While something can't be called Ancient unless its hundreds of years old, and Vintage needs to be at least 30 years old, then these rings have at least an ancient and vintage flair about them.

I made some polymer clay resin cabochons, used some milifiori and some glass...

I have some of the commercial glue on re-sizable rings, but didn't like their look, so made re-sizable shanks with wire inserts. I know that in the photo it looks like just a ring being held in place with a clay strip, but the shanks actually have prongs that are embedded solidly within the clay. The rings are then baked and after cooling I apply further embellishment on the back, so the wire inserts aren't visible. One size fits all. 

What do you think?

Purple Polymer Clay Jewelry

Am in a mood for purple. These earrings and necklace are made from black Polymer Clay with Jones Tones foil and resin. I used some of the fishing lure spoons for the oval earrings and some other metal backs for the others.
I have put 3 sizes of the fishing lure bezels up on my Artfire.
I made these with the large size...
These are made with some other bezels I have. I may put a few of those up tomorrow.


This purple starfish is my favorite. Already sold 2 of these. These pictures don't do it justice because it has 3 dimensional depth that can't be shown with a 1 dimensional photo.