SUN RISE IN ARIZONA

I don't have my buttons out of the tumbler yet but I happen to get some good pictures the last couple of days of other things besides polymer clay buttons.  This is what we saw from our house this morning, it was beautiful.  The sun rises and and sun sets here take your breath away.

This picture was taken 2 days ago.  The sun was shining and then we got a couple drops of rain and out came a double rainbow.

Now that my computer is in the dining room because of the rains causing a leak in my studio/office, Booboo is very upset.  He likes sitting on my desk while I work on the computer and he likes holding the mouse while I'm working or playing Pogo.  I don't allow him on the dining room table or any other table so he is pretty angry.  In this picture he was standing up and pulling on my shirt sleeve wanting to get on the table.  When I told him no, he gave me that funny look.  I'm glad I captured it.  He's a stitch.

These are my three friends Scooter, Beau and little Annie.  Scooter is staying with them till his folks get back next week.  Annie is the little Yorkie that my friends rescued right before Christmas.  She was a little underfed and ragged but she's doing wonderful now.  Scooter's a funny guy.  He gets up, goes out to potty, gets a drink and then goes back to bed.  And, he sleeps under all the covers.

These are two polymer clay necklaces that I sold on Etsy not too long ago.  The same lady bought both of them.  I got a nice message from her saying that her husband liked the beige and blue one the best and now he watches my Etsy shop to see what I'm putting in there.  He wanted a piece for his sister so I better get busy.

My friend Rose and I are taking her grand daughter over to see the puppies today and then I have to get busy with the buttons.  I'll post the pictures when I get these done but I have ideas for more.

Stay Tuned

Today's the funeral.  RIP Joey

MAGIC-GLOS UPDATE, BUTTONS AND BUTTONS AND MORE BUTTONS AND A FEW NEW BEADS

Yesterday I wrote about doing the Magic-Glos demo at our guild and wanted to do a follow-up today with some pictures of the final product.  The above pendant was originally suppose to be the front.

When I looked at the back, I couldn't decide which one I liked better.  I did the back of the pendant with Premo, green pearl and ran it through the pasta machine with a texture plate from Helen Breil of Shades of Clay http://www.shadesofclay.com/ .  I love her texture sheets.  I have a lot of different texture sheets that I use and I just recently got these.  They are wonderful.  Anyway, I decided to put the Magic-glos on the back and I'm going to buff the front.  I sand and buff everything even before I apply the Magic-glos.  Since I did the demo, I've gotten a lot of feed back on different ways to use it.  They all work, it's what you are comfortable with.  I just ordered some new UV Resin that was recommended by another polymer clayer.  I'll let you know how I like it.

Our guild is having a button exchange and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.  Michael's had clay on sale and they had 2 packages of the Glow in the Dark Premo left so I bought it.  I thought I would make 55 glow in the dark buttons but haven't decided yet.  This picture is of some of the ones I've made so far and they do glow in the dark.  You have to hold them to the light or put them in the sun before they glow in the dark.  I made about 30 of them and the first night I turned the light off in my studio it looked liked something from outer space.  It was kind of neat.  I really like them and might keep them all to myself and put them on a purse or bag of some type. I think that would be fun.  I should put some on the cat so I know where he is at night.

These two pictures are more buttons that I did.  They are kind of big but I like big buttons.  The top picture is the backs of these buttons.  I really like the way it shows the mica effect from the Premo pearl clays that I used and the Helen Breil texture plates.  Most of this clay is leftover from something because I don't like to waste clay.  I made a couple canes and a couple red, white and blue Skinner blend stacks, just playing and claying around.  I have another batch of buttons in the tumbler.  I figure by the time I'm done, I should have about 200 buttons and I can pick and choose which ones I want to use for the swap.  My friends Rose, Judy and Evelyn are all making buttons too and we are feeding ideas off of each other.  We were going to get together and do buttons but I've had a cold for a week and didn't want to infect them.  I know Rose's will be bright and beautiful, Judy's will be wild and fun and Evelyn's will be something that started as a Natasha bead.  She loves making Natasha beads.

