IT'S 100 AND STUPID HERE SO I'M DOING CLAY AND HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

Today it's suppose to be 111 here in Phoenix.  I live in the northwest side of Phoenix but what they get, we get.  The only thing they get more of is rain.  It's monsoon season here and to me that means it should be raining.  NOT A DROP ANY WHERE.

It's been 9 weeks since I had foot surgery and I still can't put a shoe on.  I wear one of my husbands socks on my surgery foot and one of my own on the other foot.  Good thing we both have lots of socks.

At least I've been able to get back in my studio to do some clay.  I had an email from a lady in Boston telling me she just got a new golf bag and asked if I would make a golf stroke counter to match her bag.  I asked her to send me a picture of her golf bag.

I love this thing.  She asked to have it made in teal, orange, red, black, hot pink and purple and she wanted it glitzy.

This is the one she chose.  And I had enough beads to make two more.

Then my neighbor came over and asked if I could make a necklace for her daughter in law and she wanted white.  I don't like making things just white and it's a pain working with white clay.  I had to really clean my whole work area, I used translucent clay to clean my pasta machine.  Had a 10 gallon bottle of alcohol out to clean things.  I did a Mokume Gane with with white, translucent, silver and pearl.  I made a beautiful pendant and had already put the Magic Glos on it and then decided to bake a bail on it.  It says you can bake Magic Glos.  My pendant came out of the oven and the Magic Glos was yellow.  I threw it away and decided to try some white and mica powders in bezels.

 The cord on this was done with Kumihimo.  The silver star is on the clay under the resin but the Swarovski crystals are on top of the resin.

I also did a swirly lentil bead on a fine silver chain but forgot to take a picture of it.  When she came over today she said she wanted all four and wrote me out a check.

It's really been a great day.  I got a call from the doctor saying the biopsy he did on my leg on Tuesday was benign and I sold 4 necklaces for a lot more than I was asking.  Now if only I could get a shoe on so I could go to the casino.  LOL

CLAY GUILD CANE EXCHANGE

This past Saturday at our February clay guild meeting we had a cane exchange.  There were 12 of us that participated.  Some of us were seasoned (can't say older) clayers and some were brand new clayers.  It was fun to see all the different canes.  Now I have to decide what to do with them.

 

These are all the canes I received.  In my last blog I put up a picture of the ones I made.

 

 

 

I made big ones so I could cut them in half.  The one on the top right was a combination of a split cane and a barbed wire cane.  I used the ends to make pendants.

 

The top two on the right are the ends of the cut cane pieces pushed together.  They have Future on them.  The three hearts and two footballs have Magic Glos on them.  Love these colors, now I just have to figure out what I did.  I always say I'm going to write down what colors I use to make a cane and take pictures as I do it.  I listen to books on my Ipad while I'm doing clay and I get so involved I forget to write things down and take pictures.  I should write myself a note to do that but I would probably lose the note.  Getting old is not for the weak.

 

This is a picture of the heart pendant, bracelet and texture sheet that I sent to Tina Holden when we had our Polymer Clay facebook swap.  I stole the picture she put on facebook since she had all three pieces in one picture.  This was my first texture sheet.  It's too thick and too deep so I told Tina she could use it to feed the birds up in Canada.  LOL 

The large heart on the left is attached to a beaded Kumihimo key chain with hearts.  The bracelet is a Shambala bracelet made with the same flower cane that is in the center of the heart.

 

 

CELEBRATING 200 AND OH MY IT'S RESIN

Never thought I would see the day that I could say "Hey, this is my 200th blog".  Three years ago I had no idea what a blog was and here I am.  YIPPEE

A BON-RO NECKLACE

As you know I love making crosses with Mokume Gane polymer clay.  I've sold quite a few of them and given many away.  The last two crosses that I made I used the new Premo 18kt gold and it really gave them pizazz.  Rose asked me for one of the crosses and matching earrings and because I gave them to her, she made a Kumihimo necklace for the one I kept.  It's going to be displayed in the library here the month of August.

