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.

TH EARTHY INFLUENCE NECKLACE

THE TORY HUGHES EARTHY INFLUENCE NECKLACE.

This is the necklace I've been working on since I took the Tory Hughes class two weeks ago.  I wasn't able to finish it right away because I had to finish the buttons for our clay guild's exchange this Saturday.

We took two classes from Tory.  One was called mixed media and the other one was hinges.  This necklace was made with mostly Premo clay.  I textured the front and back and then antiqued it with acrylic paint after it baked.  The necklace is made of deep brown chips and small pieces of turquoise.  The toggle is a beautiful antique copper piece that I found at a bead store.  The top hinge was made from 20 gauge copper wire that I bought from A Beaded Affair http://www.abeadedaffair.com/.  She sells beautiful copper wire and has an Etsy page also http://www.etsy.com/shop/abeadedaffair.  I love this wire and won't use any other copper wire.  I got spoiled.  The bottom pieces are 18 gauge copper wire (also from A Beaded Affair).

This is the back of necklace.  I guess I could wear it either way.

As you can see on the top, it leans down to an angle.  I wasn't sure how I was going to do this so it would hang straight so I used the 16 gauge copper wire and made eye pins and attached them to the piece and put the chips going between the eye pins.  The single turquoise piece on the bottoms swings freely which I really like.

I'm still working in my dining room because of the flood in my studio and the new window won't be in till the 24th of February so, I guess I'll be here at least another two weeks by the time everything is done.  I guess I should be thankful.  It could have been a lot worse, at least I can still do clay and my 18 year old cat Booboo is sleeping right here next to me.  He got a blanket in the mail from Humane Society of the United States and he loves it.  He sure snores loud though.