Wall Art

Now my kitchen is well and truly finished and functioning beautifully I might add, it needs some brightening up as it’s all a bit beige, so I decided to make some polymer clay plaques.

The kitchen has a large servery that opens up to the family room and above the framework and the ceiling is about a 20-25 cm area that is begging for some sort of decoration.

Sorry about the quality of the photo it was late afternoon and the sun was shining in through the family room windows and doors. Made it a bit awkward to get a decent shot.

Well I had this idea in my head of what I wanted to put up there but as usual transferring the idea from head to reality sometimes doesn't work.

I had a big clean up in my studio so I was raring to crank up the past machine.

Chose all the colours I thought would work and set to work. But once I had made four of them and saw them sitting in the baking tray ready for the oven I hated them.

This morning I pulled off all the coloured bits and have re-designed them. There’s texture, there’s florals, and there will be paint. I’ve got a test one in the oven now and when its cooled down I’ll embellish it and if I like the look I’ll make some more.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,wall art

I’ve Made a Start

I went in, I sat down, and I made a couple of things.

My messy desk with the sun making shadows through the security screen.

I have made a few more things this morning since I took this photo but everything is cooking away nicely in the oven.

Experimenting with pan pastels and some new tutorials I bought.

Technorati Tags: polyer clay,pan pastels

It’s Been Awhile

A few months to be exact which is pretty terrible. It’s the longest time I’ve ever let my blog stay idle.

Well a kitchen renovation, a laundry renovation and a holiday kept me away. But both the kitchen and the laundry are finished, my studio is just about back to being a studio and not a dumping ground for all the kitchen/laundry stuff and I’ve just bought some clay tutorials to spark my creativity again.

Here’s two pairs of earrings I made a couple of weeks ago.

In the pair above I’ve used one of Mels Moulds and coloured the raised pattern with Pan Pastels.

This pair from another set of molds also coloured with Pan Pastels.

So onward and upward and hopefully a lot more blogging and items to show you.

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,molds,pan pastels

A Few Things

I played and I baked. I’ve been wanting to create some scarf holders and after perusing the net and seeing lots of what I think are acrylic holders I decided to create something similar in clay.

White clay, textured and smudged with some silver paint. Now you couldn’t wear this with a big, thick, chunky hand knitted scarf because the openings are just not large enough to accommodate anything larger than a silk or chiffon scarf, perhaps you’re lucky enough to own a hermes scarf which would be perfect.

Some earrings.

Some scrap clay with some silver swirly charms added.

It’s a start.

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,earrings,scarf ring,polymer clay scarf ring,scrap clay

I Missed You Studio

Today I made stuff. For the first time in weeks I sat down at my desk and played with clay.  It’s been such a long time…….weeks in fact, since I’ve cranked the handle on my pasta machine.

Speaking of pasta machines, I acquired a pre-loved machine (that was actually used for its intended purpose) so now I have one strictly for white clay. It doesn’t matter how thoroughly I think I’ve cleaned the machine before I use white clay it still picks up the odd little fleck of coloured clay and it’s so annoying.

So I played with white clay.

And some coloured.

And the new (slightly used) pasta machine.

Oh happy days!

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,white polymer clay,pasta machine

It’s Time For The Kitchen Reveal

Before and after photos. After many long weeks (since before Christmas) it’s finally finished and I’m extremely happy with how it’s turned out. So many cupboards and drawers and lots more bench space. The kitchen/dining room looks huge now and so much lighter. The last thing I have to do is hang some new curtains.

Before

After

Before

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

And here are a couple of little extravagances I bought to add a bit of colour to the largely beige kitchen.

I’m sorry the photos aren’t the best, hopefully you get a sense of the huge transformation, from early seventies kitchen to a sleek modern 21st century one.

Technorati Tags: kitchen renovation

Finally

I finally cleared most of the kitchen things out of my studio today and dusted, sorted things and generally tidied up although it’s still not exactly how I would like it, but over the next few days I should be on top of it.

While I was tidying up I came across this necklace that I had started and never got around to finishing. I followed a polymer clay tutorial by Christy Uliczny of river valley designs on etsy and decided to make a this bib necklace using the two crescent shaped pieces.

It is a fun tutorial and luckily I had all the materials on hand the day I made the shapes.

