More Gift Tags

This time for babies (no….. I’m not getting clucky). I was lunching with some girl friends yesterday and sold some of my other tags to a couple of ladies and the overwhelming feeling from them was that I should do some baby ones. Three of them are grandmas so I was open to their suggestions and got cooking today.

 

All pastelly and baby like I think. I guess it’s a change from my usual black and white or green.

But I did do some others in bright jewel colours and I apologise for the photo quality, I was too lazy to set up the light box and the sun coming through the skylight wasn’t very strong. The colours in the these photos are not really true to life at all.

Also I didn’t place them very well to be photographed, so they look a bit wonky.

Hopefully you get the idea.

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,polymer clay gift tags,polymer clay baby gift tags

Not Just Jewellery

I’ve had a busy time this week with work and only had today free, so I made the most of it and made things…..and not jewellery.

Little gift tags.

 

Sold

I think I like these…..yes…..yes I do.

I’m so smitten I think I’ll make some more.

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,polymer clay tags,presents

Wrapped

Started playing around with my new p’leather cord this morning and this is what I came up with.

No…not a necklace.

A warp wrap bracelet.

Just knotted and threaded some pretty multi coloured dyed Fire Agate 8mm beads and added a clasp. Just wrap around your wrist three times, do up the clasp and your good to go.

I’m starting a couple of new sections in my Artfire store over the next few weeks. One will be supplies and I’ll start adding polymer clay pendants, connectors and various other things that I think people might be interested in adding to their jewellery making supplies. The other section will be called “Not Quite Perfect” which will consist of pieces that might have a small flaw e.g. a small scratch, or dent, etc. or experimental pieces that I’m not quite happy with, all at a greatly reduced price.

Pieces like this…….

…..and this…..

 

The first one a brooch, personally I love it, the quirkiness of the stamp is my cup of tea, but my daughter and my son’s girlfriend said it was too big 6.5 cm (2.5”) diam. I always think big is better!

The second one is also a brooch, but I’m not happy with the shape of it and I have a better idea for the next one. 5 x 6.5 cm (2"x 2.5”).

So keep an eye out because when this relentless heat finally leaves us after 2 weeks of above 35 degree day and 25 degree nights, it will be all guns blazing (my extruder gun anyway).

Resolute in my Intentions

Lying in bed the other night listening to the radio as I was tossing and turning trying to get to sleep.  A lady guest on the programme was talking all sorts of psychobabble about New Years resolutions so I wasn’t really paying too much attention until the pyschobabbilist explained that she doesn’t call them resolutions, instead she calls them intentions. The word resolutions puts too much pressure on oneself and creates guilt when one doesn’t follow through. Whereas the word intentions is not quite so hard and fast. You might intend to give up chocolate but if you slip up….well, not so bad. Anyway if you only intend to have intentions you can always just keep them to yourself, no-one needs to know about the chocolate thing.

So I thought I’d try the whole intention thing and this is what I came up with.

1.  My intention this year is to try and enjoy cooking more. Despite the fact that my children often post cruel and disparaging comments about my cooking on their face books, I will try to like it more. Once in 2001  I did, I went all Moroccan and quite enjoyed it but no-one else was terribly enthused, so I quit.

2.  I intend to finish what I’ve started before I go onto the next thing. Even if some fabulous idea pops into my head I will not stop working on a project and start a new one. I’ll allow myself to quickly write the idea in a journal and then carry on. But then I might get an idea for a really wicked new journal and start on that before I’ve even put the original idea in the first journal. See what I mean?

    

3. Try to keep a tidy house. Ha ha ha ha ha hee hee hee….oh dear!

4. Stop listening to psychobabble!

All the above pieces were made with clay from a fabulous pdf tutorial I bought from Stonehouse Studios. I really like this technique and the possibilities are endless. The tutorial was very reasonably priced and the photos and instructions were very clear and concise.

So who has made resolutions or intentions this year. Will you be committed and strong in your resolve or will you be weak and pathetic like me, with not an ounce of willpower, a slave to sloth and debauchery….debauchery?….none of that going on here, unless you call eating copious amounts of chocolate debauchery. Guilty as charged.

Burnt Offerings

Well it had to happen some time I suppose. My first (and hopefully my last) tray of scorched and burnt beyond rescue polymer clay. I was given a  little convection oven a couple of weeks ago that had hardly been used, and as it is the same make as my bigger bench top oven, Delonghi, I trusted it would keep the temperature at a constant level the same as my bigger one. Well I was wrong. I could have cried, so much time and effort went into these pieces and look at them. Ruined!!!!! Wah.

The pieces that look like a caramel colour were actually white before I cooked them. And the one in the middle of the picture above was an ecru colour with a black stamp. Well that bubbled up like volcano lava.

Maybe I can paint some of them. But most are beyond rescuing me thinks.

These earring were so pretty once upon a time.

Well here’s something that doesn’t look like it was rescued from a house fire.

The pendant was made in a faux jade class with Pam a couple of weeks ago. I had a different pendant on this necklace but was never very happy with the way it looked so I removed and replaced it with this new one and I like it. In fact I love it and the faux jade technique, of which there a few, is such fun because there are so many shades of jade from emerald green right through to light almost translucent. You can use embossing powders and alcohol inks and several other inclusions to get the colour you like. Definitely a technique I’m going to explore more. You know me and green!