Rose does Kumihimo so fast she amazes me.

RESIN, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE OH #$%@^^!#@!

I have been experimenting with resin.  I've always used Magic Glos on some of my polymer clay.  About a year ago I ordered some UV resin  from epoxyjewelry.com.  It's a one part resin that cures in the sun.  I've been following a resin blog and love the work that she does so I decided to try some.

This is the Good.

This is a bangle done in a mold (too small for my hand).  It has coral and mixed chips and no hole beads.  It also has a few bubbles.  I had to sand the sides and re-resin the top and bottom.  Not bad for the first time. 

This is the Bad.

I thought I would try the resin in molds.  I made the mistake of mixing Pearlex powders in the resin first.  Because of the powders, the resin didn't cure.  I should have done it in layers.  I was able to get the uncured resin out of the molds with rubbing alcohol.

This is The $@#^%^#&(#%$

Just couldn't give up.  Decided to try the Magic Glos in the mold.  There was a bubble so I picked up a piece of wire to pop it, the resin got a black line through it and the wire turned nasty.  Normally when I do Magic Glos, I run a BBQ lighter over it to get the bubbles out.  The bear is cute but he needs more sun.

STAY TUNED - NEVER KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT 

Carmi, I have some ET Lite that I will try as soon as I can find a place to put things to dry.

CLAY ON HOLD - WHY DO THEY CALL THEM EARRINGS?

This was going to be my clay week.  I finished the mask and made beads for my golf stroke counters and used my bead rollers to make beads for earrings (why do they call them that?) and then Jane called from the nursing home.  In a previous blog I told you about my 96 year old friend who is selling earrings and jewelry and sometimes right out of her ears.  I had to put the clay away and get out the beads and wires and findings and tools.

Her clients all like long and chunky.  I have 26 pair that I'm sending her so far.  The blue and magenta are polymer clay.  I had sent her one of my crosses with earrings to match and she saw a lady wearing cross earrings and pulled her into her room and sold her the cross set :0).  She just tickles me.  Every time I talk to her the excitement in her voice is amazing compared to before she started doing this.  I think I owe her a big bottle of vodka.

One of the pairs of earrings that Jane requested was for large, chunky crystals.  I have a whole box full of antique crystals from old necklaces that I had and things I found at estate sales.

These are 3 inches long and really aren't heavy but they sure do sparkle.  Hope she likes them.



BIRTHDAY PRESENTS

We are taking my friend Bev out for her birthday tonight.  She requested purse blings as a gift.

The one on the left is her dog Honey.  The one on the right is an old ring that she had but the band was broken off.  I made a polymer clay backing for it.  You can click on the picture to see it closer.  I'm unhappy with the picture of Honey.  I put Mod Podge on both sides and let it dry.  I used Mod Podge to adhere it to the frame and let it dry.  Then I put Magic Glos on it, twice.  After 24 hours, the picture started doing things.  Maybe I should have left the Mod Podge dry a little longer.

I need to get back to clay and finish my pieces for our retreat.



WHO NEEDS A UV LAMP???????

Living in Arizona has it's advantages and disadvantages.  For one thing, I never need a UV light to cure my Magic Glos.  I put it on, run a BBQ lighter over it to get the bubbles out, run through the house to the back patio and there's my UV light.  However, when it's 114 degrees, the Magic Glos is usually cured before I get it to the "Curing Wall" and then I'm sweating.

These are some crosses I made with a Mokume Gane that I did with the new Premo clays.  It was done with Premo White Glitter, Premo 18 kt Gold, Premo Magenta and Premo Black.  I also put a layer of silver leafing in between the stacks that was sandwiched between translucent.  The Premo 18 kt gold is so beautiful and gives a beautiful highlight.  The crosses were made with Penni Jo Couch's molds.  I can't say enough  good things about them.

Click on the pictures and you can see the colors better and the top one shows more of the gold.

