HAPPY NEW YEAR

As I sit here typing, Buster has his head on my wrist.  He's been such a joy and the best Christmas present I've ever had.

He is not allowed on my work table or by my polymer clay, don't want cat hair in my resin or clay.  I've been working on bezels with clay and watch parts.  I have an order for quite a few of them so I've been trying different types of bezels.  I wish I could get better pictures of them.  I use Photofiltre to enhance my pictures but I'm just learning it and it's quite detailed.  I'll get there.

This is is a pendant I made for my friend Char who had cats but had to give them up because of her business.  She taught me how to trim Busters nails.  The cat is a little tiny button that I baked in the clay.  Then I covered the entire thing with Magic Glos.  Two coats.

This is a pendant made with a pearl, green-blue and black Skinner blend.  I bought the bezel from "The Hoarder's Closet" on etsy which is Marie Segal's.

This was made from a piece of my face cane from the Barbara Maguire class.  They all have resin (Magic Glos) on them which is really hard to photograph.

I found with the UV resins that they like to draw into themselves BUT if the item you are putting them on is COOL or COLD, the resin doesn't draw in as much.  I've been using a UV Light so I have to put my piece on a tile to put it in the lamp.  I make sure my tile is cold and the item I'm putting the resin on is cold before I apply the resin.  I made a pair of earrings that I wanted resin on also and found that I could paint a coat of resin on, put it under the light and repeat that painting with the resin to build up layers.

POLYMER - SAND AND BUFF, SAND AND BUFF, SAND AND BUFF

I made a flower cane.

From the flower cane I made two pendants.

This one doesn't have a bail yet.  Still thinking about what I want to do with it.

This one is in a silver bezel so I'm doing a Kumihimo rope with size 11 black seed beads.  When I make a large pendant out of a small cane, I do it by cutting a piece off the cane that is at least 1/2 inch long and rolling it with the roller just like you do to make a pie crust and then run it through the pasta machine.  It doesn't distort the pattern AS MUCH.

When I first started doing polymer clay 9 years ago someone told me to use Diamond Varathane or Future floor wax to finish them.  After lots of internet research, I decided I liked the look of sanding and buffing better.  The Future and Varathane are a must if you use mica powders on your pieces but make sure you put them back in the oven on 200 for at least 20 minutes after they are dry so it sets the finish.  I'm on my 3rd buffer, I own 3 rock tumblers and have a shelf full of sand paper.  When I sand a pendant or polymer clay piece, I start with 320 grit and go to 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, 2500 and finish with 3000.  I prefer to throw things in the tumbler for 15 hours with the river rocks.  Much easier.  The point is, polymer looks like glass when it is sanded and buffed.  But thumbs look like meatloaf if you don't wear gloves when you are sanding. LOL

  I have a wonderful outlet now where I am selling my polymer pieces and I brought this one in yesterday and it sold before I got home.

Got a call saying the lady who bought it wanted another one somewhat like it if I could.  I don't have that cane anymore but with the addition of a small amount of translucent and pearl, everything you make will shine, shine, shine after sanding and buffing.  You only need a pinch of translucent to make your pieces really shine.  I ususally mix it in with one of the colors of the cane.

WARNING, WARNING, WARNING

I ordered some beads over the internet and it said there would be 38 grams in the bag.  Many projects tell you how many grams of seed beads you need for a  project.  When I got the bag yesterday it looked kind of small.  I have a scale that weighs in grams and ounces and I weighed the bag and it only weighed 36 grams with the bag.  I sent the company an email and they were sorry and couldn't figure out how it happened but they are sending me the missing beads which probably equals 100 beads which could be the difference between finishing a project or not.  Don't take bead weights for granted.  Buy a scale. I use it for weighing envelopes before I mail them to make sure I know the post office is correct.  I verified the scale with the ones at a couple post offices.

I had my first international sale on Artfire this week.  YIPPEEEE  A lady from Hong Kong bought 4 items.  Thanks to Lynn Reno I got through it.  She told me about the custom forms and how she packages things for shipping.  Check out Lynn's shop on Artfire http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/DesertRubble, her steampunk items are awesome.

SISSY'S LATEST PICTURE

This is Sissy, I posted pictures of her when she was little.  Look at those eyes.  She's a smarty.  She belongs to my friend Pat but I get lots of kisses when she sees me.  Wish she was mine.