Left overs

Some members of my guild (the NW Polymer Clay Guild) have been getting together for a day of claying around in the South Puget Sound area.  It is closer to home than the official Clay Days in Shoreline (north of Seattle).  We have had two gatherings so far and hope for more.

I had not played with clay all winter, so at my first gathering I got ambitious and tried for Mokume Gane.  I really did not like the look I got.  I forgot to add Julie Picarello's secret ecru blend that really make colors more harmonious. So, I had half a block of stacked clay left. What is so great about polymer clay, however, is the fact that (repeat after me) "there is no such thing as wasted clay"!.

I took the block home and it sat on my table for about a month, till I had some time to work in my studio.  I ended up cutting the stack into sections that I thought I could make a jelly roll out of. It wasn't wide enough however, so I ran it through my pasta machine at a thinner setting. This caused the lines to widen, but they were no longer straight.  They had waved a bit.
    I then took this wavy section, laid it on a thin layer of black clay and made a jelly roll.  When I sliced into the roll, I found that each slice had different colors meandering though the spiral.  Kinda neat.  I wish I had taken pictures of the process, but since I was just playing I had no idea that it would turn out cool.

Here are the beads that I made from the jelly roll.

I love how the colors blend and overlap in the spirals.

More ear tiles

Like I said in my last post, I had more mini domino tiles in process.
This time I glued bigger rhinestones to the side holes. These guys had better silver backings than the ones I previously used.  You can see them reflect the light  in this collage.

Creative detour

The polymer has been taking a back seat lately.  That's what I get for spending time on Pinterest, I guess.  Found a link to a video on making art tiles, and got detoured big time.

The video showed how to create art tiles from scrabble tiles.  I did not have any scrabble tiles, so I used domino's from my stash.  These 3 were made using the technique shown in the vid.  I found them to be a bit too busy for my taste.

I tried again, cutting out one of the steps.  These were the results.  I have since made them into pendants by added bales.This look was cleaner and more appealing, IMHO, so I decided to leave that step out from now on.

Dominoes are great for making pendants, but a bit too heavy for earrings.  I attacked my stash again and found these great smaller dominoes.    Unfortunately, when I went to Michael's to buy more, I discovered they had been discontinued.  Teach me to only buy one package ... 

Only have had time to make one pair of earrings so far.  Having too much fun just making the tiles. These smaller dominoes were designed to make bracelets from, so I had to come up with a way to disguise the holes in the sides.  Glue and crystals to the rescue.

Finally found a scrabble game at the local thrift store, so went crazy creating smaller tiles. Good for earrings or fridge magnets or pins, what have you.

Then, on a recent trip to Shipwreck beads, I found these round wooden beads that I just had to try the technique on.   This time, I also included the backs in my design.  They were stamped in a white ink and  a bit of mica powder added to the final finishing step to add a touch of  sparkle.

Now I am on the hunt for small word stamps.  Seems like they were everywhere a few years ago and nowhere to be found today.  Any my husband wonders why I hoard stockpile items for future use.

Can't seem to get beyond simple

 I spend way too much time on Pinterest.  I have three earring boards so far, polymer and non-polymer. You would think that unique designs would rub off on me.  But. ohhh noooooo!  When I sit down to make earrings, all I can do is put some beads on head pins and call it an earring.  I even sweat over which beads to use .... it can take me 15-20 minutes to find a configuration that is pleasing to me and it is just plain simple.   Fancy and creative .... that seems to elude me for the present.
    I want to expand beyond that, so I am going to be taking an earring class from Bea Grob tomorrow at ArtWorks in Edmonds.  Bea is a wonderful artist from Switzerland who is friends with Meredith Arnold (another well know mixed media artist from this neck of the woods).  Bea will be using Pardo Translucent, which I am very excited to finally break down and use.  She had some of her earrings with her at Clay Camp, and they are DIFFERENT than what I usually make.   Maybe something will rub off .... crossing fingers and wishing very hard....

These are some of the earrings that I made recently, mostly using the beads I made at clay camp.

Translucent clay. textured then highlighted with Pan Pastel Chalks. Kinda look a bit like glass.

Wonky beads made into earrings.  You can't tell from the pix, but the pink beads are bigger than the other two bead sets.

Clay was textured by rolling on a texture mat.  Beads on top were highlighted with chalk. The bottom beads were highlighted with Inka Gold Pewter colored paste.

Textured beads are colored with chalks. After baking, I used tinted Kato Liquid Clay to antique and give it a shiny gloss.  The brown bead was  created from a Sutton Slice veneer.  The light green was pearl clay tinted with ink.  Just used scrapes from my table .... no clay is ever wasted!

