GIFTS FOR FRIENDS AND THE JOURNEY OF MAKING MEMORIAL BEADS

When I went back to Wisconsin in January for my Mother's funeral, they had the worst week of weather that they had in a long time.

Though there weren't a lot of good days, I did get to have breakfast with 12 of my friends from high school.  Some I haven't seen in many years or since the day we graduated.

I brought some Kumihimo bracelets home with me and gave everyone a bracelet.  We had so much fun talking and laughing.  We were there for 2 hours.  I decided I wanted to do something special for them, so when I got home, I made magnetic refrigerator pens for all of them.

If you click on the picture, you can see them closer.  At the last minute I decided to make little coins to add to the pens with the year we graduated (now you know how old I am 😛😊.

One of my friends at the breakfast was my best friend in grade school and high school and when we graduated, our mothers let us go to Florida by ourselves.  We had so much fun.  She has a cat named Jojo who sends Buster gifts so I made a special pen for Terry.

JOJO

It has a little heart that says I love my cat and and a charm with a cat on the top.  I also sent her this little ring dish.  It was the first one I ever made and it was the first silk screen I had ever done so that's why there is a little black mess in it but I thought it was special because of the cats.

MEMORIAL BEADS

Now that the pens are done, I've been working on memorial beads made from the roses from my Mother's funeral.  I'm making beads to use to make bracelets for my sister, sister in law and 3 nieces so they have a remembrance.

I started out with pearl and translucent clay and mixed some silver foil in it but I didn't get the result I wanted.  I took a whole package of Premo White Gold Glitter and added it to the mix.  Then, I put in a couple drops of Blue Sapphire and Stream alcohol ink.  The white glitter clay really made them come to life.

Once they were baked, they came out a little darker but still beautiful and shiny.  It's hard to see the crushed roses in these but there are few you can see little red spots on.  I glazed them with Sculpey Gloss Glaze 3 times and then re-baked them at 200 degrees for an hour.  I'll post a picture of the finished bracelets when I get them done.

After I did the small blue beads I made some big blue beads and then some white ones.  You can see the rose petals in the white beads.  I think I'm going to make more white ones but I'm going to put another package of the White Gold Glitter.  I don't know why they call it White Gold Glitter, it looks more like Silver Glitter to me.

Have a Happy Valentines Day.  Eat a bunch of chocolate and have a good time.

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.

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.

It's a Wonderful Day

A week ago I was told I had a fractured hip.  Finally got in to see an orthopedic surgeon yesterday and I worship the ground this guy walks on.  He did range of motion tests, spent an hour with us going over my x-rays and told me I didn't have a fracture that I have bursitis in my hip and disc damage which I knew.  So, I got a cortisone shot and am now on a major exercise and stretch program.  My advice here is get a second opinion, don't wait for doctors to call you, keep calling them and if you can find an older doctor, go for it.  I have two doctors in their 70's now and I love both of them.  That's that for that.

 

This is my 9th Kumihimo Americana bracelet and I have orders for 8 more.  I want to do clay but haven't had time to get to it.

 

 

This is the Seaside bracelet I made.  Love these colors and since I have 200,000 megatamas, I better get to work.  LOL

 

I bought the Barb Fajardo tutorial from CraftArtedu. on how to make Mimbres Pendants.  Our clay guild had a 2 day class with her last weekend but I couldn't go because I thought I had a fractured hip and couldn't sit for two days.  I'm hoping to try it this week.  The girls in my guild made some beautiful pieces and said it was a wonderful class and she is a great teacher.

 

 

I was going to finish my afghan the other day and found a surprise inside.  Buster loves afghans but this was really special.  He's been a joy even though he wakes me up at 5 in the morning.

 

WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE INVENT A SLEEPING BAG FOR OLD PEOPLE?

Last Wednesday to Sunday I was at our Arizona Polymer Clay Guild's retreat in Prescott, Arizona.  We stayed at a camp where we had 3 cabins and each cabin had 4 bedrooms and each bedroom had 4 sets of bunk beds.  I had my own room so I had my choice of bunk beds.

I made the mistake of buying a sleeping bag at Wal-Mart.  Brought it home washed it and couldn't get it back in the bag for two reasons.  I couldn't fit it back in and Buster was using the bag to hide in.