The other beads are olive jade (the light green) and the darker green are Nephrite. Lovely gunmetal silver chain and lime green glass chips.

Well is rubbish pickup day tomorrow so I may as well go and turf out my putrid polymer and go back to the drawing board and my old reliable oven.
Note to self: next time you smell a peculiar odour emanating from the kitchen, investigate!

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,faux jade

Foils

In my last polymer clay class with Pam she showed me quite a few different techniques for image transfers and towards the end of the lesson we had a quick play with foils. Lots of things can be done with foils from getting a nice crackled antique look to imitation dichroic (sp) glass. Not being a big fan of dichroic glass I decided to play around and see what else I could come up with using these different coloured shiny pieces of plastic.

Pam gave me a small piece of black foil to take home and I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love with it. The pieces below are white clay covered with black and I really like the sort of scratched and slightly mottled look. They make me think of photo negatives…….don’t know why.

So the one pendant that I loved the most became this necklace.

I’ve also branched out and made some brooches using my stampotique stamps. Love these gals. They’re so kooky and out there.

She’s my favourite.

Not the best picture…sorry. Stamped on to a denim coloured clay because I think they would look good with jeans and shirts.

Just another necklace with a crescent shape that I stamped with script and added the wings.

 

The days just seem to be flying by. I’ve started a bit of Christmas shopping already and over the next few days hope to make start on the Christmas cards. It’s such a busy time and I always like to try and get to the shops before the school holidays start because it’s bedlam by then.

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,foils,stamps

Clay and Stamps………

…….a winning combo.
Do you like these? I have to say I’m a little in love with them at the moment.  Pearl clay is just like it’s name, a creamy colour with just a slight sheen to it. Very carefully applied this gorgeous swirly flourish stamp to the clay (sometimes the stamp can slip and I end up with a double image) and then baked. Added a gunmetal chain and toggle and clasp with eyelets to strengthen the holes and hey presto!



A similar one but round and with an antique brass coloured chain. Fairly long so it can just be slipped over the head.

This pendant is about 4cm in diameter.

Ok….this is not for the faint hearted. Huge black enamel chain with gigantic links and a large (almost 5cm diam.) pendant. It’s long too. Are you brave enough to wear it?

Actually I just tried it on again and it looks pretty good. Even with my daggy around the house T shirt and old tracky daks with the bleach stains and several different coloured paint splashes on them.

Anyway I’ve put these up on my Artfire store hoping they eventually go to a good home.

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,stamps,artfire,black enamel chain

Can’t Think of a Title

Bought a new Krafty Lady mold the other day it’s about 2cm in diameter and I really love it. Very antique button look to it. Hope to make some earrings with these over the next few days. I’ve already glazed some. The cream with a brown glaze that has settled into cracks and crevices very nicely and just a clear glaze for the others.


I got very annoyed with these two pendants. I was trying to do swirl
beads and they just wouldn’t swirl properly so I had a little tanty and just squashed them flat out of sheer frustration and you know what?…..I quite like them. Have no idea what I’ll end up doing with them yet.


Below is one of two similar pendants. Just plain white clay that I hand stamped and attached to a brushed silver chain and clasp. The other one has matt black chain.

Think I’ll put one on my market table and the other in my Artfire store.

Tomorrow is my first job for over a week so the last few days have been all about the clay. I’ve got another bunch of pendants and earrings in the oven at the moment. Once they’ve cooled down I’ll have a look and see if they’ve turned out as well as I hoped.
The kitchen table is all cleared off now in readiness for number one son to cook dinner tonight. What’s the bet it’s some kind of pasta dish?

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,pendants,swirl beads,molds

Bling Rings and Things

Made a few extra things to put on my market table tomorrow. Half a dozen rings in various metallic colours with a Swarovski crystal set in the middle. I love this particular mold, it’s from Krafy Lady and is about 1" in diameter.

I decided to make some rings because last week some sweet little 12 year old girls were looking at my jewellery and they kept placing all the pendants on their fingers imagining what they would look like as rings. So I have them to thank for the idea.



I dusted them all in Perfect Pearls to get the metallic finish and then varnished them so it doesn’t rub off.

I’m also trying my hand at designing different looks to attach to cufflinks. These are very small, just under 1/2” and think they’re maybe too small for some buttonholes. But I have some larger blanks on order which I think will work better.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s not windy tomorrow. The last few days have been so blowy with several huge  gusts of wind and it’s just not conducive to having an outdoor market.  As you can imagine things blow over and my props get blasted off the table if I’m not vigilant and then I’m scrambling around picking everything up off the ground. Not a good look!

It's Pink and a Bit Girly

Well these certainly aren't pink and girly, but it's a novel way of using a piece of 12 gauge copper wire. I guess I better get out needle, cotton and a button because I don't think DS will get around to it. Lucky he's a sparky and there's plenty of wire on his work sites or the situation could have been a bit awkward.

Thought I'd try something a bit different and try a new design to match the shabby chic polymer clay pendant I made. Strawberry quartz with some handmade polymer bead caps.
Gorgeous pink rhodocrosite rondelles with bronze coloured tiny pearls.
Here's the pendant. It's patterned and coloured both sides.
Some pale cream old fashioned lace wired to the beads and long enough to be tied at the neck with a floppy bow.
Not my usual colours or design but I'm liking it.
It's feminine and pretty and lacey. Unlike the work shorts above.