My favorite beads from clay camp were the green disc beads.  I really like how they turned out. The blue beads were made from the Rustic Bead Tut by Ginger Allman. The pink are simply textured with an old button, then highlighted with chalks.

During my picture taking session, I had help from a different source than usual. She was just fascinated by the dangles.

The Mighty Quinn looking to attack my earring prop.

Wonky abundant

I had an uninterrupted day in the studio this past weekend (ie ... no housework).  All I wanted to do was make more of the wonky bead shape I had discovered how to make the week before.  I experimented with different colors, even added mica powder to some of them for a little extra shine.

 

I was asked  lately whether I colored the beads before or after baking. That is a good question.  The answer is that it depends how the beads are colored.  The ones above were colored using PanPastel chalks.  Because chalk does not adhere well to a baked bead, you want to apply it to the raw clay.  After baking, shoe polish was applied  to protect the finish and antique the textured areas.

    Below is a close up were the fine texture can be seen better.

The beads I featured last week were baked first, then painted.  There is a difference in the finish, depending upon which route you take.  Both ways work, it just depends which look you are going for.

I did have time to try one other shapes (still not tired of wonky, just looking for more ways to finished them)

Rolled beads, colored with chalks.

Rainbow Earrings

Got around to making up some earrings from the beads I made at Clay Camp.  Since the rainbow beads are so colorful, I kept the design simple.  

 Finally getting collages figured out. I don't have any fancy software, like photoshop. Just have to use Picasa, which I downloaded for free.

Hard to believe that all these colors came from only 4 basic colors.

Clay Camp Productivity

Despite starting to come down with a cold Sunday night at Clay Camp, I was quite productive.
I had several projects planned, but got hooked into making controlled marble beads.  I blended several colors to try and forgot that with this technique, a little bit of clay goes a long way.  I was  making beads from the same colors Monday morning and still have some of the blended colors left to make more now that I am home.

Out of 4 basic colors, I got a plethora of beads. It's all in how you combine the colors.

 With this technique, you only get a few beads of each color run.  These 4 beads are made from one of my favorite color combinations.

 I discovered right away that I had left my smallest Kemper circle cutter at home. These were the first set of beads that I made, being forced to use a circle cutter larger than I liked for the end caps. I tried something different on these, texturing the beads slightly.  After baking, I discovered I really did not like the textured look. What to do?
    I mixed a bit of dark brown ink with my LPC and colored in the textured part of the beads, giving them a speckled appearance.  I like this look better.

I discovered that I had some eyelets in my stash, so I used them in these beads.  Unfortunately, I only had a few and they were quickly gone. I like the finished look I get using them.

My guildie Janis loaned me her small cirlce cutter, so the next beads were made using it.

There are more bead sets, but that is enough for tonight.  Tonight was my first night back to work after vacation and I am finally ready to fall asleep.  

Asymmetrical Challenges

As mentioned in a previous post, I am a gal who likes symmetry.  Things gotta match.   The trend toward asymmetrical jewelry, while fascinating is also scary to me.  However I find myself  strangely attracted to it,  even though it bothers my inner sense of balance.
  One of my goals for this year is to expand my range into actually making more jewelry pieces, rather than just the beads. I enjoyed the challenge of the 52 earrings/year project, and taking part in Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Hops.  These have forced me to expand beyond my scope and interested me more in jewelry design itself.  I have a bead stash (who doesn't?) that is crying to be used, not to mention making my own beads,  so what is stopping me? Why am I afraid to put some beads on a string??? And when I do attempt stringing, it takes me forever ... I find myself stressing over exactly which beads to use, make and remake the string a dozen times.  This does not lead to a very happy experience in the long run.  I want to enjoy the process, not stress over it.
   Hence the latest experiment (bet you were wondering when  I going to get to the point).  I thought I would try the leave it to chance method.  The first try was with a strand of coordinated beads from a bead show years past. Easy to start with as some one else had picked the beads for me, thus reducing the stress of having to think to hard. Into the bucket they went and I strung them as I pulled them out.  The only bead placement planning I did was with the triangular shaped beads.

That idea worked so well, it lead me to attempt an even more challenging project. This time, I had to go through my bead stash and pick the coordinating beads myself.  I still left the stringing order to chance,  except for the  spacer motif. I must admit that I really like this set.  Now I have the stringing bug, which is good since it is too cold in my studio to do any clay work.  I have to do something to keep my fingers busy this winter.

And here is your moment of cute .