These little ones are earrings.  One of these sets is for my friend Rose who just had throat surgery and we are celebrating that there was no cancer in her thyroid.  She saw the last set I made and raved about them.  When she does that, I know she's begging.  :0)

Arizona is hot in the summer but during the winter I play golf 3 times a week and go bike riding and walking and I'm not shoveling snow.  YIPPEE  Drove to work in that stuff for 30 years.  I'll take the heat.

BIRTHDAY LUNCH - LUCKY ME AND POLYMER PIECES

BIRTHDAY LUNCH

Even though it was a 109 today my friends Rose, Evelyn and Judy took me out for lunch for my birthday. It isn't till Sunday but this was the only day we could all get together.  We went to a wonderful restaurant called "Vogue Bistro".  That was my first time there and I loved it.  They have the best sweet potato fries I've ever had.  We had a great lunch and the waiter brought us a beautiful birthday desert.  I should have taken a picture of it.  It was four compartments and had chocolate coated macaroons, white chocolate coated dried fruit with macadamia nuts, white chocolate coated passion fruit and chocolate coated French wafers.  I don't want to eat again for a while.

I got some wonderful gifts (this is all leading to polymer clay) Evelyn gave me shoes to go walking in the water ( I guess she wants me to go to the pool again), a shirt with 2 cats on it, a container for my polymer clay and beading stuff and beads, Judy gave some special chalks to use on the new Tina Holden Honeycomb Tutorial http://beadcomber.blogspot.com/ that you can get the information for at her blog, Judy also made me one of her special bracelets out of canes that she has made and I'll post a picture of it when I get it back.  It needed one more bead.  Rose gave me a kitty stamp and a beautiful necklace.  She got the pendant from our friend Lupe at http://miramecreations.blogspot.com/ .  Lupe will be telling you all about it on her blog but Rose made the necklace part and put it together:

They all know I love cats and this necklace is gorgeous.  I think Rose and Lupe should team up and make jewelry although both of them make gorgeous pieces.

POLYMER CLAY AT LAST

I was gone 3 weeks and didn't get to do any polymer clay.  It's like not eating ice cream for a year.  Phooey, won't do that again.

I spent 3 days beading around a cabochon that I had done using the Barbara Maguire Mokume Gane technique.  I think it gave me a headache but it's done and I love it.

I made a short Herringbone necklace for it.  My camera still isn't taking good pictures but I should probably be taking pictures in the daytime.  I'll try again tomorrow and see if I can get a good one.

Next pieces are some Mica Shift that I was playing around with.  I actually bought the mica shift tutorial from Lynda Moseley http://www.scdiva.blogspot.com/ who does some incredible mica shift pieces.  As you can see I like to support the artists.  Here are my pieces.

I added a little of my own technique to the bottom ones.  Lynda does her with sanding and buffing.  I did sand these but then I put Magic Glos on them.

I had some leftover purple clay and some inks and other texture sheets.  As you can see I love those oval cutters and my new heart cutters with the tipped tail.

FLEXIBLE MOLDS

I've had a box full of flexible molds that I didn't do a lot with.  Last night I saw someone doing clay with flexible molds but not the way I had done it in the past.  I thought I would get them out and try the new way.  Looked interesting.  I have a Celtic cross mold and I know Evelyn likes those.  I made one and decided to make two more.  Now I know I was going about it all wrong and last night I finally did it right.

These came out beautiful even if I have to say so myself.  I used Magic glos on the middle part of the cross.  I used two coats, which I normally do.  I did the bails using the Cindy Lietz method http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/ which you can find in her tutorials.  It worked wonderful.  Check out her website.  She sends tutorials every Friday and she is remarkable.  It's a really small fee to receive these tutorials but the learning experience from them is priceless.

These three crosses are now with Judy, Rose and Evelyn.  They got birthday presents from me.

Thanks girls for a wonderful lunch, great presents and a fun day.  I love you all.