KALEIDOSCOPE DEMO

Our beading club is getting into polymer clay with a bang.  I've been teaching beginner classes for two years but because of a bad back, I haven't had a chance to do a class this year.  My friend Rose has been getting the girls that are interested in polymer together and doing demos and just playing with clay.  These girls are amazing.  Some of the things they have come up with are awesome.

Last week Rose did a demo with them on Skinner blends and spliced canes.  I saw some of the canes they did and I was awe struck.  Yesterday I did a Kaleidoscope cane demo.  I made some Skinner blend plugs the night before to use in the cane.  I'm really happy with the way the cane came out.

This is the original that I made into a square.



This is 4 squares together, cut in half and put back together.

This is another part of the cane that I made into a triangle, flipped 2 parts of the triangle over and cut into 3 pieces and then cut in half.  The girls loved this cane so much I gave them all pieces.  I have quite a bit left so I can do it again but I know it won't be exactly the same.  You can see the spots on the card behind the cane.  It happened so fast because some of my clay (black) was pretty fresh and it leached on the card before I had a chance to move it.

NOW, what do I make with this???????????????



CLAY GUILD CANE SWAP

Today our clay guild had our "Cane Swap".  There were 12 of us that participated and there was a lot of moaning going on when they started doing the canes but everyone did really great.  I had some of my canes done and then I got "THE CRUD" that's been going on around here and my desire to work or do anything went down the toilet.  I ended up making some Stroppel canes which I really love.

Here is a picture of the canes I received today.  Can't wait to start making something with them.  I'll post what ever it is.

We had a lot of new people in the swap that never made canes before and they did a beautiful job.

Last night I had some canes left over and some end pieces so I made some more Stroppel canes for me (tee hee hee).  They're all mine.

  I see earrings and pendants and earrings and buttons and earrings made out of these.

THIS IS NOT BUSTER.  This is a cat that needs the "Cat Whisperer".  He was made by one of our members who was teasing me about my love for Buster and showing how to use fun stuff when working with polymer clay.

Tomorrow is the day I have to clean off my clay table, get organized and now that the CRUD is gone I can start exercising. :(0

CANE SWAP TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

OK, I'm frustrated.  Most days I can sit down and make a flower cane or Kaleidoscope cane with no problem.  Now that I HAVE to make a cane my brain and fingers aren't working together.  My friend Evelyn who has macular degeneration came over the other day so we could "play with clay" and do some canes for the cane swap.  Yesterday she came over so I could help her reduce her cane.  She fell in the garage a couple weeks ago and hurt her hand.  Her cane is beautiful.  She has a way with colors.  She was an art teacher all her life and now she has trouble seeing, it's a dam shame.  That's all I can say.

This is her Kaleidoscope cane which I think is beautiful.

This is my cane that I did yesterday and my black clay was very mushy so I'm letting it rest and then I will square up the sides.  This is how it started.

I wanted to reduce while it was still a little soft because I thought it wouldn't move if I waited too long.  Guess I should have waited, the black would have reacted better.  At least I got 4 canes out of this so I only need 6 more.  I have till the 18th of February but I have a ton of other things I need to do like play with the cat.  LOL

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.

TIPS AND TRICKS - WHAT IS BURGUNDY - BYE BYE BIRDIE

As you know, I belong to the Arizona Polymer Clay Guild.  At every meeting someone does a demo.  This past Saturday one of our ladies showed how to convert a caulking gun into an extruder if you have that little silver extruder.  I was never able to use that.  I was so happy when the new green Makins one came out.  A couple weeks ago I was reading through some blogs and came across Knightwork's. She said she took some canes she had made and put them in the extruder to see what would happen.  She put in a big bullseye and out came a perfect little bullseye.  I tried it with some canes that I had made and sure enough, it worked.  So Saturday I did a demo on reducing canes in the extruder.  Being that I can't leave well enough alone, I played around and came up with something very interesting.  When you make a cane and reduce it in the extruder, the outer color of the cane stretches and the outer color starts disappearing.  So, I took some cane pieces, added an inch or half inch of a solid color on the front (the part closest to the disc opening).  It worked great.  The entire cane got covered with the clay.  Here's some pictures.

This is the original flower cane that I made.

The middle cane was done in the extruder using the largest square disc.  The cane on the right was done with the same disc but I put a half an inch of gold clay on the front of the cane.  I could have used black but for demo purposes I wanted to use another color.  As the end of the cane came out of the extruder I got something really awesome.

The cane did a twist at the end.  If you take your cane and twist it slightly before you put it in the extruder, you will get the twist also.  I did a spliced cane and ran it through the tiny circle disc and it came out perfect but really small which is great.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

WHAT IS BURGUNDY

This looks like burgundy.  My 96 year old friend wanted silver and burgundy earrings.

I went to the bead store by me and 4 people gave me beads they said were burgundy and not one was close to what the other one gave me.  I make earrings for my friend for every blouse she has.  She's in a nursing home but she dresses to the nines (I never understood what that meant) every day.  She also has a better memory than I do and has two martinis every night before dinner.  I'm rambling.  I bought some beads and made two pair of earrings but neither one looks burgundy to me.  I'll send them to her and see what she says.

The top ones look black in the picture but they are a little brownish-red.  I guess I'll be on the lookout for burgundy.  I only know the kind that comes in the bottle.

BYE-BYE BIRDIE

I remember that movie.  Ann Margaret was pretty good looking then, I guess we all have to get older.

I sold 5 of my baby bird houses today.  YEAH.  It's amazing how many people want to give you ideas about how to make things like that even after you've put 3 hours in each little bird house.  Teeheehee  OK, I'm listening.  Where's that burgundy????

Good night Booboo.  It's really quiet here without you. Big HUG.