Some one has exploring feet
(taken with cell phone so pardon the focus)

Goal Accomplished (kinda)

I had made a resolution at the start of last year to write something in my blog at least once a week.  To facilitate that goal, I joined the Flickr Group "52 Earrings in one Year" started by Anke Humpert of Anart Island Studios.  While did not  accomplish the goal of posting every week ... I sorta did it in clumps.... I feel good that I finished all 52 pairs by December 31st.
   I just realized it has been a whole month since my last post ... whoa, really ... what the heck was I doing all that time"  No new beads to speak of ... my shoulders are the latest part of my body to start to go.  Cranking the pasta machine is right out for now, at least till my physical therapy starts to show better results. I did get a change to dig around in my stash and find some beads I made earlier this year that I worked up in the last few weeks
  So, tonight I posted my last earring pairs to the group.  I had a lot of fun doing it and got a ton of inspiration from the others who posted to this Flickr group.  I discovered new artists  (not just polymer)  and blogs to follow.  Started pinning a lot at Pinterest.  I can (and have) spend hours there just jumping from one board to another - talk about inspiration!.
    Here are the last 4 earrings from the Challenge.
    The first pair of beads I made up were made from the Texture Tut I got from Lydia at Diva Designs.  They are named after Bette Davis ... the bumps remind me of her famous line  "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride".

Bette Dee 

 These beads were made by coloring a base white bead with Pan Pastel Chalks. I made a whole set of these to make into a necklace, but haven't got around to that yet.

JW Patches

 Several of the blogs that I visited off the Flickr earring group do asymmetrical challenges. It is hard for my scientific mind to let go and not strive for absolute symmetry.  This is my attempt at it. It really bothers me that they are not the same length.  This is something that I hope to overcome.  I am currently working on an asymmetrical necklace to help this process along.

1 Pod ... 2 Peas

 My last pair for this challenge were made with a short band of scrap clay left over from another project. It was too colorful to wad up and use as bead guts .. there is no such thing as wasted clay

The Golden Band

Next post will hopefully be my further trials with asymmetry.

Where did the year go??

 As usual, I am running behind posting my projects.  I'll blame it on the holidays this time, and the Artisan show.  After all there is nothing wrong with ME...

It is hard to believe that it is almost December. This year just flew by.  Isn't it strange how time speeds up the older one gets?  I remember as a child, how impatient I was waiting for Christmas.  Seemed like it would never arrive.  Now I just turn around, and it is almost upon us.
   And speaking of remembering my childhood, I found these dragonfly beads at the Blue Iris going out of business sale (heavy sigh).  They remind me swimming in the lake near the home I grew up in. Dragonflies were everywhere.  I would lay on the raft a short distance from the shore and watch them hovering over the water.  I was fascinated even then. The earrings I made from these beads are week 48 of the 52 earrings project.

Lakeside Dream Earrings

   As mentioned several posts ago, I purchased River Valley's wonderful Rocky Path tut.  I have been having a lot of fun trying different color combos.  One important tip I must pass on, if you are considering the tut or already have it ... it really pays to follow the directions.  I thought I would try a different texture than the one recommended.  After all, it looked *almost* the same.  While I don't totally dislike the results, they don't have the depth that can be achieved if the right texture is used, as you can see.

Following instructions 

Going down the wrong path

I have also been spending time reorganizing my studio (gasp!).  I would be a top contender for the messy studio award. I do love the surprises that come with the periodic cleaning.  I find beads that I made a last year or the year before that, that I totally forgot about.  It is like receiving an early birthday gift.  So I made these beads (only two of each so I MUST have been thinking earrings when I made them) into earrings for the 52 earrings project.

    

Going Green

Week 46 were made with the only pair of green beads I made using the texture tutorial from Lynda at Diva Designs.  I don't remember if I added mica powder to the clay. I kinda looks like I did.  I have started to write stuff in a journal now, so that I can refer back.  Amazing how long it took me to figure out that this was a good idea.

    Week 47 earrings ...  I vaguely remember these. I was experimenting with adding inclusions to clay.  These are spacers attached to the base bead with little balls of clay. I have no idea why I abandoned this line of clay play. I will have to work more with this idea.

  

Round Peg,  Round Hole

   

A Rocky Path

I finally broke down and bought something off of Etsy.  I have been purposely avoiding it for years.  Not because I don't like it ... heaven forbid.  It is the fear that I will go CRAZY and buy every thing in sight once I discover how easy it is.
    It is taking  lot of restraint to be good ... there are so many interesting items to be had just with a quick click of the mouse.
    I have been able to limit myself so far to a pair of earrings and beads from Lynda at Diva Designs.  I have been following her work for years now.  She was the first follower on my blog when I started it almost two years ago now.  I have purchased several of her very well written tuts in the past, but used a check rather than signing into Esty.  Now that she is a full time designer, it turned out to be better for her monetarily if I went through Esty, so now I have an account. .. so many shiny things.... opps... getting off topic
   This leads me to another Esty purchase I made last week.  One of my flickr contacts is River Valley Designs, and one of the techniques she uses and has written a tut on, is called Rocky Path. I have long admired pieces that she and others have made using Rocky Path and tried to figure it out on my own, with limited success.  So I finally broke down and purchased it. I am in love ... it is a playful technique and I love the serendipity of it - you can't predict exactly what is going to happen.  I love surprises.
   I have made two earring sets so far and would make more today, but I must get ready for the Artisan Show this weekend.

