SPIRAL LENTIL BEADS

One thing I really like making are Spiral-Lentil beads.  I like them for focal beads on Kumihimo ropes and on chain necklaces.  A few weeks ago we had a polymer clay cane exchange at our guild.  One of the canes I received was so beautiful I was afraid to cut into it but I had made a spiral bead and didn't like the way it swirled so I covered it with pieces from this cane and I just love the way it turned out.  The cane is called "The Head Dress Cane".  It was made by my friend Pat at http://www.fishwifery.blogspot.com/, you can see her cane there.  I sanded and buffed this bead and now I have to make the necklace for it.

Once I start doing spiral beads it's hard to stop.  It's like making beads on the bead rollers.  Last week I did a demo at our beading club and made a double spliced cane.  Gave a lot of it away but still had enough to make a spiral bead.

I love these colors.  My problem now is whether I want to sell them or not.  I might have to keep them for me.  This might need a fancy Herringbone or Kumihimo.  What do you think?

I had some left over pieces from different things I was doing and made a pendant that I didn't like after it was baked but once I sanded and buffed it, I like it.  Now I have another decision, what do I hang it on?

Once again, I need to take better pictures but you get the idea.

I have another spiral I did but have to sand and buff it before I post it.

Can't blog without a picture of Buster.

Oh the joys of being a kitten mother.

SHAWL AND SHAWL PIN

My 96 year old friend Jane is in a nursing back in Kenosha, WI.  It's an older facility and they don't have air conditioning in the rooms and they have very little heat.  She gets chilly just sitting around so I started knitting a shawl for her before Christmas and had so many interruptions that when I finished it, it didn't look right.  I crochet 20 times faster than I knit so I was really disappointed about spending all that time knitting instead of crocheting.  I found a crocheted shawl pattern that looked classic and not confusing. 

I finished it yesterday and I really like it.  Even my husband liked it.  It's all black which Jane will like and it has that fuzzy yarn around the whole thing with extra rows on the bottom.  I decided she needed a shawl pin to go with it so I made a pin out of polymer clay. 

I used black clay and a texture sheet and put flat back Swarovski crystals on it and white perfect pearls.  She loves silver and crystals and black so I'm sure she will like this.

EMBARRASSED

I had some pictures of Buster printed at Walgreen's today.  When I went to get the pictures I told the young gentleman at the counter my name and he said "OH, the cat pictures".  I said yes, those would be mine.  He said "yup, the cat on the door, the cat in the garbage can, the cat sleeping in the chair, the cat chasing the ball" and then I cut him off.  I said "my mother lives in Florida and wants to see pictures of my new kitten, you are lucky I didn't have any nude pictures of old people in there".  At that he gave me a strange look and told me since this was a retirement community, he sees a lot of strange things everyday and that's getting to be a normal thing.

I'M GLAD I ONLY HAD PICTURES OF THE CAT.  My husband warned me I was getting to be a geezer because I spend too much time talking about the cat.  He said I should get a life away from the cat for a while.  So, I asked him if he wanted to change the cat liter, scoop the cat liter, feed the cat, play ball with him and all the other things a good cat mom does?  He just said

"NEVER MIND" 

:0)

CANE SWAP - PAIN SWAP AND BAD KITTY

I'm running out of time and I need 12 pieces of cane for the swap.  I have 2 that I like.  Last night I worked for 3 hours making a cane.  Started out with two huge Skinner Blends and made a spliced cane.

I like this cane but wanted something intricate.  So I decided to make a flower cane of this.

This is really big.  I should have put a quarter by it so the size would be evident. 

I love flower canes covered in black instead of translucent so I used 5 packages of black to cover this cane.

Looks good now but once I got it covered and reduced, I was very disappointed.

My black clay was mushy.  There were spaces between the stamen and flowers so I filled it in with black clay.  I should have left it alone and just covered it.  Took a piece and did some manipulation.

I think I'm going to do a large Kaleidoscope cane and use this entire cane in the Kaleidoscope.  I'm very disappointed but I thought I would blog about the bad stuff since I usually try to blog about just good stuff.  Trials and tribulations I think they call it.

Can't blog without mentioning Mister Buster.  I thought his dad gave him a time out yesterday but then I realized he was sleeping.

This morning he woke me up by licking my nose.  Kitty love, nothing like it.

EARRINGS AND A SILLY CAT

My 96 year old friend who sells earrings is at again.  She sold 40 pair over Christmas and is asking for more.  I made a few different ones for her.  I prefer doing clay but I also do wire and beads for her.

Angel Earrings

 Her girls at the nursing home like long earrings.

SILLY CAT

This cat is hysterical.  Today he got in the garbage can in my office and wouldn't get out.

Buster is the sunshine in my life right now except I had to put all my breakables away.

Now he sleeps with his head on my pillow and makes sure he is as close to me as possible.

Hope to be getting back to clay soon.

AND THE WINNER IS...........................

Today was the drawing for the cat pendant and the winner is ColtPixy.  You can thank John, he picked your name out of the box.

Congratulations.  Please email me your address and I will put it in the mail Tuesday since Monday is a postal holiday.  I know this little guy is going to a good home. 

Happy New Year Colt Pixy and everyone that left a comment on my blog.  I'm sure you are all going to have a wonderful 2012.

Happy New Year to all my blog friends and family.  My New Year is going to be more interesting because of this:

This is Buster.  We were going to call him Teddy but he's not a Teddy.  We have been laughing for 5 days.  He's such a joy.  He loves to eat, play, sleep and poop........

He's given us so much love and millions of laughs.  He crawls under the covers at night and sleeps right next to me.  His purring helps me fall asleep.

