WELL BEHAVED WOMEN RARELY MAKE HISTORY

That is one of my favorite sayings.  I thought I would share it with you so you have an excuse to not behave.

Unfortunately, I've been too well behaved lately.  I've been working on my items for the craft fair and making snow people.  I should be out golfing and bowling and riding my bike but a lower back problem has been holding me back from doing all those things.  Hope to see a back doctor this week so I can get out of the studio and do something fun.  The weather here is Arizona is getting beautiful now.  I feel bad for the people on the east coast with all that snow.  I remember driving to work in snow and seeing cars sliding all over the road and in ditches.  I swore when I retired I never wanted to see snow again.  That's why we are in Arizona.  No more snow for me.  I do miss it on Christmas day though.  OK, enough of the boring stuff.

I finished two more snow people today.  I'm still obsessed with these things.

This is Susie Snowflake.  She has long blond hair and wears too much makeup on her wrinkled face.  She reminds me of that country western song "I like my women a little on the sleazy side".

I'm having camera problems again so bear with me.

This is Michael Mistletoe.  As you can see by all the little hearts, he's a sweetheart.  He's got a little steampunk thing going on.


Tomorow would have been Booboo's 20th birthday.  I was thinking about doing a whole blog on him from the time he was little until the day he passed but I might just celebrate his birthday quietly and think about all the great times we had together and all the entertainment he gave us while he was here.

RIP my dear friend and Happy Birthday to a very special guy.  We love you.



ANOTHER OBSESSION AND IT NEVER ENDS

As my snowman and snow girl obsession continues to grow, I'm getting very little else done.  I did finish another necklace for the craft fair and I only 5 days left until I have to turn everything in.  These snow people are now getting names.  I think I need group therapy for this obsession.  Is there a polymer clay snow people group out there?  I'll bring the wine and the whine.

This is Happy Harry.  He's hanging from a woman's neck and that's why he's happy.  You can click on the picture to see him up close.

This is Sideways Sam.  He has a leaf on his head and a few berries.  The leaf looks a toupe that didn't quite sit straight when he was in a hurry to get dressed this morning.

This is Jingle John.  His ornaments match his scarf and mittens.

My sister thinks I should make a Mr. and Mrs. Snowman for everyone in the family.  If I start now, I could be done by Christmas 2012.

HALLOWEEN CLOWN GIVE AWAY

This beautiful clown necklace is being given away by Angie of Hopemore who does beautiful work.  I love this necklace.  Please visit her blog and leave a comment to have a chance to win it.  But don't get your hopes up too much.  IT'S MINE.

CINDY CREATED A MONSTER

I'm suppose to be working on my stuff for the craft fair.  I'm running out of time and I have a ton of pieces to finish.

Last Friday, Cindy Lietz  http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/did a tutorial on snowmen.  They were adorable but I live in Arizona and I don't think about snowmen or snow women.  Well, all day Friday and Saturday I started thinking about making snowmen.  I wanted new ornaments for my tree so I thought this would be fun and I could make a bunch.  I'm really not into cutesy but this was really bugging me.  Saturday afternoon I put all my other stuff away, watched the video again started making snow people.

I wanted them to have arms and mittens.  I showed them to my husband and he asked how you tell the boy from the girl.  Well Duh.....she's wearing a tiara and earmuffs to keep her dainty little ears warm.

I now have 3 more ready for the oven.  I'm obsessed, thanks Cindy.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, the weather outside is frightful (85) degrees but the polymer is so delightful and if you've no place to go, too bad.

ELEVEN DAYS AND COUNTING - STILL NOT CHRISTMAS

My studio/office has finally hit "DISASTER AREA" status.  Normally my 8 foot table is clean because I do beading on one side and polymer clay on the other.  I have 25 plastic, divided cases that I keep my big beads in and a 6 drawer cabinet that has my seed beads in.  Since I've been working furiously to get things done for the craft fair, I am now in total chaos.

