Bead Soup Blog Party Partner: Jen VanBenschoten

Looks like I’m skipping Phase 3 of my Vases instead of adding the other components I had prepared. I decided I liked them better as they are with the bright faux abalone speaking for itself. Sometimes ‘less is more’.

About more! I’ll have some more beading to do!! About a week ago some gorgeous beads showed up in my mailbox all the way from New Jersey. My Bead Soup Blog Party partner this year is Jennifer VanBenschoten. Beaders should be familiar with the name because Jennifer is the Editor of  Interweave Press’ Beading Daily! ‘Beadwork’ and ‘Step by Step Wire Jewelry’ magazines are just a couple of fabulous hardcopies that Interweave publishes. I’ve had the pleasure of having a wire macrame tutorial published in a past issue of Step by Step Wire. I need to renew my subscription!

When I opened the package and read Jen’s note I had to giggle…yes I LOVE sparkle! Jen hit my taste spot-on. Jen sent me two bead soups. The colours are amazing and look at the dichroic cabochons!! The clasps are beautiful with colour reflecting vintage swarovski crystals.


I’ve already started on the purple set of beads, but can’t show you yet what I’m making, although I may post a sneak peak soon. Jen and I are in the 2nd reveal of the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party which takes place on April 6th. You can visit Lori Anderson’s blog to learn more about this annual Party which this year tops 500 participants from all over the Globe!

I sent Jen some of my handmade beads. Will be fun to see what she’ll create with these.

Vases–Phase 2

Here is the progress of my polymer clay covered glass vases. I used real beach glass for these as I want to use my handmade faux sea glass beads for future polymer clay beach pebble bracelets.
The vase on the right, just under the urchin rim has reflections, and the bottom half looks lighter than it really is, also due to light reflecting. Am pleased how shiny the faux abalone veneer is. The ‘spikes’ on the bottom of the taller vase are supposed to be sunflower starfish arms.The ones on left vase are octopus tentacles.














I could consider these vases finished, but will let them simmer a bit more. I have some boxes planned next.

Vases-Phase 1

I’ve been determined to make a few non-jewellery type of items this year. A few weeks ago I made covered some pens, if that counts, but I also used to make clocks, boxes and candle holders. I’ve had these glass vases for a while. The left measures just over 5 inches tall  and  the other one 6 1/2”.

I used the same mokume gane cane as for the Kaweco Pens. I had aimed for Abalone Shell and it’s ‘close’ but the colours just need a bit more tweaking. Although our West Coast Abalone is paler than New Zealand Abalone, my green is a tad bright and not quite teal enough. I sanded and buffed this first phase.

Close up…

Stay tuned for Phase 2…these aren’t done yet.

Sea or Beach Glass Tutorial is done!

UPDATE!

thanks for being patient.
Also, since I was asked...no...this tutorial doesn't use Pardo clay. Pardo clays are still a bit hard to find, but Fimo products aren't.

You can now find this on my ETSY and ARTFIRE. 

Sea or Beach Glass from Polymer Clay

Many of you have asked me last year when I’d be writing this tutorial on faux sea glass. You waited patiently and things tend to take me forever from concept to doing and I’m happy to say that I should have this ready within the next day or two!! I’ll try and do it sooner, lol.  I thought I’d announce it now since I’m not just thinking about it, but actually doing it.

Update: it's on my Etsy and ArtFire now...


You may remember the earrings I had made with this technique and the post of some of my experiments back in February of last year and here as well. The teardrops on the earrings are faux glass as well. Polymer Clay Daily had posted about my experiments also, which is why I received quite a few emails afterward asking, but I can’t find the post there now. Anyway, this is a shard like I will show to do in various colors.



The tutorial will focus on making faux beach glass shards that one can use in jewelry such as my earrings. I’ll be posting here to update when it’s ready…stay tuned

Polymer Clay Swaps–Hearts & Textures

This deadline for the mailing date for this swap has come and gone and happy to say I can finally blog about it since I’ve received the items from both my partners and they have both received mine. Yay!

The theme was Hearts and Textures, meaning that for the challenge we would create Polymer Clay Texture Plates (from polymer clay) and Hearts which we could stamp with the texture/s we created, but not necessary. Since I primarily work in jewellery I chose to make heart pendants.

