ANNIE AND BEAU - TINA CREATED A MONSTER

Want to thank you all for your prayers for Annie.  She's doing good and started eating and drinking and taking her medicine.  She will have surgery as soon as the infection is gone and she's a little stronger.  I have some great pictures that her dad sent over.

Nothing cuter than a sleeping puppy except a sleeping cat.  Just kidding Rex.

This is Annie and her big brother Beau out getting some vitamin D in the beautiful Arizona sun.  He's quite a guy.  He looks after her and brings her treats and toys.  When Beau sees me in my golf cart he jumps in and wraps himself around me.  He's a great dog.  I told my husband I wanted a dog and he said we would have to build a casita.  I told him I hoped he liked it out there.  Ha ha ha.

Here's my other buddy Scooter.  He's standing by a cactus in his back yard that had 72 blooms on it.  Is that beautfiul or what.  This time of year in Arizona the cacti bloom and the flowers only last one day which is sad because they are so beautiful.  Scooter is a snowbird and will be going back to Illinois sometime this week.  I'll really miss him.  He smiles when he sees me.  He's a good dog.

TINA CREATED A MONSTER

OK, Tina Holden created a MONSTER.

About a week or two ago I bought Tina Holden's http://beadcomber.blogspot.com/p/batik-tutorial.html tutorial called Batik and Shimmer and that's all I've done for 5 days.  I tweak a few things each time I do it to see what I come up with and every time I do it I love it more and more and I have all these beautiful pieces and I don't think I'm going to be able to part with them.

I sent Tina an email last night and asked if there was a meeting like AA where I could go so I could stop doing this.  I need a 12 step program for sure.  The only thing I can tell you is that it uses Magic-Glos so I get a lot of exercise running out to the patio to put my pieces in the sun.  I have one of those little UV lights but I don't like it.

This is my latest batch and now I have another one in the oven.  I'm going to need a 10 gallon drum of Magic-Glos which means I'll have to get a job to pay for the Magic-Glos which means I won't have time to do clay.  What a dilema.

Anyway, I think you all should buy Tina's tutorial because that will mean there will be meetings everywhere for those of us who can't stop doing this.  Even my husband said they were awesome and he was glad to see I was finally getting some exercise.  LOL

Goodnight Annie, Goodnight Beau, Goodnight Scooter, Goodnight Booboo, Goodnight Grandma

SHIMMERING BATIK - BEADING WITH CABOCHONS - ANNIE

First of all I want to tell everyone who said a prayer for Annie that I appreciate it and so do her parents.  She's doing better but not out of the woods yet.  She will have to have surgery in about 3 weeks when she gets over the infection, but she's fighting.  She finally started drinking water and eating a little.  Annie says thanks.  I do too and I'm going to keep praying that she gets 100% better.  She's very special and now has a happy, loving home, a big brother and lots of dog friends who don't abuse her.

SHIMMERING BATIK BY TINA HOLDEN ALIAS BEADCOMBER

I mentioned the other night that I bought a tutorial from Tina Holden http://beadcomber.blogspot.com/   and I posted some pictures that weren't anything like what she put on her blog after doing the technique.  WELL, I missed two important parts when reading the tutorial.  DUH.  My pieces came out ok but not like Tina's pictures in the tutorial.  Last night I started over and did two sets with a couple different twists (colors) and won't say what they are because you have to buy Tina's tutorial to appreciate this.  I did want to post my pictures of what I finally came up with after reading and following directions.  I also used almost a full bottle of Magic-Glos on these and I still have more pieces to do but I ran out of sunlight.  I did get a lot of pieces out of each set and I'm thrilled about that.  I want to tell Tina I really love this technique and I probably won't get anything else done until I have couple hundred pieces like this.

I'm having a little camera problem tonight.  These are so much prettier in real life.  I'll put up pictures when I make jewelry with them and they are finished.

BEADING WITH CABOCHONS

A couple weeks ago a friend was here visiting and she is into beading now and does some beautiful work.  She had this book with her and it fascinated me.  She was beading around cabochons and showed me what she was doing.  I saw the cabs she was using and thought "I could make those out of polymer clay and bead around them that doesn't look hard".  Then I remembered what a great time I had trying to crochet with beads.  I think I invented some new swear words.  Good thing there is a lady on youtube that shows how to do that.  I bought the book and it's beautiful.

It's by Jamie Cloud Eakin.  Now I have another book and maybe someday I'll teach myself how to do that too.  Don't hold your breath.  I just like books.

Back to my clay and Lupe if you are reading this I want that necklace http://miramecreations.blogspot.com/.

Goodnight Annie, sleep well, we love you.