I normally wouldn't show this picture but I thought my BFF's could use a laugh.  They usually rave about how clean and organized I am when they come over.  Wait till they see this.  I have a great rolling chair so I just roll back and forth to where ever I need to work.  I also have a CD player on this table.  I listen to books while I'm working.  Our library needs some new books.  I think I've heard them all.  I just can't remember which ones I've listened to and sometimes I bring the same ones home.


At least I finished two more pieces today.

This is a crystal, glass heart that I didn't know what I was going to do with.  I've had it a long time and it was on a cheap rope.  The heart is really beautiful.  I like it with the turquoise and silver, hope it sells.

The large bead is polymer clay that I did in the ribbon weave pattern.  The gold and black beads are vintage pieces.  A friend gave me her aunts jewelry after her aunt passed and there was a lovely necklace that I took apart and used on some other pieces.  These are two of the beads from the necklace.  Can't decide if I want to leave it this way or add another chain from the middle of the top to the two side chains.  What do you think?  The top seems kind of lonely.

I knew this fair was coming 3 months ago.  What was I thinking?

TWELVE DAYS AND COUNTING - NO NOT CHRISTMAS

In 12 days I have to turn my items in that I want to sell in the craft fair that our city is having.  I belong to the Beading club here and we are going to have a huge booth and each member is allowed to turn in 20 items and 10 pairs of earrings to sell.  Since I do polymer clay, I want everything I turn in to have some polymer on it.  I'm making earrings but without the polymer.  I finished 4 pieces so far for the craft fair and I only have 12 days to go.  My muse is back but I think she's having hot flashes.

I finished this one today.  It's kind of eclectic.  Lots of beads and silver stuff.  The necklace is two pieces of Kumihimo with size 6 black beads and clear drops.  The swirl bead is quite large.  Haven't decided what price I want to put on it yet.  We have to pay the city and the beading club takes a small amount to support some of our projects and the seller has to pay the taxes.  So by the time they are finished taking their share, I'm not left with much.

This is one of my favorite pieces and I was going to keep it for myself but I decided to sell it.  I'll just have to make another one.

BARBARA MAGUIRE CLASS

I'm really excited, I'm going to a 2 day face cane class with Barbara Maguire.  Our guild is sponsoring it.  I've never done a face cane before so this should be interesting and I love Barbara Maguire.  I have all her books and her most of her products.  One of the ladies in our guild set the class up and did a great job.  It will be held close to us this time so we don't have to drive to the other side of Phoenix.  I'm not good at faces or sculpting so if it doesn't look bad when I'm done, I'll post pictures of it.

CALL 911, SOMEONE STOLE MY MUSE

The Sun City West craft fair is November 5th and I'm trying to get pieces done to put in the craft fair but someone stole my muse about a week ago.  When I talked to my BFF's they said the same thing happened to them.  I think it started when someone sneaked in and spiked my oven and burned all my pieces.  I've been looking at pictures on the computer and in magazines to see if my muse would come back.  Yesterday I got a migraine so I took my pill and laid down before I fell down (pretty strong stuff).  While I was laying down I had all these awesome ideas about putting pieces together, and then I fell asleep.  When I woke up, they were gone again.  How and why does that happen?  Today I decided I would only touch one piece and not touch anything else until I had a finished piece.

This is a pendant I made when we were up in Prescott at our clay retreat.  It has chain and green ribbon cord.  This is one of my favorite cats.  He seems very arrogant but stately.  I double wrapped the neck piece just to take a picture of the clasp.  A friend wanted to see how I finished it.

You can click on the pictures to see them closer.  The colors in this one are really pretty.  I made the necklace out of Kumihimo with size 8 seed beads and also used those for the bail.  I really like this one so if it doesn't sell it will be mine. LOL

So, now I have three pieces done and 27 to go.  I need some elves to help me.