These are some beads that I just finished.  The ones on the left were made from a cane I did with the extuder.  The orginal cane was done by Cindy Lietz on The Polymer Clay Tutor.  However, my cane didn't come out exactly as hers and that's just fine because I was happy with this one.  I really recommend her website even for polymer clayers who think they know everything.  She comes up with new and fascinating and innovative techniques all the time.  You can find her at http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/

Her Friday videos are great and I always pick up a new idea.  Thank you Cindy.

The other beads were made with cane ends from some spliced canes that I did.  I make a lot golf stroke counters and these beads work perfect for that as you can see below.

I'll be so glad to get my studio back.  Since the rain last week, my computer is in the dining room, I had to dismantle my picture taking table and I have to keep passing the refrigerator to go back and forth (kind of).

Must get back to the button making, I only have till the 20th of February and I'm taking a class from Tory Hughes for 2 days next weekend and I'm really excited.

RIP Joey

POLYMER CLAY DEMOS, THE DOG KIDS AND SOMETHING SAD

At our last polymer clay guild meeting I did a demo on Magic-Glos.  This is the back of a pendant that I put the glos on and put out in the sun.  I like the back of this pendant as much as the front.  On this one I put a thin coat around the edge, put it out in the sun and then filled the inside full of glos and put it back out in the sun.  I've been using the Magic-Glos a lot lately and learned a few things: use the open bottle up as fast as you can and make sure you keep it out of the heat and sun.  Store it somewhere in the dark.  If the glos gets a lot of bubbles and pulls back more than normal, open a new bottle.  I left my original bottle out and didn't use it up and had those problems.  I like the way it cures in the sun better than in the UV light that I bought.  When I use the glos, I put the piece I'm doing on a 3 X 3 tile and after I put the glos on, I hold the tile up to eye level.  That way I can see that the entire piece is covered.  Sometimes looking down at a piece doesn't show little spaces that were missed.  I'm sure that wearing bi-focals has a lot to do with that.  I'll post a finished picture this week sometime.  We had the storm of the century here last week and it rained inside my office/studio so we had to move my computer to the dining room table and I had to take my photo table down.  We are waiting for the roofer and contractor to come back and it will probably put me out of my studio for a month.  PHOOEY.  Why couldn't it have rained in the kitchen?

This is a picture of some beads I did while doing a demo on how to use bead rollers.  I love bead rollers.  I've probably made 1000 beads on the little tri bead roller.  I think my friend Rose has them all and is making necklaces out of them because I can't find them any where.  LOL

I taught a polymer clay class last week.  It was all first or new clayers.  There were only suppose to be 8 in the class but it ended up being 12.  I was exhausted when I was done.  We did Mokume Gane and they loved it.  I gave them the clay to use and the copper clay I gave them was like old boots.  We had a hard time conditioning it but I brought my mallet with so we beat it up a lot.  They really did good considering how much information I threw at them.  They are coming back for a second class next week.  We are going to try Millefiore Caning and the extruder if they can find an extruder.  They are hard to come by in the stores.

This post isn't very exciting or funny today and I know that.  I didn't really feel like posting.  My best friend's son committed suicide last Thursday and I've never felt so helpless in my life.  I wrote a whole blog about it and decided not to publish it.

Polymer clay has kept me going this week while they are gone taking care of this tragedy.  I've been making buttons for a button exchange at our guild and so far I don't like any of them but my hands have been busy.  Guess I'll just keep making buttons and hope some of them are good enough to put in the exchange.  My heart is broken and my buttons are ugly.

SISSY, ANNIE AND BEAU AND POLYMER CLAY

This is Sissy another one of my canine friends.  I don't know why her eyes are green but she is adorable.  She's a Havanese.  Some of my earlier posts have pictures of her when she was younger.  She loves to lick and love and she sucks the earring right out of my ears when I see her.  She is a sweetheart and makes us laugh all the time.

