Polymer Team Pride--Living in a university town can be inspiring!

I have been meaning to explore polymer cane work using a team spirit theme for quite awhile now.  I knew it might not be simple, since anything one tries for the first time seldom is.  My idea was to use extruded polymer strips to craft a simple NCSU letter cane.  In order to make it work, I had to analyze the entire logo and calculate just how many thin flat strips and thin round snakes it would take and in what combination to make the design approximate the slick version of the university logo,

I started by searching the internet for free dowloadable software that would convert a photo to a cross-stitch graph, because this seemed like a good way to replicate a colored graphic representation.  After I got the graph and reduced it to a size I could use, I decided to also print out a copy of the original logo--also the same size as the original cane I planned to construct.  This was useful because I couldn't really get the detail I wanted with the cross stitch graph unless I wanted to work on an extremely large scale.  The photo worked well, because I could craft a three dimensional cane shape component and then match the edges to the photo to check for size and shape.  It was also helpful that the big "S" shape is fairly symmetrical and I was able to use my strategy for making different parts of the "S" more than once, which saved time.  The most difficult part was the small "N" and "C" and how they fit into the top and bottom of the "S".  Once the entire "S" with embellishments was constructed, it was time to reduce the cane.  I used Sandra McCaw's technique for standing the cane on end and pushing in on the sides from bottom to top, which helped cut down on the amount of distorted cane.  I also used the technique of stroking the cane and pulling and stretching and twisting the cane as shown in Sarah Shriver's and Jana Roberts Benzon's dvd's. 

Having already done some work with constructing intricate canes and reducing them with the fine tutorials produced by these three polymer clay artists definitely helped me to develop strategies for constructing this logo cane and I thank them all.  I would probably never have attempted this design adventure had I not studied the wonderful techniques taught by these artists beforehand.  Sarah Shriver's advice on analyzing a graphic design and breaking it down into its component parts was especially helpful.  Jana Roberts Benzon's techniques for altering a graphic design were useful when my logo got a little distorted.  I wasn't afraid to wedge in corrective bits of color to even out the graphics. 

Once the cane was constructed and I had reduced cane sections to different sizes it was time to come up with some finished product.  Even with all the care I took with the cane reduction, I still ended up with some distortion at the ends, so I used the distorted parts to make natasha beads.  I took slices off one of the natash beads and rolled them through the pasta machine to make a skin for coverin a gift tin.  Then I took a second natasha bead, rolled it into a teardrop and then cut it open to make a heart shape and then sliced the top layer from the heart to use as a veneer design on top of the gift tin opposite the "S" logo.

Next I made some Natasha bead hearts with some of the leftover cane scraps and some additional black clay and then once they were constructed, I added thin slices of the "S" logo to both sides.  That way, no matter how they are worn, the logo is present.  The front of the Natasha bead hearts is always quite intricate because you get that mirror image rorschach effect from slicing open the teardrop.  The back of the heart has to be smoothed together, and since I was using a mixture of translucent and solid color premo for each color, the smoothing resulted in an accidental glass like effect with a lot of transparency and depth. 
The best thing about this project was the way I was able to pull together what I had learned from three different tutorials and my previous explorations with Natasha bead hearts and roll all of that experience into a new idea.

Personalized Coasters--A different direction for image transfer on polymer

If you love to take photos, this idea has endless possibilities for creating one of a kind coasters, bowls, or even wine skirts for yourself, as gifts or to sell.  I am writing about my first experiment with this idea, which turned out very successfully, and has inspired me to try more of the same type of creative venture in the near future.

 

I needed a gift for a dear family member's birthday.  He is a professional musician, so I wanted to make something special for him with a musical theme.  Several years ago we visited Cleveland, Ohio and while we were there we got to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and we went scavenger hunting in order to see and photograph all of the wonderful guitar creations for the United Way's Guitarmania.  Much like the Red Wolf Ramble here in Raleigh, NC, Cleveland's artists came up with many different artistic interpretations of guitars which were then auctioned off to raise money for charity.  I decided that our family musician needed some coasters with collages of the Hall of Fame and these guitars.

The first step was to experiment a little with my photos of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and arrive at a good size and resolution for making coasters.  Once that was done, I had to measure the size that the cropped photos of the guitars needed to be.  Once the guitar photos were sized and cropped, I used Microsoft Word and inserted the cropped guitar photos into a Word document.  Doing this, I was able to right click on the inserted photos and get them all exactly the same size.  Then I printed the Word document and cut out the guitars.  I used plain paper for these pictures, because my intent was to make several collages and then scan them and then print them out on Water Slide Transfer paper.  I used Papilio.  I did have one false start, because I forgot that I needed to reverse the images, since the Water Slides go face down on the clay and otherwise I would have the Hall of Fame backwards on the finished product.

