HERE'S MY HEARTS

I'm sure you all saw the articles about Dr. Ron Lehocky in the Polymer Cafe magazine this month.

He was also featured on Polymer Clay Daily.  Dr. Lehocky makes the most beautiful hearts that he sells to support the continuing education for the therapists that support "The Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies".

I contacted Ron about getting some of his hearts and to find out where I could send some polymer clay canes for him to use on his hearts.

I went through all my canes and filled a box full for him.  I also had a big container full of pin backs so I threw a bunch of those in too.  I had canes from a Jana Roberts Benson class I took and one from a Sarah Shriver class I took.  I love making flower canes so I sent him one that I made that I really liked.

When I got my hearts from him, he made one with this cane.  Hard to believe they are the same one.

If you click on the picture you see them up close.  The heart on the top right was made with the cane in the above picture.  He explains how to make that in his article in Polymer Cafe.  The blue one is also from the box of canes I sent him.  I was going to give them as gifts but I think I'm keeping them all for me.  LOL  Aren't they beautiful.  You can go to this website to get more information about kids and the organization http://kidscenterky.org/ .

POOR BUSTER

My baby kitten had to have surgery.  Last Friday they took 20 jagged stones out of his bladder and urethra.  He's not feeling good.  It breaks my heart to see him like this.  His bladder is very swollen and he's hurting.  Say a little prayer for him, he's my best buddy.

Hope you all have a very Happy New Year.

THRILL AND SURPRISE

The mail brought an unexpected surprise this week.  The winter 2014 Polymer Arts Magazine had a picture of one of my pendants in it.

I really like this magazine, it interviews and covers articles and artists from around the world.
This month Julie Cleveland of Blue Morning Expressions wrote an article called "FRAME IT!".  She discusses bezels, frames and cookie cutters to use for frames for polymer clay.  She asked if she could use a picture of mine from a polymer clay pendant that I beaded around.

This is one of my favorite pendants and necklaces.  I haven't done any of this in a while, I guess it's time to start beading again.

This is the entire piece.  I love doing Herringbone for the necklace part, it goes fast and is easy to finish.

Thank you Julie, I really love your articles and the Polymer Arts Magazine.

NO SENSE OF HUMOR

After I made the 3 foot eye cane, I had some end pieces from the cane so I made a pendant and put some steampunk watch parts on it.

I covered it with resin.  When it was finished, I took it into my husband in his office and showed it to him.  I said "do you know what this is" he said "it's a big eye with steampunk parts on it".  I said "no, it's watch parts so it's "EYE-m WATCH-ing YOU".  He said "please get out of my office".

I got a new camera and it has an app for taking pictures of animals so I thought I would try taking a picture of Buster.

 I usually use Picasa to fix my pictures but when I downloaded this I thought it was pretty good without fixing.  I took a movie of him when the aliens were here invading his head but it was too long to upload.  One permanent feature in the hallway of my house is my vacuum cleaner.  I have never had a cat that spread so much cat litter.  Got any ideas, let me know.

I'M WATCHING YOU AGAIN

I asked everyone who took the face cane class if they still had the instructions to just make the eye.  I can't find mine and neither can the 5 people that I asked.  So, I thought I would look at the pictures from the class and see if I could recreate what we did.  I tend to take a lot of pictures when we have classes or demos.  Now I know why.  So, I got out my clay, AND;

now I have 3 feet of cane because this one will get reduced down to about a 1/4 of an inch in order to use it on my pens.  I wish the eyelashes would have been thicker but I found out that you can use a Sharpie marker to darken and lengthen them and it doesn't come off after it's baked and sanded.  I tried it with one pen and it worked great.

The one on the left is a Kumihimo pen, the two in the middle were made with left over eye and mouth cane.  The second one from the right which is my favorite was made from pieces of a braided cane that I made and the one on the right is from a silver, white and translucent Mokume Gane.  I get these magnets from Stateside Bead Supply.  They are so strong the refrigerator comes out when you pull on it.  I love them for bracelets but  I found they pick up the silverware if you have one on while you are eating.

Had to put pictures of Buster in too.  He runs through the tube and then pushes the ball around.  He cracks me up.  However, he was doing this at 3 in the morning so I had to get up and turn the ball thing over.

Have a great Thanksgiving and don't forget to turn your scales back 10 pounds.