One of the latest pictures of Beau and Annie.  Beau is tolerating her now so she's a happy girl.  She went to the vet and she got a good bill of health, she just needs her teeth cleaned.  She sure turned out to be a great Christmas present.

Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen?  My friend gave it to me for Christmas because I always say
"No matter how bad I'm golfing, it's better than being home cleaning toilets".  It has shells and all kinds of little pretties in it.  Too pretty to use.  It's now a decoration.

This is another one of the pieces from the spliced cane that I made.  This one I wire wrapped with bronze wire and put it on the peach colored ndebele necklace made with the 11-0 seed beads.  I put the green Swarovski Crystals on to bring up the green in the polymer clay cane.  I put this on Etsy yesterday.

This is one of my favorite focal beads.  I re-wire wrapped it.  The clay is gold, copper and pearl and it's a lentil swirl bead that was sanded and buffed and polished.  I've been looking for the rest of the cane that I made this with but I can't find it.  I have so much clay it's unbelievable.  I think I'll just sit for a couple days and make beads, it's very therapeutic.

This is the side view of a Casablanca bead made by one of the women in our guild.  I belong to the Arizona Polymer Clay Guild and we have a lot of very talented women.  She gave me this bead and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it but since I'm on a wire wrapping frenzee right now I thought I would do this and it turned out great.

This is the front view of the bead.  Now I have to decide what I'm going to do as far as the necklace to go with it.

These are two turquoise beads that I purchased at the Goodyear Swap Meet this weekend.  I bought 12 beads and they were all the same shape but the markings were all different.  I purchased some real copper wire from a lady on Etsy and it's stiffer than the wire I was using but I really like it.  I have purchased wire made by Bead Smith and and I really like that.  I also bought some by another manufacturer that I got at Joann's and I don't like it.  The plating comes off much too easy. 

Well, tomorrow is golf so I better go get some zzzzzzzzzzzz's.  If I could get the cat off the desk it would be a lot easier to type.

ANNIE, BEAU, SCOOTER AND POLYMER CLAY

HERE IS ANNIE AGAIN, SHE IS REALLY SPECIAL AND LOVES GETTING HER PICTURE TAKEN.

THIS IS ANNIE ON THE AFGHAN I MADE HER WITH HER PRINCESS JACKET ON.

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE PICTURES OF BEAU.

This is Scooter and Annie.  Scooter is a rat terrier and belongs to my good friends who live across the street.  They are snowbirds here in Arizona so I only get to see Scooter for 6 months.  They rescued him just like Annie.  Scooter is one of the best behaved dogs I know and I know a lot of dogs.  When I go across the street and ring the doorbell, Scooter barks and then comes to the window.  When he sees it's me, he stops barking and smiles at me.  He smiles a lot at people he likes.  Just like Annie and Beau and Booboo (the cat)  these animals have all been saved from one fate or another.  I got Booboo at the Humane Society when he was 4 weeks old.  He was very loud and no one wanted him.  He's been by my side for 18 years and still makes me laugh every day.

This is one of the polymer clay focal beads I made with the spliced cane I made from Premo clay.  The necklace is a 4 bead Herringbone made with size 11-0 seed beads.  The wire wrapping has black and clear crystal Swarovski Crystals.

This is another of the focal beads I made with the spliced cane and it has black and peridot green Swarovski crystals.  I will either be making a black or green necklace to go with it.

This is a focal bead made with a technique called Mokume Gane which is a layering of polymer clay and I also put gold and silver leaf between layers of translucent clay.  Haven't decided what type of necklace or chain I'm going to put on it yet.

This is a Natasha bead made with leftover clay.  All sides of it look very Southwestern and very native American.  The colors are turquoise, gold, white, ecru and copper.  The wire wrapping really brought it to life.  I think I'll do a turquoise necklace for it.

OK, THIS IS THE LAST PICTURE FOR TODAY.  HAD TO PUT A BOOBOO PICTURE IN THERE.  NOW YOU KNOW WHY I LAUGH AT HIM SO MUCH.  HE DOES THIS EVERY TIME I STICK THE CAMERA IN HIS FACE.