I mixed up a batch of half and half Premo translucent and Premo pearl clay and ran it through the pasta machine on the thickest setting.  Then I took some silver leaf and mixed it into a batch of black Premo mixed with an equal amount of translucent.  I like mixing in the translucent because it seems to improve the texture of the clay.  I used the black Premo with the silver sparkles for the bottom layer of the coasters and the white layer for the top.  After transferring the images to the coasters, I added a thin layer of liquid Sculpey to protect the images and baked the coasters for about 25 minutes.  I decided to add a second layer of liquid Sculpey just for safety sake, because after all, wet glasses would be sitting on the art work and a second layer of protection seemed like a really good idea.

This was a fun and fairly easy project, and I plan to make some wine skirts and other home decorations using the same idea with other photos from my travels.  Waterfalls of North Carolina might make a nice set.  Landmarks of Raleigh, the state capital might be another one.  There are just so many possibilities!  Thank Heaven for digital photography!

How to Make a Very Personalized Banner for Your Vendor Tent

Before you know it, Saturday will be here and I will be vending my jewelry creations at a festival.  I wanted a new banner that celebrates some of my newest creations to help invite people into my booth.  I could have designed it on the computer and sent it to a sign shop to be printed, but there really wasn't enough time, and I thought I would like it better if I made it myself.

I wanted a fairly big sign and I wanted it to be cloth because of weight concerns, but how to make it?  I went to Michael's and looked at their artist canvas but you can only buy the unstretched canvas in a big roll and I might never use the rest of it.  Then I thought about stretched canvasses, and I even looked at foam core board and gesso board.  Then I decided to think outside of the box and I went next door to the Ross Store and looked in the table dressing section where I found just the thing!  A table runner with a cotton lining!  Why is this perfect, you may ask? 

While I was at Michael's I also looked at lettering.  Since I was in kind of a hurry, I decided that stencils were out and I should really look at adhesive backed lettering.  I had found the perfect thing for fabric--iron-on letters in a three inch height.  But to use them I would have to have fabric that would hold up to a fairly hot iron temperature.  This cotton lining, which became the face of my banner, was the perfect fit.  And the velvet tapestry front, which would become the back, was dressy enough for me to want to turn over the points on either end to further embellish the banner.  Also luckily for me, it was Tuesday and buyers of a certain age get a discount on Tuesday at Ross!

So back to Michael's to pick up the letteres and home to see what I could find on the computer to complete the banner design.  I had some tee shirt transfers for dark fabric which would make it easy to add my art work to the banner.  One of my old banners had a beautiful blue fairy that came from royalty free clip art and I thought about using her again because she has a very nice magic wand with which to bless all the jewelry! 

The next step was to select photos of my jewelry that were compatible with the burgundy colored banner and the black lettering.  I decided on my silvery Green Man pendant and the Venus in the Garden pendant since the colors were similar and since they depict nature deities, they are fitting for the tone of the festival. 

I printed out the photos and cut them out.  It took several printings to get the size I wanted before I was ready to use the tee shirt transfers.  In the process, I decided against the blue fairy and instead selected the new Green and Silver on Copper with Lapis and Quartz Points Magic Wand to complete the tableau.  My photo editing software has a function that adds fireworks to a photo and one of these had just the perfect amount of sparkle for a magic wand!

Next came the measuring!  The banner was seventy-two inches wide and eleven inches deep, so I measured off the area that I planned to embellish, and decided on a margin for the top of the lettering.  Using a yellow colored pencil, I marked off all the lines and starting and ending points for the lettering and drew around the photos of artwork so that when I began to iron, there would be no questions as to placement.  I ironed on the letters first, because they required the wool setting whereas the tee shirt transfers required the cotton setting of the iron.  I followed the instructions that came with both products and everything woked out perfectly. 

After it was all completed, I felt that the banner needed a little something more to make it stand out.  The black letters against the burgundy background were pretty but needed some contrast, so I edged them in silver leaf pen.  I decided to use the same treatment for the jewelry pieces.  The silver leafing added just the right amount of contrast so that the banner was instantly more readable.

Now for the hangers!  I went to Jo Ann Store to look for grommets so that the banner could be tied to the tent, but while I was there, I went back to the drapery department and found a solution that I liked even better.  There were metal rings with clips attached. It occurred to me that I could attach two of these rings together so that one end clipped to the banner and the other end clipped to the tent roof and it would be non-invasive, meaning I didn't have to cut any holes in the banner, and the left over rings could be attached to the bottom of the banner as weights.  Having worked with fabric art in the past, I had already learned the importance of weights when your design is going to be swinging in the breeze!   I got two sets of ten rings, added some very large multi-colored aluminum rings from the bead department for connectors, and returned home to put them together.  I used 7 sets of two rings and clips with the multicolored rings as connectors across the top, which left six rings to hang from the bottom as weights.

