LEARNING, LEARNING, LEARNING

In the post before last I told you I bought the Lynda Moseley tutorial "Masterful Faux Made Easy".
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DivaDesignsInc  you can buy it in her Etsy shop and it's wonderful.  I've done 3 batches now and it's been a learning experience for me.  All polymer clay artists put their own twist on things and I'm no different. 

As you can see, there aren't two alike but they are all beautiful, at least I think so.  They are not as pretty as Lynda's and if you go to the picture on the cover of her tutorial you will see the things she made using this tutorial.  I don't like to sand so I took some short cuts and it's obvious.  Lynda made me promise to do it again and do it right.  She sands with 8 different grits, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 and 3000.  I skipped a few so I have to go back and redo.

This was my first go at it but I decided to rip the clay and put it together (my twist).  These need re-sanding too.  Now I have 12 more pieces that I made out of these batches so I have a lot of sanding to do.  I would be happy to pay someone to do it for me.

This tutorial is so much fun and I know if I follow directions I will soon be able to make beautiful stuff like Lynda's.  I guess I kind of hurried though since I had to golf, bowl, walk the dogs, wash the sheets, iron the clothes, mop the floors, dust the furniture, change the cat liter.  I think it's time to let all that stuff go and just do clay.

By the way, Lynda has the one on the top right in the above picture and my friend Evelyn took the two round ones to make pendants for her and her sister, she loved them.  The picture doesn't really do them justice.  Some day I'm going to figure out how to take good pictures too, as soon as I clean the bathroom and empty the garbage and walk the dogs again.  So now I only have to re-sand one piece.

Have fun with this and Lynda is so wonderful and helpful.  It's 47 pages of awesome pictures and instructions.  Guess you can tell I'm a Lynda fan.  She's stuck in 11 degree weather right now and it's 80 here so I'm trying to be nice to her.  LOL

CLAY CLASS - MY OH MY NECKLACE - NEW BEADS

CLAY CLASS

Last Wednesday I did a beginner's clay class with 7 students.  I usually do the Mokume Gane technique because students are awe struck when they take that first slice off the top of the stack.  The last class I taught I gave them the clay to teach them how to condition it and we had problems with a couple of the clays.  They were really hard and the students were getting frustrated so this time, I spent all day Tuesday conditioning clay and making the stacks ahead of time.  At the class I showed them how I did it in order to save time but I let them make all the indentations in the clay.  I had them slice pieces out of the clay stacks and we made pendants and earrings with cutters.  We did get them baked but not finished. Today only two people were able to bring their pieces back to finish.  I showed them how to sand and put the holes in their pieces and then we took them outside and sprayed them with Preserve Your Memories II.  We really didn't have time to do a class on buffing and they wanted their pieces to make jewelry with.

Linda's beads look like hot air balloons.

Next week I'm going to do a demo on bead rollers.  I love bead rollers.  I make all kinds of shapes with them.  When I got my first bead roller I made over 100 beads.  I couldn't stop.

MY OH MY NECKLACE

Last week when I was doing the stacks of clay, my other friend Judy came over and was watching me.  I cut some end pieces off of one the stacks and gave them to her because she liked the colors.  I showed her a couple different shaped beads that could be made with the clay.  Today she showed up with this incredible necklace.  I know I'll never get to wear it but at least I got to touch it.  LOL

I really need a picture of it hanging.  It's gorgeous.

The clasp is rhinestones and has a magnet.  I guess I'll just sit and make beads and give them to Judy, Rose and Evelyn and let them make jewelry.

NEW BEADS

Last week at clay day we made some Natasha beads using Iris Mishly's method of making them.  I had a lot of canes left so I made a bunch of beads.  I sanded them all and I was going to buff them but I bought some new gloss and thought I would try it.  Big mistake.  Will be resanding these and buffing them.  I never did like using gloss or Future or glaze of any king except Magic Glos.  That taught me a lesson.  I was trying to save time.  Some got spots and parts didn't dry clear.  These beads are too pretty to leave them like that.  Made more work for myself.  DUH.

The two on the top right were sanded and buffed, the rest have gloss on but not for long.  They look like plastic and I don't like that.

 

HEY GIRLFRIENDS, THANKS FOR YOUR HELP WITH THE CLASS LAST WEEK.  IT WAS FUN.

NAUGHTY TUMBLER

It's late and I'm tired and my tumbler let me down.  I made more black and white Zebra flower beads.  I put 3 in the tumbler and moved it to the guest bathroom where it was cooler.  The beads came out yellow again.  I have to sand them.  I'm glad I didn't put the whole bunch in there.  So now the question is "do I want to sand all these little beads by hand and buff them or do I want to put Diamond Varathane on them"?  Doesn't seem like a big decision does it.  Let me know what you think?


NEW FLOWER CANE

Had some left over clay that I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with.  Made another flower cane.

Had some ends left that I made a spiral bead from.  It isn't baked yet but I like the colors.

Maybe tomorrow night we will have some beads made from the cane or some more canes.  I have about 20 pounds of odds and ends pieces of clay and I'm trying to use them up before I open more packages.

I made a Miter Cane today from the Cindy Lietz Friday tutorial.  It turned out great but I didn't like the colors so it went in the scrap pile.  It was the orange and green that is the center of the flower.  It was yucky so now it's the middle of an odd colored flower cane.  Ha ha ha.