Got to Get You into My Life

Once upon a time, I was hanging out to see some music at the restaurant:venue where I was once employed. A 'regular' was there with one of his buddies, and he struck up polite conversation. He ended up ordering some handmade beads as a Christmas gift for his daughter. He asked for the equivalent of a certain dollar amount and that they could be loose beads, not made into a necklace, as his daughter would want to craft them into something on her own. So I made him these, with a large matching focal bead, we met again at the bar to exchange, and he gleefully accepted them and even emailed me a few days after Christmas to give me the daughter's reaction. (she loved them too!) yay for BEADS!
These are heavily spiralled and doused with silver leafing. I was VERY happy with these. I love when people like/love what they get even if they didn't know what to ask for...

Hello Goodbye

See how different the globe can look?! Unlit version is strikingly opposite of the lit version. This is two views of the same side of this candle. If you click the image to enlarge, you can see that this is so. This is not my favorite example of the difference between, but it is an example of the deeper layers only showing through the translucent when backlit. I was trying to achieve a latticed look; I partly succeeded...

Yer Blues

This bracelet was made specifically for Elisabeth, even though the blue beads themselves were crafted sometime ago. Definitely while living in the last apartment. So at LEAST 5 years old. Some are striped, some are millefiori, and some are the scraps of both all mashed up. The red ones are ceramic or some other type of glazed clay. Love the COLOR!!! It was promised as part of a Facebook, pay-it-forward type thing. And I fittingly was able to give it to her on the day after her birthday AT an Old 97's show. She said they were her favorite colors together and that she'd wear it all the time. That's all I would ever want to hear!

Come Together

These are the makings of the bridesmaid's bracelets I did for L's wedding. I custom matched them to our dress colors. We all wore the same dress in different shades, and the copper was our shoe color. We looked like sherbet, and for a June wedding, how could we go wrong?

For No One

I really like this one; (I am pretty sure it's a keeper) it's an amalgam of the grid colors, and then, having run out, used the leftover scrap to make up the difference. Thankfully the scrap was not over mixed or marbled up and still had plenty of translucence. This is one of the few that looks mostly the same, whether lit or not. The nice thing was that there was JUST enough of the scrap to make it symmetrical. The scrap pattern runs along the bottom, although its very hard to see in these photos.

Within You, Without You (Reprise)

So I had to make another box for my friend, the old green one had finally met its functional end.
RIP green one

The new one was requested in orange and black. He has yet to receive it, but here it is for everyone else.






And I carved out a little logo-ness, because I have yet to construct the cane that might contain it. But its backfilled for maximum contrast. And its soooooooo cute ;)





here are some others that materialized later that same week !!

Good Day Sunshine

I need to get back to doing more like this. I've been working a lot with the translucent for its own purposes. But now I see that I need to up the translucence on pure colors. These seem way more striking than the last batch. I need to bring back the mega color. Spectrum baby. Yes, this is what must happen. The patchwork in the front candle was constructed solely for the use on a candle. All colors but black had been compounded with translucent for maximum glow power. IMHO, this is a roaring success.

The Long and Winding Road

So. this poor blog has been on a slight hiatus. My paternal granny passed and with that, a flurry of activity both related and unrelated to family occurred to pass the time. Then I caught a nasty cold. THEN for a few days around St. Pat's I was OK, but then the next day, felled by some stomach bug. Boooooo. So now, as I mend, I offer a shot of a tiny gift box found at Granny's house. Its a basic cardboard craft box with lid. covered in clay and embellished with tiny mirrors. Interior bottom is lined in a glittery black felt. And the exterior bottom is lined in a plain black felt. Entire size is a 1 3/4" square by 1 inch high. Piece is at least 4 -5 years old. I barely remember making it, it was one of about 5? that were crafted in a similar style. I'll definitely get back to production on a similar type. There are octagons, ovals, and in wooden, hinged styles? Many more types! I'm glad I found this on the shelf. God knows if it would have been saved!

The Inner Light

Once upon a time, a very lovely girl asked me to take part in her upcoming wedding by way of crafting the centerpieces for the dinner tables. She was inspired in part by the Chihuly glass in Las Vegas and my own fave candle. With the theme of the wedding being 'Chicago'...



I was then immediately inspired to knock out this thumbnail in Paint. I wanted to know what she thought. And we were 'go' for this project. The final shape would be a cylinder.

This is the fabric sample I worked from, to become table runners for the tables.

The final touch were the lights on the inside, and of course, the lovely flowers placed within.

These kept me alive in more ways than one last summer. Thanks T!

Two of Us

These items were designed my hands while I was employed by She Beads  a fine jewelry company. How I miss that job. Anyway, these were custom ordered by clients. One is a Pink Ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness theme; the other, a fall, masculine color theme. These salt and pepper shakers are woodbased. I want to say walnut? but I honestly can't remember.


They are very intricate and labor intensive.
The company has a wonderful cane maker and I aspire to work so intricately. As patient as I can be, its hard for me to get too involved, usually because I don't have enough clay to supply working very large. Working or starting large, facilitates greater detail and usually a more visually interesting design.