The chiropractor will be back Monday and that's the last vacation he's ever going on.  Maybe after he twists me around and gets my back straight my muse will show up again.  Where do you look for a missing muse???????  Call 911

WHAT A WONDERFUL SURPRISE

Today is our 30th anniversary of being married and our anniversary of moving to Arizona and moving in our house.  I put a note on facebook about how we thought Booboo (the cat) got out of the house on October 8, 2002 when the moving men were going in and out.  We searched frantically for that little cat.  After the moving men left I heard a noise in the kitchen and found him trying to open the cupboard door to get out.  I can't imagine how he got in.  He must have gone up there to hide from all the commotion.  Boo would have been 20 years old this Halloween and since most of my life was spent talking and playing with that cat, I'm sure I mentioned it at least 100 times or more. LOL

Today when the mail came there was a package in it from Anita Brandon, a very talented polymer clay artist, who lives in Cottonwood, AZ which is about 2 hours from here.  We have never met but we have been emailing each other for a couple of years now.  When I opened the package I was speechless.  The note on the inside read "Bonnie, in memory of Booboo your sweet Halloween fur person".  Then the tears started.

Anita made me a special cat in memory of Booboo.

Isn't he the cutest and most beautiful cat you've ever seen?  I told Anita, Booboo wasn't an angel until the day he died.  My friends called him "The Devil Cat".  He would let them pet him and then try to eat their fingers.

Anita has a wonderful line of Christmas cats in her Artfire store right now at
 http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/MelodyODesigns.  Her cats are so cute and if you have friends who are cat lovers, they have to have one of these to hang on the tree.

Anita, thank you again for the Angel Cat.  I will treasure him forever.

BASKET WEAVE WITH POLYMER CLAY

Last week I did a demo at our clay retreat in Prescott.  I thought it was called a basket weave but it was actually called Woven Ribbon.  It came from the winter of 2003 Polymer Cafe.  Not only was it fun, it was a big hit.  Everybody was doing it.  The Lumiere paints really add dimension to the clay.  I sold all the pendants I made even before they were cooked.  I had an order for two more so I made some today and a strange thing happened.  They stuck to the paper and three of them didn't feel like they were cooked hard enough.

This is after the first baking.  They look normal except for the paper on the bottom.  I decided to put them back in the oven (convection oven).  I turned the heat up to what I thought was 265 for Premo.  I had baked them on 250 for an hour.

After 15 minutes I smelled the burning.  The card stock is brown, the pendants blew up and got puffy and don't come off the card stock.  The black bottom layer of clay looks and smells like tar.  This was 2 packages of brand new black Premo that I bought at Michael's yesterday.  Never had this happen at the retreat or when I did it before.  This technique takes a lot of time to do.  I feel like I just wasted a whole afternoon.  Glad I didn't have the oven in the garage again.  I'm wondering if the Lumiere paints can't take the higher heat.  I know at the retreat we had them set at 265.  I just put the thermometer back in the oven and set the stat on 200.  In 5 minutes it read 475.  This is a GE convection oven that I've had for less than 6 months.  I bought it at Wal-Mart and didn't keep the receipt.  After 3 months I don't normally keep them because of all the paper that piles up.  I'm going to send GE an email and see what they say.
Watch your ovens.  Preheat them and check the temps.  We did have a lot of items get burned up at camp but mine weren't among them so I thought I was lucky.  We did have 6 ovens going at one time and the electric couldn't handle it.  As soon as the electric came on the ovens spiked again and what ever was in them burned.  Too much hard work not to be careful.

Here's my laugh for the day though.

PEONY CANE - WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG?

Had 5 wonderful days in Prescott with my BFF's at the Arizona Polymer Clay Guild's annual retreat.  Before I left, I printed out a copy of the directions to make a peony cane.  Judy, my table partner, also printed out those directions so you can imagine our surprise when we both said we were going to make a peony cane.  We started at the same time but I was done with mine in a little over an hour and Judy was still working on hers 6 hours later.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was taking her so long.  Well, I was missing 3 pages in my directions.  There were suppose to be 15 pieces of cane that you put together but no not me, I had 6 pieces so my peony was a little less dramatic.

                                             Love the colors and I'm sure it will make pretty beads.

This is what the real peony cane should look like and the directions are here http://www.catherienarts.com/en/the-peony-cane/.  Thanks Cat, sorry I screwed it up.

What do you call half  of a peony?  Tee hee hee.