BUTTONS AND BIRD HOUSES

You are reading the blog of the woman who spent a week rolling beads in a bead roller and didn't own any molds or sculpting tools.  Who was that crazy lady?  I bet I have every sculpting tool (thanks to Christi Friesen) and 100 molds (thanks to Penny Jo Couch, I love her molds).   I digress, I am now making buttons for a friend of mine.  Her daughter makes beautiful quilted bags and puts my buttons on them.  I've made some button molds from some rather interesting old buttons and using sculpting tools to make bird houses.  You can see my bird houses in some previous blogs.  Well, I just got an order for more buttons and I worked all weekend on them.  I'm seeing buttons in my sleep.

 These are something different for me.  I used the cane I made and put it in one of Penny Jo Couch's cabochon molds.  Did each one a little different.  I made a button shank out of 18 gauge copper wire and put it in with liquid clay before I baked it.  I really like these.

These were made with a mold that I made from an old button and Simple Silicone from JewelryEpoxy.com.  It's a two part silicone and really easy to us.  Their website has a video showing how to use it.  These were made with gold clay and gold Pearlex Powders.

This is the same mold with different Pearlex Powders.

These are made from translucents with color added and the extruder.  They almost look like Bakelite.

These were done with a button that I made a mold out of polymer clay with.  I have to spray it with Armour All every time I make something in order for it to come out easy.

These are hearts that I textured and used Pearlex on and then sanded to make them look vintage.

These are a little chunkier heart buttons with Swarovski flat back crystals.  I'll have to start making buttons to keep them on hand so I don't have to rush to make them when she needs them.

CORAL, CORAL, CORAL

A friend of mine went to Quartsite a while back and bought some strands of coral beads.  We finally got together so she could tell me what she wanted done with them.  Some of the beads were unusable which surprised me.  They had black spots and severe cuts and gouges on them.

I went through them to pick out the good ones and had enough to make two necklaces, earrings and a bracelet.  I added some silver to it.  The necklaces can be worn together or separately.

It really looked good on her with the shirt she had on Friday night.  See, it's been a busy weekend.

Dear Booboo, it's been three weeks since you went to Rainbow Bridge.  I think of you everyday, you were the light of my life.  Hope you have lots of bags to get into and lots of yarn to play with.