This banner did not come cheap!  The adhesive letters and the metal rings were $35, the table runner was about $6, and the metal rings cost $3 and the tee shirt transfer was probably $5, so all in all, I spent $49, but I got exactly the banner I wanted, very personalized and with no worries it being ready in time for the show. 

The Green Man Cometh!

If I met one of these Green Men walking out of the woods some day, I am not sure exactly how I would react!  I love the image and one of the best surprises I ever got was the Ent man who was dressed as a real walking tree, towering over the rest of us at the 2005 Charlotte Renaissance Faire.  The Green Man is an ancient image, appearing in artifacts around the globe from India, Iraq, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Egypt, Tibet, Mexico, the British Isles, Germany, Iceland, and even in some of the ceramic tile work on one of the upper floors at the United States Capitol building!  Naturally, he doesn't look identical in all of these incarnations, but it is interesting to see that this concept developed independently in so many cultures in across time, mostly before there was a lot of intermingling of many of these groups.  He is a popular architectural image, appearing in churches from the 11th through the 20th century, as well as medieval manuscripts and stained glass, 19th century religious and secular buildings on both sides of the Atlantic in both the Gothic revival and Arts and Crafts styles, as well as neo-gothic architecture. The Green Man has been compared to many deities in many cultures, and I believe that J. R. R. Tolkien probably derived his Ents  in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (ancient magical tree men) from the Green Man.  I had to include some green men in my new fall product line, since it gives me the perfect opportunity to explore various leaf sculptures in fall colors and because I just happen to really like the image!  All of my Green Men are either pendants or brooches and they are suitable for gifts for men or women.  So turn over a new leaf and get a Green Man! 
These Green Men are made with a variety of surface treatments, including metallic foils, alcohol inks, mica powders, and embossing powders.  I am making them in a lot of different colors to mimic the changing leaves of Autumn.  I can see why the Green Man has been such a hit over the centuries.  He has certainly found a place in my heart.

Piano Hinges and Magic Mirrors

If you have ever heard of a piano hinge, you may be wondering what it has to do with magic mirrors!  It is hard to imagine a mirror with a hinge, and indeed, I am not making hinged mirrors!  However, I am making lockets with magic mirrors inside, the better to focus your inner seeing with! 

Have you ever tried to look into a crystal ball?  My first experience with this was at the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian with a huge (bigger than a basketball) quartz crystal ball that they have on display there.  Reflective round surfaces definitely have a way of drawing you into the picture and are a great way to learn to see into your mind's eye, which is what scrying with a crystal ball or other device is all about.  There is another tool for practicing this skill that gets mentioned a lot in literature about developing your esp, and that is a magic mirror.  You can make a magic mirror out of any piece of curved (convex and concave) glass.  The instructions are to paint the outside or convex surface with black paint and then you have a curved concave reflective surface to practice your inner seeing. 

I decided to make some of these magic mirrors for my fall festival product line and learned a lot in the process.  I wanted the mirrors to be small enough to wear--pendant size.  Luckily for me, I had some vintage watch crystals that I had gotten previously for a steampunk project that were just the perfect size and shape.  I wanted to put the magic mirror in a type of locket, since most reverences I could find recommend that the owner of the mirror keep it covered when not in use.  Jacqueline Gilkow's book  Polymer Clay Creating Functional and Decorative Objects was a great help to me.  I made my first piano hinge and it worked!  A piano hinge is a three part hinge with the two outer pieces attached to one surface and the center piece of the hinge attached to the opposite surface.  Doors have hinges like this.  I made the hinge separately from the locket and then used Sculpey Studio Clay adhesive and more raw clay to attach the hinge to the box and smooth it into the processed clay for a seamless look.  I baked the magic mirror into the box.  Since you are working at a temperature of 275, the glass is perfectly safe (although I wouldn't try plunging the piece into ice water when it is done) as long as you let it cool naturally.

People seem to like these lockets.  I already have an order for one from one of the activity directors at a state museum.  He works with the Renaissance Faire and says they will be a big hit there!

If you decide to try your hand at scrying (looking into the magic mirror) remember not to strain your eyes.  You are trying to look within your minds eye and the reflective images or clouds you may see in the mirror are just a tool for getting in touch with that part of your mind.  It is easier if you relax and just see what happens.

What's in a Wish Box?

