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/