I'M KEEPING AN EYE ON YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

A couple years ago our guild sponsored a class with Barbara Maguire and we spent two days learning how to make a face cane.

That was one of the most intense classes I've ever taken but when it was over, I had 8 inches of face cane.  Not sure what to do with it, I made a couple pendants.

On this one I used some Stroppel can that I had made.

This is the second one I made and called it "Please don't leaf me".  Nice eyebrows huh?

I made this necklace and earrings and put this in our craft fair and a young girl bought it first thing.

While we were doing the face cane each part of the face had to be done separately, my biggest problem was the mouth.  The eyes are a little wonky but I think every ones eyes are a little wonky.

I ended up having eye canes and mouth canes left after putting the face together.  I was organizing my canes the other day and came across these two canes and a big piece of the face cane.  Hard as I tried, I couldn't get them to reduce very well.

I had an order for my magnetic, refrigerator pens. A lady in Tempe wants to sell them in her boutique and I showed her the ones I made a couple weeks ago and she went crazy over them.  Bought 5 right on the spot.  I was making the pens and saw the face cane parts sitting there, just couldn't leave it alone.

She asked me to make more of these but I couldn't find my directions on how to make an eye cane.  I asked 5 other people and they can't find their's either.  Good thing I take pictures.  I found the step by step details when we were making the canes in my clay class pictures.  If you click on the picture you can see them closer.  The one on the top right was taken from a whole piece of face cane that I cut the eyes out of.  It's funny, I hung one on the refrigerator and it really looks like it's following you around the kitchen.  Well, maybe the wine had something to do with it.

HOW MANY BEADS DO I NEED?

Not too long ago I taught myself how to do "netting" with beads.  I ordered 1,000,000 little black beads because I was tired and didn't quit hitting the "0".  I decided to make a necklace not knowing what I was getting into.

About half way through, I asked myself why am I doing this because my eyes were burning and the cat was trying to get thread away from me.  I think I used a 300 foot spool of Fireline.  I'm not sure but I think there are at least 2000 beads on it.  I originally put a piece of wire through it and put beads on the ends with a lobster claw.  I finished it, put it away and forgot about it.  I found it the other day when I was looking for something else and decided I wanted a different end on it.  I like this a lot better.  I took the wire out and it hangs softer and lays better.  I made a pair of earrings to match but then realized I don't have a tee shirt that goes with this.  I brought it to a vendor fair to show my friend who was cooking there and a lady came up and was admiring it.  She asked how much I wanted for the set and I said $60.  She told me that wasn't enough.  I put it away but was wondering how someone who does reverse mortgages for a living knows how much a necklace should sell for and went and got myself a hot dog.

PLEASE FINISH ME!

The other day I opened a box that was on the shelf in my studio.  It scared me half to death.  All the little pendants on the inside started yelling "FINISH ME, FINISH ME".  So I took them out and took out my beading board and put them on one at a time and told them I would do the best I could to finish them.  After two hours I had every bead I owned, every crimp, crimp cover, chain, toggle and 4,000 feet of wire on my table.  Does this happen to just me?  I still have 3 boxes full of pendants and pieces that need finishing, my office looks like an explosion and I can't find the top of my work table but I did manage to finish some things.

Love this heart made from the Randee Ketzel tutorial.

This is Mr. October.

Husband approved this one.

I love this one.  Another one from the Randee Ketzel tutorial.

Purple and turquoise, my favorite color combination.

I hear more pendants calling me.  

Maybe it's just the voices in my head or it could be a sinus infection.  Now, if I can find the top of my work table it will be a wonderful day.

EAR WARMERS AND HALLOWEEN JEWELRY

Even though I live in Arizona it gets cold here in the morning.  Today it's 58 but in no time it will be in the 90's.  But, in the winter, mornings are pretty cold and when I play golf I take the golf cart and my ears get cold or when I walk my friends dogs my ears and forehead get cold and then I get a headache.  While I was down with my foot surgery I decided to make myself an ear warmer.  My friends saw them and asked if I could make some for their grand kids back home in Wisconsin.  We are meeting for lunch today and they are leaving to go back in a week so I had to hustle.  They all have handmade buttons. The dog and duck button have been altered slightly.  Most of them are from polymer clay.

This is a Green Bay Packer ear warmer for my friends grandson.