Wish boxes come from the idea that if you write down your hopes and dreams, it helps to crystalize those thoughts and help bring your wish to fruition.  Most old fairy tales with magical entities who give wishes as a reward limit the number of wishes to three.  Darby O'Gill gets three wishes from the Leprechaun King in the Disney movie.  So it is with the wish box.  You write down three wishes on slips of paper and fold each slip of paper around a bay laurel leaf and put them all in the box until one of the wishes comes true.  You then replace that wish with another, and on it goes.

I ran across the wish box in an article about magical handmade gifts, and decided to give it a try.  These wish boxes are small gift tins covered in polymer with many surface embellishments, including bas relief sculptures, rough gemstones, foils, image transfers, mica powders, and alcohol inks.  They all have nice, tight fitting lids to keep the magic in. 

Amethyst Agate Choker--My Latest Foray into Faux Effects

The Amethyst Agate Choker came about as a result of my explorations with faux effects in polymer clay.  This is not a completely new area of interest since I had worked with faux agate flower canes last month and had used the very similar chrysanthemum cane several months ago to cover a bracelet.  However, this is a new level of focus, because my aim was to approach a different level of realism and imitation with the purple agates. 

I found several different recipes for faux agates, both in my own library and on the internet and finally decided that I wanted to do the geode shape rather than the banded look and I combined a recipe by Jenny Cox from Polymer Clay Central where she grated three different colors of clay to make the centers and the recipes from Sue Heaser in two of her books, Polymer Clay Techniques and The Encyclopedia of Polymer Clay Techniques, to make my agate cane.  After slicing the canes, I arranged them next to each other and rolled them through the pasta machine to get a sheet of slices.  This is part of the reason why the cane slices are different shapes and sizes--my slices were random thicknesses, so they didn't all flatten out in the same shape.  I then cut the sheet apart to get the new uniformly thick agate slices and played around with them until I found a pleasing arrangement. 

Next came the tricky part.  I had to decide how to fasten the components together and how I wanted the finished product to be shaped so that I could pre-drill the holes in the raw clay which is much easier than trying to drill holes in cured clay.  I knew I wanted to fasten the pieces together sideways with purple aluminum jump rings and I knew I wanted a silver chain across the top.  I decided that I wanted some kind of design element along the bottom edges of the agate slices, so another hole was added there.

Once the pieces were cured, sanded and buffed, I re-arranged them again until I found just the right presentation and added the findings.  The Swarovski crystals were a happy accident.  I had thought about small bicones but had to go to the jewelry supply store because I ran out of purple jump rings and they had these really nice sized dark purple and lavender aurora borealis crystals that looked perfect with the "agate" colors.  The best part was my encounter with the two cashiers before leaving.  They wanted to know all about the necklace construction and we had a great time comparing notes about the pleasures of jewelry creation.  They told me that the necklace looked like little geodes and really made my day!

New Necklace and Earrings Featuring Faux Agate Flower Canes and Swinging Rings!

The necklace and earrings pictured above grew out of my desire to step out of my comfort zone in order to offer jewelry in a wider array of colors.  Purple and Turquoise are my favorites, so it is easy for me to create in those colors.  They can't be everyone's favorites, and since I do want to make jewelry that other people will want to wear, it is necessary to branch out and give equal time to other colors.  The jewelry set above does have quite a bit of lavender in it, and this really came about by accident late in the creative process.  I started out with yellow clay.  I decided to do a jelly roll (a cane with striped alternating colors spiralling from the center outward) in yellow and lavender.  I was very unsatisfied with the color effects, because the lavender tended toward gray and the yellow didn't look bright at all.  I decided the only thing to do was to change the focus to some brighter colors.  I selected bright green and maroon.  I rolled the nondescript spiral jellyrolls into flat sheets, added flat sheets of green and maroon, started a new jelly roll and then decided to use the same technique as a chrysanthemum cane where you use a credit card to make indentations through most of the layers of clay to make flower petals (or agate undulations).  I was happy with the end result of this cane.  There was leftover yellow and "gray" clay, so the base beads came from that and then were covered with slices from the "agate flower" cane.  I made three big rectangular beads, two smaller rectantular beads, and six round beads with the millefiori "agate flower" cane.  The green and maroon made it possible to add some very interesting accent beads to enhance and call attention to them.  I added gold seed beads just to play on the yellow and add sparkle, red swarovskis to call attention to the maroon flower layers, bright green translucent beads to bring out the green agate layers and put them all together in an alternating pattern. Once I got started with the necklace design, I felt that it needed an added element to really make the colors and shapes "pop."  Somehow, the idea of sliding green jump rings sprang to mind.  I had some lovely aluminum pale green jump rings that seemed to go with all of the colors harmoniously, so in they went.  This worked out well, because the green beads had a big enough diameter to limit the range of movement of the green metal rings.  I liked the design so much that I just had to make earrings to match.   The idea of kinetic jewelry is very appealing to me these days and I plan to explore many avenues with this theme.  After all, it is fun to play and fidget with your jewelry!.

