AMAZING KAY SMITH AND MOKUME GANE

Today the amazing Kay Smith (beading teacher at A2Z Beads in Glendale, AZ) came over for a polymer clay class and she brought all her beautiful beading items that she has made.  She's won many awards at the state fair for her bead work and I wish my pictures did them justice.  Check out her Etsy shop at
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SunofaBead/.  You can contact Kay there for special orders but here are some of the gorgeous items I got to touch today.

They needed touching, they are so awesome.  Rose, Evelyn and Judy came over today to meet Kay and see her beadwork.  There were a lot of ooh's and aah's.

POLYMER CLAY TODAY YEAH!!!!

We did a lot of polymer clay today and Kay had taken a class a few years ago from THEE JUDITH SKINNER, Inventor of the Skinner Blend.  Kay had a cane she had made in the class and she gave me a piece which I was thrilled about and we took a couple pieces off the ends and I taught Kay how to make a swirly lentil bead.

This is the cane she made in the Judith Skinner class.

This is the swirly lentil bead we made with the Judith Skinner cane.  It hasn't been baked, sanded or buffed yet but I'm guessing it will be beautiful.

MOKUME GANE

This is one of my favorite techniques.  It's a technique where you layer and manipulate the clay.  There are many different ways of doing it and I've taken a class from Julie Picarello and she does beautiful Mokume Gane and has a little twist of her own, I've got Donna Kato's DVD where she does it and Lisa Pavelka's DVD where she does it and they are all different.  Every polymer clay book I have shows how to do Mokume Gane and they are all different.  Well, today I got my Barbara Maguire DVD in the mail showing how to do Mokume Gane her way and I love it.  She was out here last year and taught a class but I wasn't here to take it so I was very happy to find out she had this DVD out.  Even after doing clay all day I decided to give it a try.

Can't wait to bake, sand and buff these.  Looks like a new pendant and earring set to me.

Still have some pieces left that I'll play with when I'm not so tired.