A REALLY FUN CLAY DAY

Yesterday at our beading club we had a clay day.  We have 140 members in our club and about 20 of us do clay.   Some of the ladies are new to clay and it amazes me the beautiful things they are making.  I like to show them different techniques when we get together like Mokume Gane, using the extruder, Natasha beads, etc.  They love making canes and I like putting my own twist on things I see in magazines and books. Yesterday we made a cane and wouldn't you know I screwed mine up when I was almost done so it was good for them to see what happens when you make a mistake.  They all put their own twist on everything especially the colors.  It always amazes me what we end up with.  I have a couple pieces in the oven from my screw up that I'll post tomorrow or Saturday but here are some things I made Tuesday night to show them and here are the ones they made.

These are the pendants I made and took some end pieces and made bobby pins with Swarovski crystals in them.

These are some of the canes the ladies made.  They all love bright colors, it will be interesting to see the things they make with these.  We did use Penni Jo's molds with this and made some great looking pendants.

Can't wait to see all the beautiful things they make with these pieces.  I turned my Skinner Blend the wrong way so I don't have pretty pieces like these.

AMAZING KAY SMITH AND MOKUME GANE

Today the amazing Kay Smith (beading teacher at A2Z Beads in Glendale, AZ) came over for a polymer clay class and she brought all her beautiful beading items that she has made.  She's won many awards at the state fair for her bead work and I wish my pictures did them justice.  Check out her Etsy shop at
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SunofaBead/.  You can contact Kay there for special orders but here are some of the gorgeous items I got to touch today.

They needed touching, they are so awesome.  Rose, Evelyn and Judy came over today to meet Kay and see her beadwork.  There were a lot of ooh's and aah's.

POLYMER CLAY TODAY YEAH!!!!

We did a lot of polymer clay today and Kay had taken a class a few years ago from THEE JUDITH SKINNER, Inventor of the Skinner Blend.  Kay had a cane she had made in the class and she gave me a piece which I was thrilled about and we took a couple pieces off the ends and I taught Kay how to make a swirly lentil bead.

This is the cane she made in the Judith Skinner class.

This is the swirly lentil bead we made with the Judith Skinner cane.  It hasn't been baked, sanded or buffed yet but I'm guessing it will be beautiful.

MOKUME GANE

This is one of my favorite techniques.  It's a technique where you layer and manipulate the clay.  There are many different ways of doing it and I've taken a class from Julie Picarello and she does beautiful Mokume Gane and has a little twist of her own, I've got Donna Kato's DVD where she does it and Lisa Pavelka's DVD where she does it and they are all different.  Every polymer clay book I have shows how to do Mokume Gane and they are all different.  Well, today I got my Barbara Maguire DVD in the mail showing how to do Mokume Gane her way and I love it.  She was out here last year and taught a class but I wasn't here to take it so I was very happy to find out she had this DVD out.  Even after doing clay all day I decided to give it a try.

Can't wait to bake, sand and buff these.  Looks like a new pendant and earring set to me.

Still have some pieces left that I'll play with when I'm not so tired.