POLYMER CLAY EXPERIMENT, GIVEAWAY AND SCARF FOR SOLDIERS AND ANNIE NEEDS A PRAYER

I bought the tutorial called Batik and Shimmering from Tina Holden at http://beadcomber.blogspot.com/.  It's a wonderful technique but I screwed it up somehow.  My friend Lupe at http://miramecreations.blogspot.com/ did a beautiful job and made a pendant that she is giving away but don't bother commenting because I'm going to win it.

I did the same technique but I think I used too many inks.  Here are my beads that I did.

Each one of these pictures has a story.

These are the original sheets of clay I made.  I think too much ink.

After I baked them I tried doing the technique where you put liquid clay on them, let them level and then bake them for 12 minutes at 325.  The back of the clay burned, the large bead got too plastic looking.  I peeled the liquid off.

These have Magic-Glos on them.  As you can see, I couldn't leave well enough alone and I used my new stamp pads on them before I baked them.  I am a mad scientist at heart.

These also have been stamped.  Some of them have liquid polymer clay on them and the two bottom right ones have a resin coat on them that I just got in the mail.  One step UV resin.  No mixing.  I have to sand the sides and bottom and it's a little thinner consistancy than Magic-Glos.  Going to take some practice with that.

These also have the ink stamped on them and they have a layer of Magic-Glos around the outer edge.  Tina Holden suggests this as a way to stop the Magic-Glos from pulling in.  I'll finish them tomorrow now that the taxes are done.

SOFTENING OLD CLAY AND CANES

Found some old canes that didn't want to soften up and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do.  Had to buy a new coffee carafe today and saw this at the hardware store and remember reading that someone used this to soften their clay and canes.  It's a Mr. Coffee mug warmer.  I'll put a piece of cloth on it and put the clay on to warm it up. 

SCARVES FOR THE MEN IN IRAQ

 

I told you I was crocheting a scarf for my club that will be donated to the 282nd Battalion in Iraq.  Well, they gave me the yarn and I mentioned it was 100% wool.  I got the yarn Friday and not realizing it, every time I worked on the scarf, I got a severe headache.  Finally figured out what the cause was and had to put a mask on to finish the scarf.  Either I'm allergic to the wool, the oils in the wool or it sat on a shelf or in a warehouse where there was mold and mildew.  I finished the scarf and sprayed it with that new Febreze.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, ANNIE NEEDS SOME PRAYERS

I know you all remember Annie the little Yorkie that my friends adopted right before Christmas.  She is 6 years old and came from a drug home where they raised pit-bulls for fighting.  Annie held her own but needed lots of food and lots of love.

This is a picture I took of Annie this past Sunday.  She was very lethargic and wasn't eating.  I held her for almost an hour.  My friends took her to the vet yesterday morning and Annie has a severe uterine infection and sepsis.  She's been given some major antibiotics but she's so small, she's really fighting.  She had tremors and was crying because the pain was so bad.

PLEASE SAY A LITTLE PRAYER FOR ANNIE.

MORE ANNIE AND BEAU AND BEADS

Is she cute or what? She got her hair cut last night so she doesn't really need the barette anymore. She also has some new outfits that her aunt Susie bought her. I guess I'll have to crochet a jacket and scarf for her so she doesn't get cold.

Ok, this is my good friend Beau watching Bev feed Annie.  He's an awesome dog and sweet as can be.  He hasn't totally warmed up to Annie yet but I think he will.  I'm guessing he's going to be a great, big brother.  I'm waiting for more pictures of Annie with her hair cut and then I'll post them.

These two beads were made by my friend Judy who just got over having surgery and radiation for breast cancer.  She's doing great now and we hope it stays that way.  The bead on the left started out as a Casablanca bead.  You can find the instructions for that at http://www.desiredcreations.com/.  It was done by Desiree McCrory and they are beautiful no matter what colors you put together.  However, Judy never does things normal when it comes to clay.  She finds ways to put twists on things like she did with both of these beads.  The one on the right is actually translucent and she put a ton of colored leafing in it and streaks of black clay.  It really looks better in person.  This was the bead I got in the bead exchange at Christmas.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it so I wire wrapped it and I love the way it turned out.  Thank you Judy.

I just finished this today.  It's the first time I've done a double wrap.  These two beads came from the left overs when I made my Casablanca beads.  I made a black velvet cord necklace for it because it's a little heavier than normal but not bad.  Tomorrow I'm going to a luncheon for the woman who was the president of a craft club that I belong to here in Arizona.  She's a really sweet lady so some of her close friends decided to have a luncheon for her to show her how much we appreciated everything she has done in the past year.

Back to work, have some other gifts to make that didn't get done before Christmas so they will be New Year's presents.

Thanks for visiting my blog.  Check out Etsy and Polymer Clay Artist's Guild of Etsy.  When you go to the Etsy website, type in PCAGOE.  They are a very talented group and would really appreciate the support.