If you can adopt an animal from a shelter near you, I promise you won't regret it.  This is the 5th cat that I've gotten from a shelter and they keep getting better.

I guess that cat pendant is pretty appropriate right now.

Happy New Year

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ME

You all know I lost my 20 year old Booboo in May.  It's been kind of lonely since he went to Rainbow Bridge.

My husband didn't want me to get another cat because of the bad migraines.  We wanted to see if we could figure out what was causing them.

On Christmas, he came home with a box of kitty liter bags, a kitty liter box, a little bed and a cat carrier and rubber balls.  I was so excited.

Yesterday I went to the shelters looking for a gold tiger cat.  I've always had gold tiger cats.  The Sun Valley Shelter had 15 kittens up for adoption and no gold tiger cats.  When I went in the room many of the kittens came over by me and wanted to play.  On the floor looking up at me was the smallest kitten in the room and he just looked like he needed to be held.  I picked him up and he instantly took my necklace in his mouth and held on for dear life.  He started purring right away.  The other kittens were kind of indifferent but this guy wouldn't let go.

He's a tuxedo cat with great markings.  He only weighs 2.3 pounds and I'm not sure he weighs that much.  He hasn't stopped eating since I brought him home.

His new name is Teddy which means "Divine Gift".  Here he is with our neighbors little rat terrier Scooter.  You can see how little he is.

He has to be on my desk whenever I am.  He loves the arrow going around on the screen.  He's very inquisitive and likes sitting on the keyboard.

Last night I waited to see where he wanted to sleep.  He got in bed with me and snuggled right next to me.  He got up once to get a drink of water and came back to bed, got on the pillow and felt around to see if I was there.  Then he got in the little hole he made next to me and went to sleep again.  When I got up this morning he didn't move.  He wanted to stay and sleep but he saw John so he knew it was time to get up.

I really got lucky with this guy.  He's really smart and never leaves me out of his sight.  I don't think he's going to be a big cat.  He's all white on the bottom but has a black mark on his right leg.  He won't sit still for pictures so these are the best I could do so far.

Love my new "Furever Friend".  There are a lot more babies there that need forever homes.  Take a chance.  IT' A WONDERFUL LIFE with an animal.  Unconditional love.

WE CAN DO IT - SOME GOOD, SOME BAD BUT IT KEEPS ME OUT OF THE BAR

Was walking through Michael's the other day and saw some Lisa Pavelka water slide transfers.  They looked interesting so I bought a couple packs.  The first one I put on a bead and put translucent clay over it thinking I could do a porcelain bead like in the Debbie Anderson class I took.  Well, those transfers don't bend and I think my trnaslucent was too thick.  So I tried again and here they are:

Actually this picture is of me a couple years ago when my hair was still red.  LOL

I used Magic Glos on this one and I'm getting to the bottom of bottle.  I didn't see the bubbles until I took the picture.  I found that with the Magic Glos, if you run a flame over it, the bubbles will disappear just like when you do that to UV Resin.  The transfer is really pretty but it's made of a plastic and needs to be handled gently once the back comes off.  The bubbles are really tiny and you don't see them that well in person.  The camera really makes those things stand out.  The transfer has to be flattened because of the water on it, it tends to make it move around and get wrinkled.  I'm going to try to do a couple more on baked clay and see if that works better.

This one which I love because of the picture and the saying also has a small bubble on the left in the clay that I didn't see.  It doesn't show up as much when looking at it in person.  I used Perfect Pearls on the sides of the picture and poked a hole in the side and did a little wire wrapping.  It has flaws but so do I so we fit together well.  I believe this picture is from WWII and I was born right after that so I know "WE CAN DO IT".

 

This cute little guy is a new stamp I found.  You know I love cats.  He will probably end up being a pin for my friend who has a cat that looks like him.

This cat has Magic Glos on him also.  Right now it's 110 here in Arizona and running out in the sun might be what's causing the bubbles in my pieces.  I have to put sun screen on just to go get the mail.  I love getting in the car with leather seats after it's been sitting outside for awhile.  I try to do it a couple times a day with shorts on because I figure it burns the cellulite off my thighs. 

My friend always says "IT'S A 100 AND STUPID" anytime it goes over 100.  My glos dries before I get it to the table outside.  Had two quail looking in our patio door with a sign asking for cold beer.

Today I made a black and white flower cane.  It's actually very pretty.  My camera keeps turning things pink, might be time for a new camera.  This cane was made with white, pearl and black Premo and the outside is Fimo translucent.  I didn't wait for it to rest before I cut it.  Don't have patience to do that.  It's so hot in my studio when the lights are on, I'm surprised the canes don't cook while I'm making them.

A few weeks ago at our clay guild meeting we had a demo on doing the Christi Freisen Peppermint Twist pendant.  Since that time all my friends have done 8 or 9 and I only did one.  We were suppose to use Swarovski Rivolis but since I have 800 pices of that flat glass, I decided to use that for my test piece.  I thought it was too big but my friends didn't, so, I made a Herringbone necklace for it with Delica seed beads.  Since I made this I found out that BIG is in this year as far as jewelry.  Wish they meant butts.

Tomorrow my friend Lupe www.miramecreations.blogspot.com/ and I are going to take a cabachon beading class.  I have quite a few books and tried a little one so I'm self taught but I like taking classes and this lady we are taking the class from does beautiful work and I think she has some tricks for making it easier to start.  I'll blog with a picture when I finish it.  I'm still working on my second crocheted necklace and it's turning out good, but I'm still a little slow.  Great thing to do if you can't sleep at night or want to listen to an audio book.

Gotta go, the quail are at the door again because we are the only ones in our neighborhood that haven't left for somewhere cool.  Yesterday it was coyotes at the door asking for frozen Margharitas.