Here are the ones I created for my partners, Bonnie Kreger in the USA and Leila Bidler in Italia. I have to say I am very lucky to have had these two ladies as my partners! They both spoiled me as you’ll see in a bit. The first set I sent to Bonnie. The bronze heart has a multi color stripe back with mica clays which I sanded and buffed. You can just barely make out my signature stamp on the side. The green blue heart has just about everything including a bit of crackle.

The second set I made for Leila. The blue heart has crackle and was silkscreened with one of my stencils and then has a layer of resin applied. The bronze hearts’ back, like Bonnies' has mica clays and was sanded and buffed.

Bonnie surprised me with something extra…a Shambala bracelet made with her handmade polymer clay beads that have the same cane as the Heart. Love the shimmer in the cane (darn photos can’t show that) . Of course the resin adds great shine and the pink & black go together like pie & ice cream…mmm. I think the keychain idea is so clever and I’ll never have hubby borrow my keys again!! hehe  Love the kumihimo work with the beads. Bonnie you have way more patience than I do! Bonnie made me laugh when she sent me a note saying the texture plate can be used to feed the birds, lol. I still think even if I don’t use it for texture, I can put it on a Journal as a cover!  

TADA!

Leila too spoiled me… with not 1, but 3 plates! 1 of them is a negative of the other. She made these laying one stripe at a time, baked, sanded to smooth the edges and then carved wiggly lines into them. Pretty nifty and am looking forward to using them. The heart is also sanded smooth and buffed. She left it so I could choose to add a pin, magnet or for stringing, but this might be a cool pocket ‘pet’. I like carrying things in my jacket pockets to play with. I tend to have my hands in my pockets when I walk or stand around. Leila also has a very neat signature stamp, but I forgot to take a photo.

If you are interested in joining our FB swap group, send me a comment or message with your email and I’ll let you know the details. Have a look at these blogs for more…

http://www.lbidler.com/apps/blog/

http://beadcomber.ca/ <<<<<You are here

http://www.fishwifery.blogspot.com

http://www.jainniejenkins.com

http://www.dakotahspolymerplace.blogspot.com

http://www.pepita-handmade.blogspot.com

http://katersacres.com/blog/

http://bleekreations.blogspot.com/

http://minacreations.mo-blog.jp/

http://gesmpccorner.blogspot.com

http://leggendesegrete.blogspot.it/

http://knighttwork.blogspot.com/

New Tutorial - Ammolite, Batik Veneers and more

Am happy to announce that my latest tutorial is finally finished. I know some of you have been waiting on this one for some time. Thanks for being so patient!

This one is packed…24 pages and almost 100 photos. I couldn’t decide on an appropriate ‘short’ title since this tutorial is so packed with techniques, tips and more.
If you're not familiar with Ammolite, it is one of the most wonderful gems, full of flash and fire and just about any color you can think of. It is the fossilized shell of the extinct sea creature Ammonite.
I've divided this tutorial into different sections. You will learn to make:
1. Crackle and Batik Pattern Veneers (a part of
the Batik & Shimmer technique)
2. "New Crackle" technique (one method)
3. Faux Ammolite
4. Uniform color or metallic edging for veneers
5. Faux Bone and Raku Pendants
6. Texturing front and back of pendants
7. 3 styles of polymer clay Bails
8. Bezels for embedding tiny stones or chips of
clay
9. Variations of veneers and pendants
10. Tips and much more.
The Tutorial can be found in my Etsy and Zibbet shops.

Kaweco Fantasie Pens for Polymer Clay Art

 

Childhood memories as a 5th grader in Germany…my cursive handwriting skills were never the prettiest and I would envy some of my classmates who accomplished neatly formed letters and would get complimented by the teachers. One of my teachers must have spoken to my father about my poor cursive skill because on my 10th birthday, or the start of 5th grade, I was presented with a beautiful sea-green fountain pen. My handwriting improved immensely with this new tool, perhaps because I felt more grown-up using a fountain pen. Doing homework didn’t seem such a chore when looking at a beautiful pen while doing so!

