TWELVE DAYS AND COUNTING - NO NOT CHRISTMAS

In 12 days I have to turn my items in that I want to sell in the craft fair that our city is having.  I belong to the Beading club here and we are going to have a huge booth and each member is allowed to turn in 20 items and 10 pairs of earrings to sell.  Since I do polymer clay, I want everything I turn in to have some polymer on it.  I'm making earrings but without the polymer.  I finished 4 pieces so far for the craft fair and I only have 12 days to go.  My muse is back but I think she's having hot flashes.

I finished this one today.  It's kind of eclectic.  Lots of beads and silver stuff.  The necklace is two pieces of Kumihimo with size 6 black beads and clear drops.  The swirl bead is quite large.  Haven't decided what price I want to put on it yet.  We have to pay the city and the beading club takes a small amount to support some of our projects and the seller has to pay the taxes.  So by the time they are finished taking their share, I'm not left with much.

This is one of my favorite pieces and I was going to keep it for myself but I decided to sell it.  I'll just have to make another one.

BARBARA MAGUIRE CLASS

I'm really excited, I'm going to a 2 day face cane class with Barbara Maguire.  Our guild is sponsoring it.  I've never done a face cane before so this should be interesting and I love Barbara Maguire.  I have all her books and her most of her products.  One of the ladies in our guild set the class up and did a great job.  It will be held close to us this time so we don't have to drive to the other side of Phoenix.  I'm not good at faces or sculpting so if it doesn't look bad when I'm done, I'll post pictures of it.

CALL 911, SOMEONE STOLE MY MUSE

The Sun City West craft fair is November 5th and I'm trying to get pieces done to put in the craft fair but someone stole my muse about a week ago.  When I talked to my BFF's they said the same thing happened to them.  I think it started when someone sneaked in and spiked my oven and burned all my pieces.  I've been looking at pictures on the computer and in magazines to see if my muse would come back.  Yesterday I got a migraine so I took my pill and laid down before I fell down (pretty strong stuff).  While I was laying down I had all these awesome ideas about putting pieces together, and then I fell asleep.  When I woke up, they were gone again.  How and why does that happen?  Today I decided I would only touch one piece and not touch anything else until I had a finished piece.

This is a pendant I made when we were up in Prescott at our clay retreat.  It has chain and green ribbon cord.  This is one of my favorite cats.  He seems very arrogant but stately.  I double wrapped the neck piece just to take a picture of the clasp.  A friend wanted to see how I finished it.

You can click on the pictures to see them closer.  The colors in this one are really pretty.  I made the necklace out of Kumihimo with size 8 seed beads and also used those for the bail.  I really like this one so if it doesn't sell it will be mine. LOL

So, now I have three pieces done and 27 to go.  I need some elves to help me.

The chiropractor will be back Monday and that's the last vacation he's ever going on.  Maybe after he twists me around and gets my back straight my muse will show up again.  Where do you look for a missing muse???????  Call 911

WHAT A WONDERFUL SURPRISE

Today is our 30th anniversary of being married and our anniversary of moving to Arizona and moving in our house.  I put a note on facebook about how we thought Booboo (the cat) got out of the house on October 8, 2002 when the moving men were going in and out.  We searched frantically for that little cat.  After the moving men left I heard a noise in the kitchen and found him trying to open the cupboard door to get out.  I can't imagine how he got in.  He must have gone up there to hide from all the commotion.  Boo would have been 20 years old this Halloween and since most of my life was spent talking and playing with that cat, I'm sure I mentioned it at least 100 times or more. LOL

Today when the mail came there was a package in it from Anita Brandon, a very talented polymer clay artist, who lives in Cottonwood, AZ which is about 2 hours from here.  We have never met but we have been emailing each other for a couple of years now.  When I opened the package I was speechless.  The note on the inside read "Bonnie, in memory of Booboo your sweet Halloween fur person".  Then the tears started.

Anita made me a special cat in memory of Booboo.

Isn't he the cutest and most beautiful cat you've ever seen?  I told Anita, Booboo wasn't an angel until the day he died.  My friends called him "The Devil Cat".  He would let them pet him and then try to eat their fingers.

Anita has a wonderful line of Christmas cats in her Artfire store right now at
 http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/MelodyODesigns.  Her cats are so cute and if you have friends who are cat lovers, they have to have one of these to hang on the tree.

Anita, thank you again for the Angel Cat.  I will treasure him forever.

BASKET WEAVE WITH POLYMER CLAY

Last week I did a demo at our clay retreat in Prescott.  I thought it was called a basket weave but it was actually called Woven Ribbon.  It came from the winter of 2003 Polymer Cafe.  Not only was it fun, it was a big hit.  Everybody was doing it.  The Lumiere paints really add dimension to the clay.  I sold all the pendants I made even before they were cooked.  I had an order for two more so I made some today and a strange thing happened.  They stuck to the paper and three of them didn't feel like they were cooked hard enough.

This is after the first baking.  They look normal except for the paper on the bottom.  I decided to put them back in the oven (convection oven).  I turned the heat up to what I thought was 265 for Premo.  I had baked them on 250 for an hour.

After 15 minutes I smelled the burning.  The card stock is brown, the pendants blew up and got puffy and don't come off the card stock.  The black bottom layer of clay looks and smells like tar.  This was 2 packages of brand new black Premo that I bought at Michael's yesterday.  Never had this happen at the retreat or when I did it before.  This technique takes a lot of time to do.  I feel like I just wasted a whole afternoon.  Glad I didn't have the oven in the garage again.  I'm wondering if the Lumiere paints can't take the higher heat.  I know at the retreat we had them set at 265.  I just put the thermometer back in the oven and set the stat on 200.  In 5 minutes it read 475.  This is a GE convection oven that I've had for less than 6 months.  I bought it at Wal-Mart and didn't keep the receipt.  After 3 months I don't normally keep them because of all the paper that piles up.  I'm going to send GE an email and see what they say.
Watch your ovens.  Preheat them and check the temps.  We did have a lot of items get burned up at camp but mine weren't among them so I thought I was lucky.  We did have 6 ovens going at one time and the electric couldn't handle it.  As soon as the electric came on the ovens spiked again and what ever was in them burned.  Too much hard work not to be careful.

Here's my laugh for the day though.

PEONY CANE - WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG?

Had 5 wonderful days in Prescott with my BFF's at the Arizona Polymer Clay Guild's annual retreat.  Before I left, I printed out a copy of the directions to make a peony cane.  Judy, my table partner, also printed out those directions so you can imagine our surprise when we both said we were going to make a peony cane.  We started at the same time but I was done with mine in a little over an hour and Judy was still working on hers 6 hours later.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was taking her so long.  Well, I was missing 3 pages in my directions.  There were suppose to be 15 pieces of cane that you put together but no not me, I had 6 pieces so my peony was a little less dramatic.

                                             Love the colors and I'm sure it will make pretty beads.

This is what the real peony cane should look like and the directions are here http://www.catherienarts.com/en/the-peony-cane/.  Thanks Cat, sorry I screwed it up.

What do you call half  of a peony?  Tee hee hee.