YEAH, IT'S TIME TO LEAVE FOR CLAY CAMP

I'm so excited.  Today is the day we leave for our Arizona Polymer Clay Guild 4 day camp excursion.  My friend Judy and I are going up a day early.  Camp starts tomorrow about 10 and ends Sunday at noon.  There will be 25 of us up there doing nothing but polymer clay for 3 days.  I started packing Sunday afternoon and have been packing ever since.  I took a ton of stuff last year and this year I have twice as much stuff and I don't know why.  I will be teaching a few people how to do herringbone beading and wire wrapping so I had to take all my wire wrapping tools and wire and my beading stuff?????????????  I have 3 scrapbook boxes full of clay, my rock tumbler, 2 ovens, buffer, 500 cutters, 400 tools, 20 clay books, inks, paint, stamps and everything but the cat.  He tried getting in one of the bags and changed his mind.  I hope Judy's car has enough room because this is CRAZY.

The little duffle in the front are my clothes for 4 days.  Hopefully I'll have a lot of great pictures to post when I get back.

WHERE'S THE CHOCOLATE?

A DAY AT THE BEACH WITH MY BEADS

Yesterday I was looking for some clay to condition for our clay guild meeting this weekend and I found a package of colored sand that had never been opened.  SURPRISE.  I look for one thing and find others and never find the things I'm looking for and Evelyn isn't here for me to blame.  LOL.

I found the sand and I found a pile of translucent clay and decided I would dust and iron some other time.

I have about 8 colors of this Scenic Sand and it says it's color safe and doesn't bleed and yadda, yadda, yadda.  They didn't lie.  I made little piles of sand filled translucent clay, I spilled some of the red sand in Booboo's bed so I had to stop and clean that up.  I made some beads, baked them, put them in the tumbler for 4 hours and buffed each and every one of those little suckers.  Here is what I made and I have to say, I think this would be perfect for a day at the beach in Jupiter, Florida.

The beads on the earrings don't match but most days I don't even know if I'm wearing shoes that match so this works for me.

CINDY LIETZ NECKLACE

Cindy Lietz http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/ does wonderful tutorials every week.  I had some clay leftover so I incorporated two of her tutorials.  One is the Leopard Cane and the other one is The Rocker Bead.  Please go to Cindy's website and join all of us Cindy followers so you can see the amazing videos that she does every Friday.  The cost is really minimal and whether you are an experienced clayer or a newbie, her tutorials will teach you the art of polymer clay.  There is no where else on the web that you can get this amount of information and be able to see someone actually do these things.  She is the inspiration for the necklace I made tonight.

I have more of the Leopard Cane beads in the rock tumbler that I will be buffing and trying to decide what to do with them.   I love these beads, they are so unique and I can't wait to try the Leopard Cane with different colors.

Thanks for visiting.  Time to take the cat and go to bed.  Big day at the Arizona Clay Guild tomorrow.  Next week is 4 days of claying in Prescott.  Besides spending time with one of my favorite friends Judy, 24 other clayers will be there.  This year we have a man so we all have to be on our best behavior.  Wonder if he understands "HOT FLASHES"?

CHOCOLATE WHAT CHOCOLATE

I AM A CHOCOHOLIC AND ALL MY FRIENDS KNOW IT.

My friend Evelyn bought me this shirt the other day and said "It's Perfect".  Yes it is.  I have a cat who loves to eat and I love chocolate and here's the perfect shirt.

SPEAKING OF CAT

I got my new camera last week and I absolutely love it.  When I was trying to learn how to use it I told Booboo he needed to pose for me so I could take his picture.  He walked over, looked up and smiled until I snapped the picture but at least he still sat there.

Now you know why I get all these cat gifts.

Did you notice the writing on the pictures?  My friend Lupe told me about Picasa which is a free download from google that you can use to fix your pictures.  You can crop, add light, write on them, put a watermark on them and do all kinds of fun stuff.  I love it.  Thank's Lupe.  Now I can quit moaning about my camera and pictures.

NDEBELE (HERRINGBONE) STITCH

I love doing Ndebele ropes to go with my polymer clay focal beads.  I normally do a 4 bead rope which goes pretty fast.  I've done them with Delica beads and size 11 seed beads.  My favorite herringbone is the twisted herringbone.  I found a swirly lentil bead that I had done with some left over clay and wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.  Last night I finished it and today put the toggle on it.  I love these toggles.  If they accidentally slide to the front, it doesn't matter because they are so decorative.  I'm thinking about giving this away on my blog but haven't decided yet.  Let me know if you would like this.