Photos aren’t very good despite the fact that it’s about 38 degree Celsius with the  sun blazing down, it had shifted  too far past the window.

Not sure if I like it yet and may play around with it, possibly making two necklaces out of the shapes.

But it was lovely to be able to sit down at my desk and create something.

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,neclace,tutorials

Boredom Does Strange Things

The middle of the hottest summer ever, there are fires raging around the country due to the heat, Sydney just had it’s hottest day ever and do you know what I’m doing?……….knitting, yes you read that correctly.

Still can’t get into my studio and I can’t start my quilt until Joanie and I both have a free day from work so the next best thing was to start a cowl……in readiness for the first crisp, cold day…….. possibly sometime in June!

But when that longed for crisp, cold day arrives, I’ll be ready with my toasty warm cowl.

Technorati Tags: knitting,cowl

The “Chook”

If you’ve been reading my blog you know we are almost at the end of a kitchen renovation, and if you ever read the comments you may have seen this one from my BFF Carmen.

Now if you are not from Australia you may be wondering what a chook is. Well……it’s a slang term for a chicken…….here’s a few examples of how it would be used in a sentence.

What’s for dinner?………roast chook.

Have you fed the chooks yet?

Did the chooks lay any eggs?

Don’t even ask me why we call chickens chooks because I don’t have the slightest idea, but I do have a theory. I blame it on the Irish!

I’m sure all those Irish convicts called chickens chicks, but with their accent it somehow morphed into chooks and that’s how it came about. Good theory?

Anyway about 15 years ago a friend and I were trawling the op shops and I spied this picture languishing in a dark and dusty corner and it was love at first sight. Somehow this ugly chicken……gee, maybe it’s a rooster………just spoke to me, cluck, cluck, and I had to have it for the princely sum of $4.50 and money well spent I say.

She’s made up of different ceramic shapes glued to a backing board.

I loved the colours (I’m a sucker for autumn tones).

So home she came with me and took pride of place on a wall in my kitchen. Now the chair that DH sits in at the dining room table faces the wall that my chook is displayed on. About 12 months after I’d purchased it and hung it he looked up one day and said “when did you get that” well DD and DS and I just about fell off our chairs, after being on the wall for over 12 months he’d only just noticed it. Men!

My chook was actually the inspiration for me to start mosaics, some of which still grace the walls of my home and others.

Well now that the kitchen is almost done and the walls have been freshly painted I hung my chook back up on the wall and she looks great.

She’s exactly where she’s supposed to be Carmen.

Playing around in a photo app as is my want to do of late.

Technorati Tags: chooks,chickens,ceramics,photo apps

The Continuing Kitchen Saga

 

It’s still not finished, but there are only a few small things to finish off. But we did come up against a fairly major obstacle………THE.FRIDGE.DOESN’T.FIT. Well it does fit into the alcove but we can’t manoeuvre it into it’s home due to the fact that the stupid thing will only roll backwards and forwards and not sideways which is what we want it to do in order for us to get it in. Cabinet maker comes back on Tuesday to see what can be done.

Meanwhile I did manage to squeeze into my studio (amongst all the chairs and other assorted kitchen paraphernalia) and made a necklace.

 

The pendant was made quite some time ago. Textured clay embedded in a bezel.

 

 

 

Most of the beads are from my Bali Stash and I have no idea what they are.

 

 

I’ve threaded everything onto cream coloured waxed linen cord and did some knotting too.

 

 

The toggle and clasp is from Bali also.

 

 

 

 

Cream clay antiqued with Golden’s raw umber.

To stave off boredom while my studio has been out of commission I’ve decided to make a quilt. My lovely friend and co-worker Joanie is helping me and yesterday we went fabric shopping. Joanie makes the most divine quilts and she was a huge help in the selection of colours and prints. I’m making a “slash and stack” quilt…….I know, my mind boggled a bit when I read the title. You can see a gorgeous example of one here on Knotty Gnome’s blog.

 

I’ve also started another blog. I came across Fat Mum Slims blog and she has a photo a day challenge happening with great daily prompts to help you along. So I’ve called my blog My 365 Daily Photo Project and I’m mainly using my iPhone to take pix and using different photo apps to play around with filters and frames. Stop by and have a look and feel free to leave a comment or advice, that would be great.

 

Technorati Tags: polymer clay,bezel,Bali,beads,quilts,photos,iphone,apps,filters