I was happy when Kaweco agreed to let me review them on my blog and even happier that they surprised me with both a ballpoint and a fountain pen! Beautiful craftsmanship…

 Kaweco is located in Nuremberg, Germany and is well-known for its exceptionally high quality writing instruments, so I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. The Company has a long history since it’s early beginnings in 1883. Before setting off to cover them (more on that in a bit), I just had to play and handle them on their own a bit…like a new toy, yes, you know it. I had to click the ballpoint pen a few times, to feel it’s strength, feel it’s nice weight and gave it a ‘go’. I’m not exaggerating when I say it is the smmmmoothest writing instrument I have ever felt touch paper. Like a perfectly weighted pendulum balanced between the fingers, it seems to write almost by itself. Just writing this, I had this image of Japanese Samurai and how particular they are about their swords. I handed the pen to my husband to try, he scribbled something and saw him smirk as the pen disappeared into his pocket! lol. He was teasing me when I objected, saying “ohhh…you want this back?!” lol. I know that I’ll never loan these to anyone, they’re guaranteed to disappear! These pens are like that, no ordinary pens, because as polymer clay artists will appreciate, we can cover and personalize them! Beautiful Chrome and raw brass.

The set comes with plenty of easy to follow photos and instructions in several languages.

Here you can see which parts can be cured in an oven and which cannot.

It took me a couple of weeks to ponder what I would want to cover these with, so finally created my own mokume gane stack in blues, purples and greens with hints of black, gold leaf and translucent. I find this resembles Abalone quite a bit and will hone that a bit more in the next while. I placed pieces of the mokume on a black sheet and rolled it out to a #4 on my Atlas. I used the measurements for cut-outs as per instructions, but found they needed to be adjusted in length just slightly.

I trimmed the pieces and flipped them over to lay the pen blanks on top.

I wrapped the pen blanks and used a soft rubber tip chisel to smooth  and close the seam. I have quite a few tips on how to get a smooth and flawless seam and finish that requires very little sanding afterward. I think I need to put that in a more complete tutorial at some point as I didn’t take any photos of that process.

Here is another tip though…instead of laying the tubes on card stock paper which will produce a slight flat spot on your piece…I use knitting needles (or skewers) and suspend the pen blanks on a tin form. I used the aluminum lid of a case that held little watch cases, but you could use aluminum pans meant for baking or perhaps use makeshift aluminum foil formed into a tray instead. For the pen blank that is closed on the end, I just wadded up some scrap clay as a support under the metal ends, so that the clay on the barrel itself doesn’t touch anything.

After curing and cooling, I covered the metal rims with some scotch tape and wet sanded with 400, 600 and 800 grit. Finally, a good polish on the buffer. I just can’t convey the super high gloss in these photos, but they are smooth as silk and sparkle like glass.

Aren’t they beautiful?? I love them! Btw…I also covered a ball point pen that is commonly used in wood turning. I’ll show you the mishap tomorrow…

Here are a few more examples to wet your appetites about Kaweco pens…

Kaweco’s website is language friendly and you can choose your language on the bottom of the page. Be sure to check their Calendar of events as they’ll also be at Exhibitions in the USA this year. If you too would like to purchase some Fantasie pens (or other pens) for your creativity, their prices are worth it. Contact Kaweco at: info@kaweco-pen.com

From my table…

Just finished 3 items…a UFO Pin and Flower Pin, both for hats but can be worn as brooches or necklaces as well. I have more of those on the way… And a ‘Card chair’ for a Hair Salon...

Heaps of Cabochons to sell

Funny how I think that I have never enough cabochons, pendants and even buttons for jewelry and I definitely do! What happens is that I’ll need a certain colour and shape and make a larger batch than needed for a project instead of scrapping the clay that has been inked, crackled, silkscreened. patterned etc.

This means I don’t use them all and they pile up! then I repeat the process because I want something different instead of looking through what I already have. Told myself that this year I will need to make some changes, but I’ve decided I should sell some of these to give myself a fresh start. I need to empty some of these tins and boxes. Most items are from 2010 to 2012, so not out-dated nor rejects. Here are more! (but not all, lol)

and there are already started projects as well as many cabochons clued on Lacy’s Stiff Stuff in preparation for beadwork. Perhaps I should offer some ‘kits’ and work up some tutorials for the mounted ones and perhaps from the first photo pile.

Here are a couple along with a recent necklace I finished…so kits with a tutorial might work…what do you think?