I showed it to my husband and he said I should have put some copper or brown beads in it too so it would match the pendant.  He's the guy who can't match shirt and pants most days.  Guess I better check with him next time to make sure the colors are good.  LOL.

That's it for today folks.  I'm off to beading club and then coming home to do clay.  Next week my clay guild is going up to Prescott, AZ for 4 days to do clay.  We are staying at a camp that is suppose to have wonderful food and CHOCOLATE.  Sounds like another 5 pounds to me but at least I'll learn a lot of new things, get to laugh for 4 days and spend time with a lot of wonderfully talented people.

NO MORE LIPSTICK BEFORE DINNER

My husband took me out for an elegant dinner on my birthday and I noticed the lady at the next table putting lipstick on after she ate dinner.  Then she took a drink of water and there was lipstick all over the glass.  Then she took out a Kleenex from her purse and wiped the lipstick off the glass.  Now I'm holding the arms of the chair to keep me in it.  I just don't get it.

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a glass or cup that had lipstick on it because the new lipsticks have so much wax and chemicals they don't come off the glasses in the dishwasher.  I hardly ever wear lipstick and if I do, I don't put it on before I eat (but I eat or drink all the time).  It would be a waste.  I'm begging you ladies, please don't put lipstick on before or during a meal especially in a restaurant.  OK, now I feel better.  Had to complain about something today.

NEW CAMERA

I'm so excited, you know I've been complaining about my camera and I can't get good macro pictures.  Well, I showed the camera to hubby because he swore it was operator error (me?????).  Anyway, he couldn't get it to do a real close-up macro either.  So now I'm getting a new camera.  They had a special going on at Home Shopping Club for a Fuji S2500 that takes 12 mega pixel pictures.  You know he's going to make me read the whole manual don't you?  This means there will be more pictures on my blog and in my Etsy store.  Hope those nasty people that have been stealing blogs quit pretty soon.  I won't even mention their name or blog here because I don't want people going there.  They did take one of mine and a bunch of Tina Holden's and a few others from other polymer clay people that I know.

NEW CROSSES AND OTHER STUFF

My friend Bev asked me to make her a cross with black and gold clay.  I decided to use a tutorial from Barbara McGuire to make the clay.  It's her Mokume Gane tutorial.  Wasn't sure how it would work with the crosses but they came out beautiful.  I made one for Bev and did a herringbone chain with size 11 black seed beads to go on it.  I gave it to her today and she loved it.

I find it's really hard to get a good picture of an item that has Magic Glos on it.  Hopefully the new camera will take care of that.

I'll post the pictures of the other ones as soon as my new camera gets here.  CAN YOU TELL I'M EXCITED?  Watch out everyone, you are going to be on Bonnie's Candid Camera.

This was another cross that I did that has more of Celtic flavor to it.  I put beads on the bottom and strung it on ribbon.

This is a pendant done with Mica Shift, sanded and buffed and then I put Magic Glos on it.  I mentioned before that I purchased a Mica Shift tutorial from Lynda Moseley (SC Diva) and this is one of the pendants that I did. I love the technique, much easier than the carving one.  The necklace is a 4 bead herringbone made with size 11 seed beads and gold hex beads.  By now you must know how much I love herringbone necklaces.  I can listen to my books on audio and whip the necklaces out without having to think too much.  I think they add class to a pendant and if you have never done one, try it.  I do the twist because I like the way it looks.

Wanted to show you the book that my friend Judy made out of polymer clay.  The front cover is the bottom picture.  When you open it up (top picture) she put magnets in it to carry her clay blades.  It's really slick.  The back was really pretty too and I forgot to take a picture of it.

Back to my latest Lisa Gardner book, it's really good.  It's called "The Neighbor".  The library is running out of books on CD for me.  I think I've heard all the good mystery's.  If you know of a good one let me know.  I've done all the Stuart Woods, Lisa Scottline, Harlen Coban, James Patterson and Lisa Gardner books.  I love to bead and do clay and listen to books.  Try it, you'll like it.