INK STAMPING ON POLYMER CLAY AND GLOW IN THE DARK BEADS BY CINDY LIETZ

I decided to do a little claying around by mixing some different clays together and trying some new techniques and using some of the things I have in my studio that I don't use very often.  Every Friday Cindy Lietz - The Polymer Clay Tutor, www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/ sends out something new and interesting to people who belong to her website.  Last week she did a glow in the dark cane with alcohol inks and it looked interesting so I thought I would try it.  I put glow in the dark clay in my outlying black clay and I think it looks muddy so next time I'll just use straight black or another color but this is what I ended up with.

They both glow in the dark which is really cool. Thanks Cindy, that was fun.

THE NEXT CLAYING AROUND ADVENTURE

My next adventure was making pendants using texture sheets and different kinds of clay.  When they came out of the oven they were kind of boring.

I got out some Color Box stamp pads that I had.  One was called "Treasure"

I applied the the ink right from the stamp pad to the clay pieces and this is what I got.  I thought they looked lovely.  Well, I let them sit for 2 hours and the ink wouldn't dry so I hit them with a heat gun, would not dry, put them back in the oven for 30 minutes would not dry.  Let them sit out all night, would not dry.  So I wiped them off with a paper towel and this is what I got:

They looked like they had been antiqued with gold paint but the one on the bottom right I used green Stazon Ink to highlight it and the ink dried immediately.

This piece was made from a cane that I didn't like because the colors seemed to blend into each other so I made some leaves from one of those leaf cutters that punches the veins into it.  After it was baked, I put the green Stazon ink on the leaves and they dried immediately.  I don't get it.

I sent an email to the company that makes Color Box and they told me to go to Polymer Clay Express even though I didn't buy the stamp pads there.  The lady there was really nice but said they never had a problem with the Color Box inks not drying.  She also told me about some she uses called Brillance.  They are Japanese and they sell them at Polymer Clay Express so I bought some to see how they work.

ANOTHER TEST GONE BAD  "EXPLOSION"

I tried stamping this piece also but it ended up being antiqued with the inks.  I left little openings in it and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them.  I decided to get out my "no hole" beads.  There are at least 100,000 all over the floor in my studio right now.  Anyway, I put a few in the holes and put some Magic Glos over them and ran the little tile outside in the sun and forgot about it.  Next thing I know, it's raining outside.  That happens here in Arizona, one minute the sun is out and the next minute it's raining.  So this little piece has two layers of gloss and beads and some rain trapped in there somewhere.

WISH WE STILL WORE HATS

This is a piece of pearl clay that I did a transfer on from a picture I took from a CD that I bought from Luna Girl.  I haven't done a lot of transfers but I just took the Tory Hughes class and we did that in her class so I wanted to give it a try.  Didn't quite like the plain old color on it so I added some "Stream" Alcohol inks to the picture.  My pointing finger on my right hand is now bluish.  I'll keep trying this but do it different ways.  Some people bake them on, some people use special paper and others use nail polish remover.  I'll let you know when I find a good way.  I know a couple people in the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy do a lot of transfer type things but I'm not really sure which ones they do.  I'm just playing with clay.

NEW GRANDMA

This is my good friend Evelyn that I talk about a lot.  She's going to be a grandma for the first time in September so I wanted to be the first one to make her a baby blanket.  This will be one of many since I have a whole house full of yarn.  Evelyn does clay and she does beautiful work.  She's the green, brown, gold girl in our group.  She also is in the beginning of Macular Degeneration and her eyes are getting really bad but she still plods along with the clay and making jewelry AND she's a lot of fun.  We love her because she makes great deserts.

Well, back to the claying around and see how many more weird things I can do tonight.