I was sewing the buttons on with Nymo thread because it's so strong.  One night we saw Buster running around with something hanging out of his mouth.  We chased him around the house for 5 minutes before we finally got him.  He took the thread off my table and there was a needle on it.  The needle was hanging out of his mouth.  He had swallowed the thread.  I pulled on the needle and got the thread out.  When he was little he would get in the garbage cans and take the dental floss and eat it.  He also loves Fireline so I can't leave that out when I'm beading.  Most cats like yarn, NOT HIM.  He's going to drive me to drink.


CLAY CAMP

This is the first time in 8 years I've missed going to camp with my clay guild.  That foot surgery really did me in.  I'm just now able to put shoes on and not for long.  The nerves are still making sure I know the foot is there.  My friends have been sending me pictures and it looks like I missed a great time and a lot of great demos.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make it next year and things stop breaking on me.

HALLOWEEN JEWELRY

My niece goes to a lot of dress up Halloween parties so I thought I would make her some jewelry.

The bracelet was done with Kumihimo.  Now I only have 12,000,000 Megatamas left to work with.

MEMORY BEADS (Continued)

I made this cross for my brother in law from the rose petals from his mother's funeral.

I embedded the petals in pearl clay.  The Celtic cutter is about 4 inches long so I laid sheets that I textured on the top and bottom before I cut through it to make it thicker.  I baked the cross and then made the base the same way.  I embedded the cross in the base with a generous helping of Genesis to make sure it stuck and then baked it.  It's antiqued with gold iridescent paint.

I made a stamp on the back that says 1913 to 2014.  It's very tiny and I had a little trouble with the paint in order for the numbers to be seen.  You can see the rose petals in the clay in this picture.

I put the petals in a glass jar and they sure do have  strong odor.

The lavender beads in these bracelets are made with translucent clay and rose petals.  That's the color that the clay turned from the rose petals.

MEMORY BEADS (CONTINUED)

 These are made with white and pearl clay and green alcohol ink.  They also have the crushed rose petals in them.

These are made with pearl clay, the crushed roses and cranberry alcohol ink.

I used some of the pink beads to make a Shambala bracelet.  I promised I would make at least 20 items with the rose petals and I'm trying to make different pieces so each one in the family can take their choice of what they would like.  This has been a challenge.

This is a key chain/purse bling and I used one of the pink rose petal beads with some great white caps but I can't remember where I got them.  I think Michael's but not sure.

This is a polymer clay cross that I had made and it has glitter and resin on it.  Can be a purse bling, key chain or wall hanging.

This silver bezel has white clay with the rose petals in it and resin on the top.  The white cord is made using Kumihimo.  

It's pouring here in Arizona so taking pictures is difficult today.  I usually use natural sun light.  I bought one of those picture taking set ups but the little lights that go on the side are so hot I'm afraid they will cause a fire.

I had to put a picture of Buster on here.  He loves this afghan and on this day he took a four hour nap with his foot sticking out.  He cracks me up.

More to come when the sun comes out.

MEMORY BEADS

My sister's mother in law passed away about a month ago.  She had just turned 100 in October.  We sent a large bouquet of red roses which she loved.  I had my sister send me the tops of the roses so I could make Memory Beads for the family.

These are the flower tops she sent me.  If you want to dry flower petals, here's the easiest way.

Take a large piece of paper towel and take the best of the petals.  I had to throw away the ones that were brown and I managed to save more by cutting off the tops.  Lay another large piece of paper towel over the petals and roll them in from both sides till it meets in the middle, flatten the two side together so they lay flat in the microwave.  Put them in the microwave for 2 minutes at power level 3 or 4 depending on how strong your microwave is.  Keep your eye on them.  Take them out, unroll and give them air.  Roll them back up and put them back in at the same power level for a minute or a minute and a half.  You will be able to feel if they are dry.

Once they were dried, I put them in a plastic container and snipped them into small pieces with a scissors.

When you incorporate them with polymer clay and run them through the pasta machine, they break up even more.

This is Pardo Translucent clay and gold embossing powder with the dried roses in it.

These are the raw beads before baking.  Notice how white they are.

This is what the beads looked like after baking.  I put 3 coats of glaze on them and re-baked them for an hour.  There was no color added to these.

This is the jar of rose petals that I have left.  I dried 3 sheets of rose petals and got about 3 cups of petals out of them.

This saga will continue another day.  But now you know the quick and easy way to dry flower petals.