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.