 

So I put the bed in a space bag and sucked the air out of it.  When I got to camp I took the bed with the double plastic mattress thinking it would be more comfortable.  I put the fitted sheet on and then the top sheet and unzipped the sleeping bag so if I had to get up to go to the bathroom I wouldn't get stuck in the bag.  Being that the mattress was doubled, the room between the bottom and top of the bunk was very limited.  I bumped my head getting in bed and every time I bent over to get something out of the suitcase that was on the other bed.  The sleeping bag was that slippery material and kept sliding off the bed so I took the top sheet off and just used the sleeping bag.  I wish someone would invent a sleeping bag for older people.  It would have to have lots velcro, a place to put the Alleve, heated an vibrating would be nice.  The next day I had zipper marks on my chin because I had the bag upside down and needless to say I didn't sleep well.  For four days I banged my head on the side of the bed and fought with the sleeping bag.  The showers were made for little skinny 14 year olds.  If you drop the soap, you had to slide down the side of the shower to pick it up because there was NO bending over in there.  When you get out of the shower and you bend over to dry your legs you bang your butt on the shower door so I learned to move over to dry myself and then I saw the biggest spider I've ever seen going up the wall.  I killed him with my rubber slipper.  WHACK!

 

There were some good things about camp.  It was cool, the food was good, we had a lot of laughs and I had things made the first day.  Usually I can't figure out what I want to do.  Another great thing was I won the challenge prize.  I didn't know we were having a challenge and I still don't know why I won.

 

But, this is what I won.  It was made by my good friend Lupe Meter of Gems PC Creations.  She does gorgeous work and it goes with every thing I wear.  LOL

 

My good friend Rose (a BFF) and I shared tables together.  She made me laugh for 4 days straight.  She can condition clay by hand faster than anyone can with an electric motor.  I think she made 150 beads and pendants while we were at camp.  We really had a good time.

 

 

These were some pendants I made with the help of Moe from Aloha Moe except I forgot what she told me and forgot two things that I was suppose to put in them.  This is a crappy picture but in person they are really pretty and look like granite.  I told my husband I was having camera trouble again he said I wasn't that it was operator error.  Famous last words.

 

These are some swirly lentil beads I made from cane ends.  We did a barbed wire cane and a Bettina Welker's Pixelated cane.  Those extruders were really working hard.

This is my "I AM WOMAN, DON'T PUSH YOUR LUCK" pendant.  Screws for arms and a butterfly in the crotch.  Don't ask, I can't explain it.

 

These are my wrapped smoosh beads.  These are fun and will be a great focal pendat on a Kumihimo necklace.

 

I know this is long this time but it's been a while.

 

As Rose would say "When your claying your playing".

 

 

 

 

TOO MUCH STUFF - NOT ENOUGH TIME

I'm suppose to be getting my stuff ready for clay camp next week.  We leave for Prescott on Wednesday and come back Sunday.  I started organizing and arranging on Thursday and I've made a worse mess than I had before.

The one thing I'm really happy about is the way the extruder box turned out.

I filled the top of the box with magnet sheets that are sticky on the other side and they fit perfect.  Now Buster and I see where the right disk is.  He's so funny.  I was looking for a place near a window to take this picture and he jumped up in his box and acted like he was looking at them too.  I do have duplicates but that's OK. A girl should have two of everything except husbands.  One's enough.

While I thought I was organizing my junk clay, I found a mold and started playing around.

 

He's a tribal guy.  Not my ordinary stuff but I thought he was cute.  I showed it to John and he gave me one of those strange looks so I grabbed it out of his hand and walked away.  I heard him laughing as I walked away.  What does he know?  Someone will love this and give it a good home.  I'm trying to get out of my "Boring Box".

 

After I made "Machu Pick Ur Nose", I went back to boring.  I'm trying to use the 6 pounds of junk clay on my desk.  I already have 30 Stroppel canes so I wanted something different.  Maybe getting out of this heat for 5 days will help my brain and my muse.  John and Buster can bond while I'm gone.  Wait till Buster sticks his cold wet nose under his armpit at 4 in the morning like he's done to me the last two days.  I'm not going to tell him about, it's going to be a surprise.  LOL