EAR WARMERS AND HALLOWEEN JEWELRY

Even though I live in Arizona it gets cold here in the morning.  Today it's 58 but in no time it will be in the 90's.  But, in the winter, mornings are pretty cold and when I play golf I take the golf cart and my ears get cold or when I walk my friends dogs my ears and forehead get cold and then I get a headache.  While I was down with my foot surgery I decided to make myself an ear warmer.  My friends saw them and asked if I could make some for their grand kids back home in Wisconsin.  We are meeting for lunch today and they are leaving to go back in a week so I had to hustle.  They all have handmade buttons. The dog and duck button have been altered slightly.  Most of them are from polymer clay.

This is a Green Bay Packer ear warmer for my friends grandson.

I was sewing the buttons on with Nymo thread because it's so strong.  One night we saw Buster running around with something hanging out of his mouth.  We chased him around the house for 5 minutes before we finally got him.  He took the thread off my table and there was a needle on it.  The needle was hanging out of his mouth.  He had swallowed the thread.  I pulled on the needle and got the thread out.  When he was little he would get in the garbage cans and take the dental floss and eat it.  He also loves Fireline so I can't leave that out when I'm beading.  Most cats like yarn, NOT HIM.  He's going to drive me to drink.


CLAY CAMP

This is the first time in 8 years I've missed going to camp with my clay guild.  That foot surgery really did me in.  I'm just now able to put shoes on and not for long.  The nerves are still making sure I know the foot is there.  My friends have been sending me pictures and it looks like I missed a great time and a lot of great demos.  Hopefully, I'll be able to make it next year and things stop breaking on me.

HALLOWEEN JEWELRY

My niece goes to a lot of dress up Halloween parties so I thought I would make her some jewelry.

The bracelet was done with Kumihimo.  Now I only have 12,000,000 Megatamas left to work with.

I THINK I LOST MY BUTTONS

I didn't really lose them, I mailed them away to a sweet little girl.  My sister's niece makes adorable knit and crocheted hats for babies and adults.  She also makes ear warmers and scarves.  She's going to be opening an Etsy shop in September as soon as she gets her inventory up.  She uses buttons for some of the hats and the scarves and I thought it would be nice if she had some hand made polymer clay buttons.  I wanted to get them to her as fast as possible so I worked furiously to get a couple batches done.

I made a few shank buttons but most of them are textured or molded with two holes.  If you want to make your own buttons and you aren't sure how to do it or how to finish them, Carolyn Good of 2 Good Claymates has a tutorial on Etsy on how to make buttons.   It's an excellent tutorial and she takes you step by step.HERE  I like Carolyn's tutorials because they are precise and clear.  I have been making buttons from polymer clay for 10 years but I bought her tutorial to find out how she finishes her beautiful buttons.

About 8 years ago our guild had a button exchange.  I went a little over board and I made about 200 buttons.

These are from our button exchange and I sold 50 to lady who's daughter made sewn purses.  She really liked the big ones.

The woman I sent the buttons to has a 3 year old baby that was born with a tumor on the back of her neck and has no use of her left arm.  She has to be on oxygen constantly.  My friend had to quit her job to take care of the baby because of all the specialized care the baby requires.  She is the cutest baby you have ever seen.  I hope her shop does really well and I will provide a link when it's up and running.  Here is a link to her facebook page so you can see all the cute things she makes. Yinky Winks.


Have a good Friendship Day, and make sure you remember your friends with a nice email.

BUTTONS AND BIRD HOUSES

You are reading the blog of the woman who spent a week rolling beads in a bead roller and didn't own any molds or sculpting tools.  Who was that crazy lady?  I bet I have every sculpting tool (thanks to Christi Friesen) and 100 molds (thanks to Penny Jo Couch, I love her molds).   I digress, I am now making buttons for a friend of mine.  Her daughter makes beautiful quilted bags and puts my buttons on them.  I've made some button molds from some rather interesting old buttons and using sculpting tools to make bird houses.  You can see my bird houses in some previous blogs.  Well, I just got an order for more buttons and I worked all weekend on them.  I'm seeing buttons in my sleep.

 These are something different for me.  I used the cane I made and put it in one of Penny Jo Couch's cabochon molds.  Did each one a little different.  I made a button shank out of 18 gauge copper wire and put it in with liquid clay before I baked it.  I really like these.

These were made with a mold that I made from an old button and Simple Silicone from JewelryEpoxy.com.  It's a two part silicone and really easy to us.  Their website has a video showing how to use it.  These were made with gold clay and gold Pearlex Powders.

This is the same mold with different Pearlex Powders.

These are made from translucents with color added and the extruder.  They almost look like Bakelite.

These were done with a button that I made a mold out of polymer clay with.  I have to spray it with Armour All every time I make something in order for it to come out easy.

These are hearts that I textured and used Pearlex on and then sanded to make them look vintage.

These are a little chunkier heart buttons with Swarovski flat back crystals.  I'll have to start making buttons to keep them on hand so I don't have to rush to make them when she needs them.

CORAL, CORAL, CORAL

A friend of mine went to Quartsite a while back and bought some strands of coral beads.  We finally got together so she could tell me what she wanted done with them.  Some of the beads were unusable which surprised me.  They had black spots and severe cuts and gouges on them.

I went through them to pick out the good ones and had enough to make two necklaces, earrings and a bracelet.  I added some silver to it.  The necklaces can be worn together or separately.

It really looked good on her with the shirt she had on Friday night.  See, it's been a busy weekend.

Dear Booboo, it's been three weeks since you went to Rainbow Bridge.  I think of you everyday, you were the light of my life.  Hope you have lots of bags to get into and lots of yarn to play with.