Beading on Vacation--Who Could Resist!

Polymer clay isn't the easiest thing to take on an extended vacation to the high desert.  Since it truly is my passion at this point in my life, I didn't think I could be away from it for so long, so I have been baking up beads especially for the trip.  First I watched Sarah Shriver's dvd tutorial on kaleidoscope canes again and made up a new kaleidoscope cane. 

Next, I made a bib pendant and two earring pendants. 

Next I made up a set of beads with collaged pieces of the canes all over them.  Next, I experimented with leftover scraps of skinner blends and my clay gun and came up with a surprise effect that resembles niobium in some ways due to the pearl and gold clay that I used in my clay mixes. 

The marbleized "faux niobium" became the backing for the bib pendant, the border for the earring pendants, and the skin for an entire set of beads.  

 I decided to take the leftover clay from both of the first two sets of beads and make a mokume gane slab and then cover some beads with that.  I added sliver leaf to a scrap sheet of translucent clay and made a multi-layer sandwich with the translucent and the mixed color cane clay.  I took more pieces of scrap clay, including some bullseye cane ends and inserted them into the mokume gane slab.  The slices from this slab became the third set of beads. 

The final beads came from the scraps of the mokume gane slab.  I made jelly roll canes with these rolled out into a slab and then sandwiched with some of the marbleized gold clay.  I made butterfly wings and bodies from the jelly roll canes and sliced them to make pendants and earring dangles.  They are pictured above with the bib pendant.

I can't wait to see how these beads look in whatever design creates itself around them.  I am sure that the process will be a fascinating and fun part of my vacation! 

It's Time To Vote--You Know You Want To!

PCAGOE May Challenge Entries
Originally uploaded by DivaDesigns1

Voting is now open for the May Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy Challenge. You can vote for your top three favorites and be automatically entered to win a prize. Real people win these prizes every time, and just for voting. You owe it to yourself to get entered in the drawing for the fabulous prizes donated by the team members of the PCAGOE, and there is just one way to do that. You have to go to http://pcagoe.com/ and vote! Do it today!

My entry is #14--The Popular Toys from the 20th Century!  You will love the variety of entries for the challenge, many of them quite beautiful and thought-provoking and some of them funny, and all of them amazingly creative and unique interpretations of the "History" theme of this month's challenge. 

So go to the PCAGOE website, vote for your three favorites and enjoy the amazing artistic talents of the artists featured in the challenge.  You may just win a prize!

Don't Forget--Vote in the PCAGOE May Challenge for a Chance to Win!

PCAGOE May Challenge Prize Pool
Originally uploaded by DivaDesigns1

Voting for the May PCAGOE Challenge begins May 1 and runs through May 7. You get to vote for your favorite three entries. This month's theme is "History" and there is a wide range of interpretations on the theme. The entries range from beautiful to hilarious and I am sure you will enjoy them all.

So surf on over to pcagoe.com on May 1 and vote and get yourself entered to win. Real people do win these prizes. Mia Austin-Scoggins, one of my very best friends and one of my Facebook fans did win a prize last month. All you have to do is vote!

Popular Toys of the 20th Century--My Entry in the May PCAGOE Challenge--Remember to Vote May 1-7

As soon as the PCAGOE Challenge Pool Photo for May is posted, I will blog about it here with all of the fabulous entries.  I decided to have fun with the theme which was "History", so I picked Popular Toys of the 20th Century as my theme and included Lincoln Logs, Crayons, Mr. Potato Head, Raggedy Ann, the Teddy Bear and the Slinky.  I can see why people get addicted to making miniatures.  It is fun but very challenging to make things on such a small scale--harder to perfect the details, but certainly fun and Worth the effort.  I think some of these toys do have possibilities down the road as earring charms.  They do have armatures so sturdiness shouldn't be a problem.  I wonder, how many people would wear Mr. Potato Head on their ears?  I can foresee that you might have to convince little children that this one wasn't meant to be taken apart!  I learned a lot from researching these toys.  Binney and Smith were the creators of the Crayola Crayons, which came out in 1903.  Somehow in my mind, I never thought about crayons having to be invented.  I just assumed they had always existed.  And Lincoln Logs were invented by the son of Frank Lloyd Wright!  The "Lincoln" in the name not only refers to Abraham Lincoln but also to Frank Lloyd Wright's original middle name, which was Lincoln.  Mr. Potato Head originally only included the body parts and you were supposed to put them on a real potato.  Slinky has been around since 1945 even though I never saw it until the 1960's.  There were certainly stuffed bears before the Teddy Bear, but the Teddy Bear was named after President Theodore Roosevelt after a hunting trip where the only bear they could find was a sick bear and the President refused to shoot it, which started a whole round of cartoons about the President and the bear.  The Teddy Bear was named after President Roosevelt not long after these events.  Raggedy Ann was invented by an American writer for his daughter, who later died from complications from a smallpox vaccination and the doll then became a symbol of the anti-vaccination movement of those times.  It is just amazing to learn all of these little known facts about the history of toys!

