MAKE A CHILD HAPPY, DONATE YOUR UNUSED ARTS AND CRAFTS ITEMS TO A GOOD HOME

For three months I've been gathering craft items in my dining room.  I also had a box full of ear warmers, hand made slippers and knitted scarves.  The top picture is of the 12 small afghans I made in the last 3 months.  I have a friend who teaches art to homeless and abused children, seniors with disabilities and Alzheimer's and she also helps the Phoenix Children's Hospital with their Beads of Courage program.  Three of my friends (Lupe, Carol and Evelyn) also brought a ton of items over for her to help with her art classes.  Many of the government programs and schools don't get funding for art classes or that is the first thing that is cut so she was thrilled to get all the things we've been collecting for her.  I had a box full of needles and thread and DMC thread.  She said how happy she was to have that because she was teaching the kids how to sew.  They had no idea how to sew a button on if it came off.  The simple things we all take for granted are a challenge to some of these kids whose parents never taught them how to do these kinds of things.
She also told me, the Boy's and Girl's Clubs don't always have funding for arts and crafts and neither do some of the schools.  If you have yarn, pipe cleaners, colored pencils, paper, thread, buttons, sea shells, cigar boxes, beads, paint, crayons, paint brushes, art books, containers, cord, etc.  Call your local Boy's and Girl's Club or a shelter or a school near you and see if you can donate these items.  It was great for me.  It made me clean out my studio.  Even the nursing homes do art classes and might want some of your craft items.

I haven't done beading with Delica beads in a long time because of the problems with my arms and shoulders.  I met a physicians assistant at my pain management doctor's office and she has been incredible getting me back on the road and without pain.  She loves earrings so I made her American flag earrings and a bracelet and these Halloween earrings.  My problem is Buster keeps trying to take my Fireline thread.  I bought some K.O. beading thread and I really like using it with Delicas, it's very smooth.  He hasn't tried to take that yet but I'm sure the day is coming.

I put his Halloween collar on him that I bought him when he was baby.  This is the look I got.  The eyes mean the aliens are here.  I'm sure he will hide that like he did with collar he came home from the shelter with.

LANAH'S WOLF

A few weeks ago I posted pictures of things that I sent to my great nieces and nephews (ages 7 to 13).  It was called Dragon Skin tutorial from Sculpey.  You have to understand that I've been doing clay for 12 years and it's something that I love. This past summer has been a bummer.  I got spasms in my back so bad I couldn't move my legs, had surgery on my shoulder on my right arm and then my left arm started doing the same thing with the pain and then had to have a cyst removed.  My interest in doing clay was slim and none.  I'm whining but I'm done now.

 I sent the key chains and pens to my nieces and nephews and got a request to make either a llama or wolf for one of their friends.  I was going to call them and say "sorry, I don't do llamas or wolves".  Then I saw a picture and the light bulb went on.  It's been a long time since I've done an image transfer on clay and not all of them turned out real well until I bought Lynda Moseley's tutorial on how to do image transfers.  I bought a digital download from Etsy that had beautiful pictures of wolves on it.  Lucky for me Lynda talked me into buying a laser printer when I bought her tutorial.  The other thing I found is that Cannon matte photo paper works really good with transfers.  So, here is my wolf.

I also found in my stash an alphabet mold that I never used so I thought I would make Lanah a letter charm for her key ring.  I believe this is a winter wolf and I really like him.

A couple years ago I printed out some pictures that I was going to transfer so I thought I would try them since I had all the clay out and was feeling better.  The first one I did was the kitten and I thought I picked up the bottle of water but NO, I picked up the bottle of rubbing alcohol so this came out a little light but I didn't want to throw it away.

All these pieces have Magic Glos on them.  I found the best thing to do with transfers is, put one coat of Magic Glos or resin on them before you sand and buff the sides and back and then put your second coat of resin on.  This will protect your image.  I'm going to try the cat one again because he reminds me of Buster.  With all this research on image transfers I also found something interesting about the use of E6000.  Don't care for the smell of that and sometimes I didn't think it bonded metal bail with polymer very well.  I was doing it wrong.  You have to put a little E6000 on the bail and a tiny bit on the pendant and let them sit and get tacky for a little while before you put the two together.  I love the winter scene and it has sparkles in it when you see it up close.  And that is as close to snow as I want to get.

I was told that it's best to use new printed sheets to do transfers but the piece on the left was printed out two years ago and it came out really bright.

I'm waiting to hear from Lynda as to where her link to the Image Transfer tutorial is and I'll put it in here.