OH WHAT A MESS, NO MORE RAIN, PLEASE!!!!!!!

Well, I mentioned that it rained in my studio two weeks ago.  Little did I know that the little bucket full of water that I collected was going to cause such a big problem.  Over the weekend I took a Tory Hughes class which really inspired me to come home and go outside and get dirt and THINGS and put them in my polymer clay.  It also made me want to come home and HINGE everything in my studio.  When I got home Sunday night I had to start moving everything out of my studio and put it in the dining room and the hallway.  Some is in the garage and some is in places where I don't remember that I put it so it will be a surprise when I find it.  Anyway, I took a couple pictures of my dining room and hallway so you can see how bad it is.  Even the cat's confused.

As you can see, I have a lot of STUFF as my husband would say.

I decided I was going to do clay at my little table in the dining room anyway.  I wanted to do some Art from the Heart and make something different than I normally do.  I made some pieces that I can hinge or not.  I can also wire wrap them or leave them as separate pieces.  I haven't decided yet.  I've also been making buttons again for our guilds button exchange.  I made some yesterday and baked them at too high a temperature and they came out looking like little pieces of chocolate.  I forgot to check the temperature on the oven and got company while I was baking.  I may antique them with white paint.  That should work.

Here are a couple pieces that I did.  One I'm going to call "Here's looking at you"  I love this lady's face.

This is the entire set of pieces that I did today.  I don't have an area to take good pictures so these are the best I could do under the circumstances.

When we took the Tory class we had to put the holes in the pieces after they were baked and one of the girls had a teeny-tiny drill bit that worked great.  I found some in my Dremel stash today but didn't have the collette to fit them in the Dremel so I made my own little polymer clay handles.  They work great.  They look big in the picture but they are only about 1-1/2 inches long.

Prior to doing polymer clay I spent most of my time engraving glass (not etching).  I do hand engraving with an electric tool and diamond burrs.  I engraved vases, mirrors, wine glasses (even did pickle jars).  The vase below took me 3 nights of continuous work.  When engraving glass, I usually highlight the engraved area with Rub n Buff.  It's amazing how long that stays on the engraved area.  I haven't done much engraving since I started polymer clay but as soon as my studio gets back together I'm going to start again.  It's an art that is not very well known.  I did 40 vases with roses on them for a friend who's daughter was making her Quinceanera.  Her name was Rose.  I never wanted to see another rose but this is one of my favorites.

Now that one of my best friends name is Rose and she is a sweet heart, I'll get back into doing Roses again, nothing is more beautiful than a Rose in bloom.