Happy Mother's Day Sales with the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy

To celebrate the Mother’s in your life, several members of the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy are having promotions in their respective stores. Listed below are the stores participating in this year’s promotion.

VixenJewels  11BoldStreet  CreativeArtCenter NKDesigns  PolymerClayCreations CraftsbyCAG  ClayCenter  RenGalSA YoungCreative  ClayHappy

 and of course, BlessedBeadJewelry

Several of these stores are offering between 15 to 20 percent off and some are even offering free shipping. Please visit each store to see the wonderful selections of gifts for the favorite woman in your life. What Mother doesn’t deserve a unique, handmade treasure?

Earwire Ecstasy!

An experienced jewelry artist recently told me that she sells more earrings than any other jewelry item because most women can never have too many earrings!  I am naturally very curious and willing to try new things, so her comment inspired me to try my hand at learning to make my own earwires and other earring designs with glass beads, gemstones and polymer clay.  Some of the designs were inspired by the book 101 Wire Earrings by Denise Peck.  Denise gives very good and easy to follow instructions for making french wires, rectangular ear hoops, circular hoops, and other enticing designs.  I bought the book because I could tell by looking through it that the designs were varied and the instructions were easy to follow and I believed that I could use a lot of the designs as a jumping off point to make designs that were uniquely mine. 

As you can see, once I overcame my inertia about learning new techniques--I had the wire, I had the book, I was afraid to cut the wire!--I jumped in with both feet!  Denise has made sure that her readers can have success with the techniques she teaches.  I was happy right away with the results I was getting and the more I experimented, the more fun I had.  The square earrings are her design--she used smaller beads.  The hoops are her design but again she used smaller beads.  The rotating hoops are my design and so are the quilt squares and the looped pearls.  The dancing moons are Denise's design but I changed it from having the two wires loop around each other to having them splayed out to perform a balancing act because this solved an artistic design problem that I had been thinking about for several months and now it is solved. 

The whirling rotating hoops are the answer to another design which I have been contemplating logistics wise for quite awhile.  I thought it would be possible to do rotating rings but wasn't quite sure how to make it happen.  I had learned how to make fairly even shaped polymer clay snakes from Nan Roche's chain maille tutorial and thought it might be possible to make hoops from them as long as they weren't too thin or delicate.  Interestingly enough, these hoops came out slightly flexible, which I didn't expect since I didn't add any translucent clay to the mix this time.  Once the first hoop was made (I rolled it on a soda can to get the size right), it was easy enough to make the inner concentric hoops, allowing some space in between each one.  I baked the hoops on the jump rings on parchment paper for 30 minutes.  The flexibility helped and I believe will add to the stability of the piece.  The looped pearls are made with more of the same clay but this time, I wound the snakes around a jump ring mandrel, ending with a loop at the top.  When they were baked, I separated the rings of the spirals and then the idea of stringing the pearls on wire and looping the clay around the pearls just presented itself to me so I strung the pearls on some sterling wire and very carefully wound the cured clay around the pearls.  Next it occurred to me that this would look even better as a hoop so I slowly brought the ends together and connected the two wire loops at the two ends to a french wire.  What a nice surprise!  Of course, the patchwork dangle earrings were my idea matched with the canes I made after my first go at Sandra McCaw's tutorial, mixed with a little chain maille in purple and turquoise to match the clay colors.

Now I need to make some more beads so that the journey may continue!  This wire work is so much fun and so compatible with the polymer clay, who knows where it will lead?  I am sure that it will be somewhere fun and fabulous!

WATCH FOR THE MOTHER'S DAY PROMO COMING SOON!

Shop handmade for Mom between now and May 1 and receive a discount from participating members of the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy. 

Blessed Bead Jewelry is offering 15% off every item from April 19 through May 1, 2010 and free shipping on all orders of $50 or more!  This is how it works!  Click on the items you want to buy and put them in your shopping cart. Start the checkout process.  In the "notes to seller" put the email address where you want the revised invoice to come.  Complete the order but don't go to Paypal to pay.  You will receive via email a revised invoice and a link to complete payment reflecting the discount.

