TIPS AND TRICKS - WHAT IS BURGUNDY - BYE BYE BIRDIE

As you know, I belong to the Arizona Polymer Clay Guild.  At every meeting someone does a demo.  This past Saturday one of our ladies showed how to convert a caulking gun into an extruder if you have that little silver extruder.  I was never able to use that.  I was so happy when the new green Makins one came out.  A couple weeks ago I was reading through some blogs and came across Knightwork's. She said she took some canes she had made and put them in the extruder to see what would happen.  She put in a big bullseye and out came a perfect little bullseye.  I tried it with some canes that I had made and sure enough, it worked.  So Saturday I did a demo on reducing canes in the extruder.  Being that I can't leave well enough alone, I played around and came up with something very interesting.  When you make a cane and reduce it in the extruder, the outer color of the cane stretches and the outer color starts disappearing.  So, I took some cane pieces, added an inch or half inch of a solid color on the front (the part closest to the disc opening).  It worked great.  The entire cane got covered with the clay.  Here's some pictures.

This is the original flower cane that I made.

The middle cane was done in the extruder using the largest square disc.  The cane on the right was done with the same disc but I put a half an inch of gold clay on the front of the cane.  I could have used black but for demo purposes I wanted to use another color.  As the end of the cane came out of the extruder I got something really awesome.

The cane did a twist at the end.  If you take your cane and twist it slightly before you put it in the extruder, you will get the twist also.  I did a spliced cane and ran it through the tiny circle disc and it came out perfect but really small which is great.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

WHAT IS BURGUNDY

This looks like burgundy.  My 96 year old friend wanted silver and burgundy earrings.

I went to the bead store by me and 4 people gave me beads they said were burgundy and not one was close to what the other one gave me.  I make earrings for my friend for every blouse she has.  She's in a nursing home but she dresses to the nines (I never understood what that meant) every day.  She also has a better memory than I do and has two martinis every night before dinner.  I'm rambling.  I bought some beads and made two pair of earrings but neither one looks burgundy to me.  I'll send them to her and see what she says.

The top ones look black in the picture but they are a little brownish-red.  I guess I'll be on the lookout for burgundy.  I only know the kind that comes in the bottle.

BYE-BYE BIRDIE

I remember that movie.  Ann Margaret was pretty good looking then, I guess we all have to get older.

I sold 5 of my baby bird houses today.  YEAH.  It's amazing how many people want to give you ideas about how to make things like that even after you've put 3 hours in each little bird house.  Teeheehee  OK, I'm listening.  Where's that burgundy????

Good night Booboo.  It's really quiet here without you. Big HUG.