Using Yellows and Orange Inks

Pinks and Yellows

 

A Milestone Reached and a Giveaway

I was excited this morning when I checked out this blog to see that the view tally was at 9,999.  Now I know that is not a big number for a lot of those popular musings in the blogoverse, but it is a huge number for little ol' me.  Thanks so much to all those readers who actually take the time out of their day to puruse my ramblings.

I have decided to celebrate this milestone by having a giveaway of a pair of Artybecca inspired beads. And it is easy ... all you need do is leave a comment as to which pair you would like to win.  That's it.

   Since I am not a mega blog with tons of readers, I am going to give a bit more than the typical week for people to comment. I will pick the winner by random number generator on Halloween in the dead of night  (for those outside the U.S. that is October 31st at midnight PST).
  These are special beads to me in that I actually SANDED them ... yes, me sanding ... I had no fingernails left on my right two fingers afterwards, but it was worth it.  Just wish I could get into the Zen of sanding:  I really like the smooth feel of the finished bead, but it is soooo boring.

Thanks again to Rebecca for the FREE  tut on how to make these.  The
Polymer Community is full of very generous people.  Maybe that is why
I love this medium so much.

   There are two pair of bongo drum beads, blue and lavender, and a pumpkin colored pair to choose from.  I posted pix of earrings made from the other beads made from the same clay blends on my last blog entry, so you can get an idea of their size and how they can look made into something.  Just leave a comment as to which pair you would like to have, and  you may be a winner.

What have I got myself into?!?

I saw a necklace in last month's (August 2012) issue of Bead Design Studio that I absolutely fell in love with.  It kinda surprised me, as I am not usually attracted to this type of necklace, but there ya go.  I am not one to argue with inspiration when it strikes ... BUT I am really wondering if I bit off a little more than I can chew.  The original necklace has 90-95 larger glass beads in it.  They are the most yummy colors and I thought to myself, if I don't have glass, I will use Polymer, of course.
  But how to get those colors?  A few experiments later, I found if I mixed small portions of clay  with translucent, I could achieve colors that were similar.  There is still a long way to go, I am working on getting all the beads made.... but here is a peak at what I have been doing.  Will post the finished piece when (if??) I finish.  I esp love the deep sparkly look that is achieved when mixing a pearlized clay into translucent.  Yum!

I LOVE the look of these beads and plan to work more with
Translucent clay when this project is finished.

 Because I am so wrapped up in making these translucent beads, my 52 earring project is suffering.  If only I did not have that darn J.O.B. getting in the way ... but it does pay the bills and allow me to create...
   As I result, I whipped up a month's worth of earings in one afternoon (sorry.... only one using polymer).

Polymer colored with inks and
mica powders, surrounded by
an abalone ring

Kitty Queen.  Earrings made from the
adorable kitty beads I picked up at
the NWBS show last weekend.

The nights are getting chilly...  here
are my "Prelude to Winter" earrings.

I titled these "Disc Believe" in
homage to Terry Prachett's
Disc world Series

Finding Nino

I have not been playing with clay since the cruise, so I decided to spend Saturday in my studio. But first I had to clean it a bit .... mistake!!!!!  I found some beads that I bought recently and decided that I would string them instead.  Since doing the Bead Soup and hopping all over the blogosphere getting inspired, I have been thinking more about how present beads than feeling the need to make them.
   Of course, my studio is not set up for stringing, so I have to hunt through bins looking for wire, crimps, hooks, etc.  Can find them all except the crimps.  So off to the friendly local bead store ... another MISTAKE.  It is their anniversary and everything in the store is 20% off.  I tried to be good, really I did, but I found these lovely abalone beads in all sorts of shiny colors ..., they are kinda like potato chips to me.
  Got the crimps and was finally able to finish the necklace and earrings to match.  I had found another set of beads that I also made up.  Now, I am no great shakes at design, so these are rather simple, but I am pleased none the less.

Finding Nino

 I know that one is not supposed to take pictures in sunlight where shadows are being cast, etc. Not professional. But I kinda like the shadow play where it makes ripples on the bottom left.  It shows the texture of the beads.

The second set I don't like as much, but it was a learning experience.

Sunrise Sonata

And here are some of the Abalone  beads I was telling you about.