HAPPY SHOPPING AND HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

I will post a complete list of the Guild Members offering a Mother's Day discount later this week as soon as I get the information with links to their shops.

In Search of a Pleasing Tin Design, Signature Canes, and Sanding Blocks from the Beauty Supply!

Decorator tins can be so magical!  Who knows what you will find inside?  My journey with covered tins began several years ago at Christmas time when I needed a special gift box for a necklace I had designed for my mother.  That tin was a covered Jolt mints box with a vertical orientation with a lid on the upper end.  I used black and white canes in a random juxtaposition and voila! a one of a kind jewelry box was born.   Last fall I revisited the covered tins in an effort to create something different and wonderful as small gifts for some friends with whom I had reconnected.  I decided to keep the tins because it became apparent that I needed to work on my covering technique in order to keep the hinges intact.  I had forgotten about tins after that until the June PCAGOE challenge came up.  My first idea for an entry is illustrated in my April 8 blog about the McCaw Cane technique and my first results from studying the tutorial.  The more I looked at that tin, the more I thought that I needed to cover some more tins!  The photos above show my results!  I still wanted to use the McCaw Cane, but this time I decided to work on a variation of pattern, line and texture to work those cane slices into part of a greater theme. 

I started on the top of the tin and decided to make some canes out of extruded snakes in colors matching the McCaw canes.  I used the darkest turquoise and the darkest purple and then I mixed some of the purple and some of the turquoise in the extruder to come out with a lavender that bridged those two colors.  After extruding the snakes, I bundled some of them together and began slicing from the ends of the bundles.  This resulted in a variation of pointilism and even had a kind of batik like effect after I shaved off the top layer.  These variegated cane slices were arranged around the sides of the McCaw Canes and the entire assembly was placed on a layer of purple premo for stability and to assure that any negative spaces would not reveal the tin beneath.  In order to add a little linear interest, I used a dark purple and a turquoise snake much the same as textile designers use cording to border this area of the tin top.  Next I decided to make some S-shaped spirals with the turquoise and purple mixed extrusions and I used small sections of the sliced bundles to border these so that they could be added to either side of the central panel.  Once this part was complete, I smoothed it onto the top of the tin.  I then used my rigid blade to shave off very thin layers of the top design, which had the added effect of exposing the multiple marbled strands of the mixed turquoise and purple extrusions and adding another layer of interest to the spirals.

I owe the idea for the upper sides of the tin to a fellow PCAGOE member.  Several months ago I had made a Mardi Gras themed bangle using some twisted extrusions in gold, green and purple.  She had encouraged me to use them on a tin.  I thought about that suggestion when designing the sides for the top of the tin.  I took three snakes, one of each color, and twisted them together, rolled them and twisted again in order to get some very tiny stripes.  These striped snakes were then laid side to side and sliced to make the strips with which to cover the upper sides of the tin.  I took great care to slice away the parts of the lower edge of this covering where the hinges were located so that the tin would be able to open properly.  I owe a thank you to all of the polymer clay artists who have provided free tutorials on tin construction because their guidance made this step so much easier.  I decided on another technique borrowed from textile and fiber crafts--braiding--to provide the final embellishment to the top of the tin and provide a pleasing transition between the top and side edges.   Later when I sanded the tin, the mixed color extrusions in the braid became even more interesting as their inner mixed colors were revealed by the sanding.

Now it was time to design the bottom of the tin.  Itook yet another slice of the McCaw Cane and surrounded it with the S-shaped spirals on the corners.  Next I packed in some more of the sliced variegated clay bundle ends and bordered the whole thing with a dark purple snake.  This entire assembly was then placed on a thin purple sheet of Premo which had been conditioned and run through the pasta machine on a #4 setting.  I decided to use one of the more complicated McCaw Canes as the outside border for the bottom piece.  Once all of these parts were assembled, I smoothed the entire design onto the bottom of the tin.  I decided to use multi colored spirals for the bottom sides and I bordered these with strips of the mixed purple and turquoise extrusions.  These, too, became much more interesting after the entire piece was baked and sanded.  

I had the entire design and then realized I needed a way to sign the piece.  Usually I use a stylus and just carve my initials and the date into the raw clay, but I wanted something a little more for this piece and had been wanting to try a simple signature cane anyway.  So I took some of the multicolored snakes and cut them about 1/2 inch long, started with two layers of these about 7-10 wide and shaped them into a J, then lined the entire thing in light turquoise, filling in all of the negative spaces and making a square cane with the J in the purple extrusions in the middle.  I used my cane reduction techniques to reduce the J, and then made an "E" and an "S", joined the three letter canes, reduced some more, and for the final signature for this piece, I bordered it in some more purple snake slices.  It is tiny, kind of hidden away in one of the corners of the bottom central panel, but you can read the letters and I am now encouraged to do this again.