Every Little Thing

This is a post about the importance of good tools. I'm going to get into what I use, but there are plenty of alternatives out there as well. The quality of your tools is going to directly affect the state of your finished work.
- A good mix is an assortment of NuBlades or tissue blades, small single-edged razors, and Exacto knives. Your blades should always be sharp, and you should always remain fully aware of that. Nothing beats a new blade when you need to cut cane slices. I like to keep one strictly for slicing cane, and a couple others in rotation for all other uses.
- For aiding in getting uniform sizes, I've always found the 'Marxit' tool (by Donna Kato) EXTREMELY helpful for obtaining uniform slices.
- The importance of your work surface is second only to the pasta machine. Something like glass, tile or even mirror, nice and smooth, so the blade is unaffected. Even those self-healing cutting mats are pretty good til they eventually do get marked up. You'll find what works best for you.
- There is also a template for measuring out the bricks of clay.
- A metal ruler, perfect in so many ways.
- An acrylic rod/rolling pin, or a hand brayer for rolling and smoothing.
- And of course, the workhorse, the pasta machine. I have yet to upgrade to the motor, but I kind of like cranking. When I think of the palm and pad soreness I'd go through, conditioning REGULAR 1990' era crumbly FIMO in only my hands. But now, with formulas slightly softer, and methods for machinery...ahhhh, faster, less painfully gained, uniform slabs. Without a good pasta machine, the Skinner blend* will most definitely elude you!
- It's also useful to have an assortment of old dental tools, nut picks, toothpicks, skewers and needles to use for texturing or for piercing beads. These are easily found at garage sales as well as the hobby stores.
- Also, strips of plastic to rest lengths of clay that you might be working on. That way you won't have to scrape or cajole it from the work surface(risking rips) if you step away or take a break.
- And my favorite tip, don't ever trash scrap clay unless its dirty or hairy or otherwise unusable. Scrap can always be used as the underlayer or inner layer of something.

Good lighting for the work surface. And comfort. I have yet to achieve this. I've worked standing at the work table, I've sat level with it, I sit with it too low. So I stretch a LOT. And I try to give my hands, eyes, neck and back a rest as often as I can while working. Take natural breaks and and walk around to regain blood flow. I am guilty of just going and going and going and going. Don't do that! According to this photo, I also like to keep the ipod, beverage of choice and phone all within reach. So I'm off to work on some beads from scrap. And then I'm going to take a break :)

*a Skinner Blend is named for Judith Skinner, who developed a pretty much perfect blending technique for two or more colors of clay.

You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

This box is was originally going to be an exercise in sanding, buffing and glazing.  The colors were scrap and the box is a standard sized mint box.  One of the dark colors was actually a pearltone and had lots of streaky sparkles running through it.  They just jumped out after I sanded the surface.  The buffing brought a nice shine, and the Future Floor Polish sealed the deal.  This one is actually lined in felt to keep from being too noisy.  I kept this one in the personal collection.

Within You, Without You

This is a hinged mint box that I made for a friend.  He specified the color scheme, but left me to my own design.  It's a bit of this, a bit of that. He still has it too, must be about 4 years later.  A few jellyrolls, lots of translucent, always layering.  Sanding really does help the appearance when you're heavy with translucent.  Also, plunging the item, (nothing with glass mind you) into an ice bath after curing is good for optimizing translucency.

Julia

Custom for Julie. Can you tell which one is not the real turquoise? OK you probably can, (the middle one) but I tried really hard to make it look as real as I could. I made a mold of one of the beads, and then mixed up a matching color. I wanted it to have the facets and cut marks that the other two did. Julie was pleased with it and that's pretty much all that mattered.

I'm Looking Through You

Much of my ongoing experimentation is due to my desire to seriously manipulate color with transparent clay. Things of a prismatic or holographic nature are key. Or even better, opalescent or iridescent. Achieving something satisfactory keeps me trying. I have had wonderful success with mokume gane techniques, some have shown a remarkable illusion of depth. But I still haven't gotten something worthy as far as mega-sparkle. Not sure if I should be trying to do this through the clay itself, or through the glazing. Or maybe both?!!

Baby Its You

The last time I made beads, I made these. They are pretty small, maybe about a quarter inch. Usually, I'll go for the swirly, but this time, I tried to keep the striping straight and lined up with where the hole would go. Every 5th bead is half-spiral, half-black. Some of them have a homemade iridescent glaze run haphazardly across. I don't know what I'll make with them yet, maybe 2 bracelets.

Yesterclay...

I've been claying pretty consistently ever since I was introduced to the medium. Let's call it the 'early 1990's' YIKES. It was in a high school class, I think my junior or senior year and I was smitten. It was portable, even if you had to go somewhere to bake, you could still tote your clay wherever. I used to bring a tiny tacklebox to my coat check job and roll colors for beads while the people danced, ate and drank the night away. Hopefully by the end of the night, I could go home and bake up some beads.
From beads and jewelry, I moved to pretty much everything else. If it could withstand the baking (sometimes called 'curing') process, I would try. Anything wooden, glass, metal, even some other plastics were game. Ornaments, trinket boxes, pocket mirrors and the glass candle globes. I've been in kind of a rut as far as the candles go. And that's OK. I'm fascinated with making things very translucent, but still intensely colorful, which gives a whole other personality to the piece, as opposed to when its not lit. Or, on pieces that aren't backlit, the illusion of depth that can be achieved.

First things first

Welcome to the first installment of the new blog. I hope to use this as a place to share what I'm doing, as well as work things out in progress. I'll try my darndest to keep it about polymer clay, but I already know that there will be non-clay topics. That's just life.
This is my favorite candle, it's part of my personal collection. I find it awesome just because it has so much color in it and it really comes alive once a candle is lit. It seems to be a lot of other people's favorite too. And rightfully so ;)