Feature #3 for an Artfire Collection!!

Hey guys, I was featured in another collection on ArtFire!!

On the far right, top row, that's mine!! I did some polymer clay pieces a while back where I was trying to use various shades of brown and pieces to resemble faux woodgrain I made to make some steampunk-like pieces with clock parts. This was also towards the beginning of my using resin, so I tested using resin to encase them. This definitely was the best piece, but I never got around to making it anything ready-to-use unless someone buys it just to glue it on a bezel or something.

Anywho, just wanted to let ya'll know! :D

Craft ya laters!

Monthly All Girls Craft Group - April 2013

Hey guys! We actually had a pretty mild Craft Day in April as it seems it's just the 4 of us regularly showing with the exception of 1 guest along with my mom visiting for a couple hours, but not to make anything. I did get pictures of what we did get done however so...

First of all, this is a polymer clay brooch/hair-pin piece Michelle made to test the viability of use for bridesmaids in a wedding. The green is only tissue paper to hold up the petals during baking so imagine those gone, and the in center is a black button pressed in there.... Pretty awesome, don't you think?! We thought so!! Can't wait to see if she kept with this idea and made more! ;)


Leena was able to make a couple of pieces of jewelry I believe (pics to come soon!) but spent most of her time being an awesome hostess!!

Airon and I apparently decided it was time for more perler bead pieces!!

Mine

Airon's.. and no, the 'A' isn't for her, it's for a friend who's an Atlanta Braves fan :p

I know this isn't much to show for you guys, but it was a short and simple craft day for us. May's Craft Day should have a bit more going for it as attendance sounds much better this time (darn school and kid's schedules! :p)

Craft ya laters!!

Polymer clay pendants using various canes

Previously on Artfire: Published On: 10-01-2012

Here are some sneak peaks at things I've been working on lately to give you an idea of what could be coming to the store soon!!




The above were made with a kaleidoscope cane.
This is my first brain cane!!



Made using a checkerboard cane!

These were made using a mokume gane technique! The first picture is skins that will be used for accent beads and above are focals made from the original block of clay.
This one is my favorite so far!! I used my brain cane to make a pendant, gave it a backing layer to thicken it up, put my own clay frame around it and put a top of there with a hole so you don't need an additional bezel or hole put in it!! Now to polish it up a bit and/or varnish it up... although I might dome it with resin instead...


All of these were made with polymer clay and have yet to be finished, just wanted to give you guys an idea of what should be showing up in the store at some point!!

Clay techniques - rolled cane and faux woodgrain

Previously on Artfire: Published On: 09-11-2012 

I was reading through one of my clay bead making books and finally got some inspiration after not having any for so long!! Look what I made!!!



These are my faux woodgrain with brown, metallic gold and gold.


This is my new purple, blue, pink and black cane!!

Wheeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First Attempt at Clay Scales

Previously on Artfire: Published On: 07-24-2012

I have been thinking it'd be neat to try to make a clay dragon statue lately... so I tried to start one last night:




I'm actually pretty happy with how it looks so far!! Can't wait to get back home and start working some more! Also, I have to create more body clay to get the legs attached and start thinking about the head? We'll see how it turns out... ;)

Skinner Blend Method - Pink, white, blue and silver

Previously on Artfire: Published On: 07-16-2012

I have had my pasta machine for playing with clay for about as long as I've had all my clay but had yet to properly do the Skinner Blend method to get a really good color shift going...until yesterday!


Colors used : pink, blue and white


This is after about 7 or 8 runs through the pasta machine.


This is after about 15 or so runs through the pasta machine.


All done!!!

I brought out all my cutters and wanted to do a good variety of shapes:





The 2 ovals missing were pieces that stuck in the cutter at first so I set them aside on my silicone baking mat.

As you can see, I did a good deal of cutting, as well as using my zig-zag blade and getting a few strips in the middle.



Look at all the awesome pieces I got!!! Most were from the original strip of blended clay, but a few I got from using silver with glitter as a base (for the broken hearts and the circles with swapped flower inserts) and then I used the silver for its own pieces bc it got a little blue and pink on the edges and when I ran through the pasta machine to ready for more backs, I saw the pink and blue stripes in there and couldn't resist them being their own pieces!

The butterflies on the bottom left as well as the squares were used with the silver base and broken pieces from the original rollout and pieces of the zig-zag cuts I'd made and then rolled into the silver using the pasta machine.

The top left section has a few free-form cuts I made just to see what they'd look like.


Junk pieces on silver.

Swapped flower inserts.

Friendship heart necklace pendants.
Ice cream cones and free-form.
More free-form.
Totally outrageous Jem earring pieces? ;)


Regular cuttings.
Kind of weathered looking pieces I might put floating sand/beach related floaters in under resin coating?

I can't wait to get some of these framed/sealed in resin, some maybe with a layer of filler as if they were in a bezel!!

Accidental Camo Clay Pendants

Previously on Artfire: Published On: 07-16-2012


I was perusing Pinterest and a ton of craft sites and blogs this past weekend and came across an awesome blog for a woman that does a lot of nifty things with clay and gave me an awesome inspiration to try something: a mica shift.

You can find her original blog and the particular post I'm referring to over here at :

Mica shift con estrellas : www.fimoland.com

Basically "Mica shift with stars" and with her pictures taken so well to demonstrate the technique along with my basic understanding of Spanish (I did take 5 years in school after all!), I was able to get the general idea of how she did it,... I think. Next time I should try with the powders that give you that mica shift effect properly.

Unfortunately, I think I should have actually used clay colors more like what she did, with the mica powders and/or shinier colors than what I have; which are drab, basic colors.

I got my colors out and conditioned them, ran them through my pasta machine at about setting 4 or 5 with the brown at level 9 as it was my base layer:



I then used my star cutters to get a few medium stars for each color (black, dark green and a maroon I made by mixing red and black) as well as a bunch of smaller stars in each color.

I didn't take the in-between step picture (sorry!) but I laid out the stars on the brown, overlapping each other here and there and proceeded to run the sheet through the pasta machine about 10-15 times to get them imbedded in the brown like  you see here. I then took 2 different sized oval cutters and started in on my sheet:



Once I figured I got as many as possible that would look good, I went ahead and laid them out to the side:



I realized at about this point, they weren't really looking like the mica shift pattern I'd been aiming for, but were now camo looking pendants! This just means that I'll be able to make a set of them (or even two, there's a lot!) and get them up on the site later.I then used the background clay to go through the machine again as it was just the brown and had hints of the other colors. After running through the machine, I saw that the brown had little bits of black that ended up looking sort of woodgrain! I cut out a number of small ovals and balled up the background clay from that. I ran it through the pasta machine another time with that bit and got the results you see below for the final count:



They went in the oven and I now have 8 large oval pendants, 24 small camo, 28 thicker brown with black woodgrain effect and 1 small green/black swirl from the leftover clay. One of these days I''' try to seal them in resin or varnish, or whatever it is you're supposed to use on clay.