I got to try out a new sanding technique on this tin.  I have been looking for sanding sponges in progressively finer grits and it occurred to me yesterday that the discount beauty supply might have just what I was looking for, because I know that nail salons are now using polymer clay canes in their designs.  Sure enough, there were sponges with 320, 460, 1000, and 4000 grits for nail art!  I was a little worried about not finding 600, 1500 and 2000 but figured I could always use my flat sheets of sandpaper for those parts if necessary.  So now I used the new sponges to sand the tin.  They worked very well and I didn't experience nearly as much finger fatigue or have ill effects the next day, so I think this is a step in the right direction.  The only problem I encountered was the sponge that had the different grit papers glued on instead of the entire sponge having the surface somehow applied.  The multi-grit sponge surface must not have been waterproof because it is now trying to come off.  So I will now need to look for the solid sponges in more grit varieties.  I am sure that they must be available somewhere online or I may go back to the beauty supply and see if they can order some for me.  What a find!  I had previously found a battery operated nail filing and buffing tool at the drugstore and used the brush attachment to buff my finished tin.  Between the 4000 grit sponge and the buffing brush, this tin is pretty shiny without any glaze.

Come Visit My Newest Treasury--Rites of Spring!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=125603It's that magical time again--time of new beginnings, new romance, renewed energy, sprouting seeds, possibilities!

I tried to include a little of all of these themes in this treasury featuring the creative artistry of the Pagans of Etsy Street Team.  I hope that you will visit their Etsy shops and check out their other fanciful and magickal offerings.  This was a fun treasury to put together because of the beautiful designs available celebrating spring!  If these treasures don't get you in the mood, I don't know what will! :-)

Latest Discovery on the Handmade Highway: Sheryl Westleigh of Noadi's Art

I found Sheryl on the Handmade Highway and really fell in love with her wonderful polymer clay sculpture jewelry which includes octopii, squid, baby turtles, cuttlefish, and even a kelpie!  Sheryl is inspired by her love of "fantasy, nature and cephalopods".  Sheryl has recently expanded her line of jewelry to include Steampunk pieces, and the Steampunk cephalopods are something to behold as you can see in the above photos!  Visit her blog at http://noadi.blogspot.com/ for some interesting and instructive videos on her jewelry construction techniques and some very nice articles on her creative process and life in general. Her jewelry is fun, imaginative, and always unique.  Sheryl doesn't take herself too seriously, either.  She recently celebrated her tongue in cheek victory at the Regretsy Awards with her sculpted rat!  You can read more about Sheryl on the Handmade Highway blog:  http://handmadetravels.blogspot.com/2009/09/features-artist-sheryl-westleigh-of.html and be sure to visit her Etsy Shop:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/noadi

Final Explorations with first McCaw Cane Endeavor--A Covered Tin and Earrings

I decided to make a quilt with some of the canes.  I reduced parts of the cane and combined canes into smaller components and then I started building a quilt layout pattern with repeating and alternating squares.  I looked at the quilt and decided to try covering a tin with quilt patterns.  This quilt would be on the top of the tin.  I had to make sure that there was enough overlap to cover the sides of the tin and I had to butt the corners together and cut off the excess clay.  I carefully sliced above the hinges as close to the edge as possible in a dual attempt to assure the mobility of the lid and at the same time, decorate as much of the tin as possible.  It worked out pretty well and it seemed to help to bend the lid back a liggle and clean out the clay that was trapped inside the hinges.

Next it was time to construct the bottom of the box.  I started a new quilt with a diamond shaped cane as the central design.  I used a border of marbleized clay scraps, then a panel of turquoise, and then a layer of purple interspersed with reduced and combined diamond canes like the central design but much smaller and kaleidoscoped.

Next, I decided that the new combined cane design would make some very fine earrings, so I cut two slices the smallest width on the Marxit tool and lined them in turquoise.  I really like the new intricate design and feel I am making progress.  I took a half slice of this cane to make a handle for the Mystery Box.  I am almost finished with these first canes and will have to construct new ones soon.  I have revisited the tutorial and hopefully have internalized more of the directions and hints and tips so that the next batch of canes should come out better and even more beautiful.

I love this technique because even when you are a beginner with it, you can obtain beautiful patterns and designs that are well worth keeping.It will be interesting to see what direction my journey with the McCaw cane technique will take on the second pass.  It is hard to guess at the inspiration awaiting after I combine the light and dark portions of the canes in the correct manner, unlike my first foray.  I am preparing to be dazzled.