MORE CAMP STUFF

This is the puff bead I made in the demo.  It was a cane done with silver pink and peacock pearl Premo clay.   I sanded and buffed it but I might do it again.  I made the cane because everyone at camp made a cane and we gave them to Amy who is our most fantastic clay person.  She took all the canes and put them together in a huge Kaleidoscope cane and gave each one of us a piece.

This was the final cane.  Lots of colors and combos.  

I had a lot of strange pieces of clay laying on my desk so I decided to make a flower cane.  I found one in Yonat Dasclu's book that I really liked.  As you can see, I turned the first piece the wrong way that's why I have two different petal colors but I kind of like it.  I am also having trouble cutting it without getting lines from my blade on it.  I've tried 3 different blades so far and still get those lines.  I'm going to take out a new blade and see what happens.

This is a swirly lentil bead that I made from the cane.  Needs more sanding and buffing.

This is a closeup of the braided cane I made on the side that I cut with a wavy blade.  It was three Skinner blends and they were all different colors.

This is the other side of the cane.  One of the Skinner blends was done with Alizarin Crimson and ecru and I put a snake of silver in the middle before I rolled it up.  You can cut these from any side and get something completely different every time you cut it.

This is one of those stretch bracelets that a bunch of us did.  This is Tisha's.  She is really talented.  I think she made 5 more before the weekend was over.

One of the other wonderful things we did was a pendant challenge.  I thought I had a picture of the winner but I'll have to get it from Lupe.  She made a beautiful cross with Mokume Gane and she won.  We all made pendants and they were suppose to be inspirational.  They are going to be donated to a battered women's shelter.  They were all beautiful but Lupe's was especially gorgeous.

SPEAKING OF LUPE

Most of you know Lupe Meter.  She is one of the most talented woman I've ever met.  Not only that, she's really sweet.  I guess you can tell I belong to the Lupe Meter fan club.

Lupe was in charge of the goody bags for camp.  She has been working on them for 6 months and I must say they were incredible.  I should have taken everything out and took a picture of it but no, I had to take everything out and play with it and then find a place for it.  I digress, every bag had a name tag on it.  Not your ordinary every day run of the mill name tag.

This is what Lupe made for everyone.  26 of these.  We were all standing there amazed when we saw these.  I know you are all jealous and you should be. LOL  Thank you Lupe for the beautiful name tag and the wonderful job you did on the goody bags.  I'm so glad you won the inspirational challenge because you are an inspiration to me.

GOLF TREASURY AND THINGS FROM CLAY CAMP

I was so excited today.  I got an email saying one of Etsy golf stroke counters was in an Etsy Treasury.  I wanted to post it on my blog but of course I couldn't get it small enough to do that.  I went to Lynda Moseley http://www.scdiva.blogspot.com/ like I always do for help. She sent me an email explaining how to get this into a jpg. format.  If you get a chance, check her blog and her Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/SCDiva, she has some amazing polymer pieces and some great tutorials.

 My golf stroke counter is on the bottom right.  This is a great treasury especially since the Ryder Cup was this weekend, too bad the Americans lost.  They seemed to have fun though and that's what matters most.

CLAY CAMP IN PRESCOTT, ARIZONA

Last week our clay guild spent 4 days in Prescott at a Christian Youth Camp doing clay from 7 in the morning till 10 at night.  This was our first year at this camp and it was wonderful.

This is the building where 24 of us spent our days doing clay.  The food at this place was tremendous.  Last year we had gray pancakes for breakfast one morning, this year we had home made banana bread, waffles, scrambled eggs, strawberry compote.  I ate so much breakfast I didn't go to lunch but dinner was like eating at a 5 star restaurant.  The deserts were fresh and the car was heavier when we came home.  LOL.

There were many demos and people shared things they were doing.  We blew a few fuses with our ovens but we did ok.  I shared a big round table with my friend Judy and we made a mess but we had a lot of fun.  We worked on different techniques like flower canes, spliced canes, metal working, wire wrapping.  I finished more this year than I ever have.

These are some spliced cane beads that I made and finally put it into a bracelet.

These are some pendants I made with what started out to be a spliced cane and ended up being a flower cane and the ends of the spliced cane.  They have Magic-Glos on them and gold leafing.

This was made from magenta, gold and turquoise with the extruder.  The colors match the necklace but with the Magic-Glos it doesn't look like the same colors and someday I'll learn to use the new camera so I can get some real color pictures.

THE MOUSE FROM HELL

We had a little visitor at camp, I think he was just a baby but he caused a lot of screaming and we had to put all the food away at night and everyone was worried that he was going to eat their clay.  We had one guy in our group who has a heck of a sense of humor.  One night after everyone left he did this:

It got baked and is going back to the guild with us.  Thanks Brad.

There's a huge storm coming and I think I need to turn the computer off.  Will continue another time.

Had a great time at camp and want to thank everyone for their contributions and donations.