Get err done!

For some reason I keep loosing this post. I will give the pictures lets see I the story is there or gets lost. I am sick of retyping this cussing about where the bleeping post went to and starting again!
Grrrrr

My attempt at sitting down to the clay table after being away for a long time. Paid son to extrude the discussions were funny, he ended up bringing in a friend because it was so hard. Friend quit not all clay was extruded we just kind of quit with hurt hands and all!
Not even sure if I want to use it or just quit. I do know two things well
1. Son will never extrude for me again If serious cash is not involved.
2. I need to figure out how to hook a drill up to the extruder.

Why do I have to do this stuff again?

Pandora Bead Swap Pics

We finshed the Pandora swap and now have moved on to pens…..Enjoy the eye candy.

 

 

First Pandora Bead

I can at least give you this my very first Pandora bead ever made on my new Pandora reward for quitting three weeks! These two were made last year when I got the blanks from Fire Mountain Gems.

Blog looks like it used to now I swear it looked different before it is not me getting old however I am quitting for the night.

WordPress I Love You But……..

This Saturday I quit smoking 1 month ago. One thing about the new me is I do not have patience.

I will admit it has been a month and a half since I lost posted but come on WordPress I do not have the patience to lean new now.

I was already here two weeks ago saw the change and did not have the patience to learn new then.

Today I decided I had to try and had a really long post with pictures that somehow went bye bye while trying to upload and now I do not have the patience to do again.

I wanted you to know I miss blogging and wanted to say heyyyyyyyyy and tell you all about new inspirations and thinking about being an artist, the process and most important the end result.

But this wil all have to wait while I go and learn new…….grrrrrrrr

Pandora Bead Swap

Well the swappers did it they decided that we would be making Pandora Style beads. If you would like to join in on the fun you do have to be a member of the Yahoo group City O Clay so come on over and join in on the fun. Due date is Feb 1st

Here are some inspirational links that were found by some of the members. Even if you do not join in on the swap see how easy it is to make a Pandora Style bead!

 

What exactly is a Pandora bead?

A Pandora bead is a bead that will fit on the Pandora style bracelet or necklace.

Here is a link that has almost every quesiton you could have about a Pandora style bracelet answered at your fingertips.

http://www.ehow.com/pandora-bracelets/

 

They typically are ___approx 4mm in diamater and made to fit on a Pandora style bracelet.

Below please find some links to Pandora type beads made from polymer clay.

 

a tutorial

http://www.arttradermag.com/how-to/pandora-style-bead-polymer-clay/

 

one with stripes

http://www.handmadeology.com/how-to-make-pandora-style-polymer-clay-stripped-beads/

 

 

http://libzoid.net/2009/05/27/quick-silver-cored-beads/

 

Cat Therian’s take on this

http://www.catherienarts.com/2010/01/11/pandora-troll-large-hole-style-memorial-beads/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clayharmonyok/6416562355/in/photostream

 

And here is a whole bunch of videos for oyu to enjoy

http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=polymer+clay+pandora+bead+tutorial

 

 

From Astrid

How to’s

http://etsyrussianteam.blogspot.com/2011/09/diy-tutorial-pandora-style-polymer-clay.html

This is a tutorial that you can buy but the picture might give you an idea of how to make lampwork beads a-la pandora style
http://www.polymertutorials.com/tutorial-pandora-beads.html

One of my favorites! I am going to try to make some of these in dog and cat form
http://www.etsy.com/listing/73395876/australian-shepherd-pandora-polymer-clay

Some YouTube movies

In this one the camera moves a lot but it’ll give you an idea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcIg_3JcqS4

I really like this one and the clear instructions. Also the idea to use a toothpick first, then a skewer and then the core, because it will distort your bead less… Oh and she uses cane slices
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv1wpfrr_qw

Italian video but she uses a flathead screwdriver to get the rest of the clay out of the hole AND I saw she is also using the grommets that one would use for fabric (with one of those special pliers that crimps them together)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-cCHDt5LCk&feature=related

Not a tutorial but it shows a lot of different style pandora beads
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVPL-ldGpQM&feature=related

 

 

These are from Luny….Thanks Luny!

 

TUTORIALS
This Pandora bead tutorial doesn’t have the grommets but will still give you a good idea of things/designs you can do …
http://makeiteasycrafts.blogspot.com/2012/05/pandora-style-bracelet.html

“Chunky” Pandora bead tutorial
http://thepurplefroggieclaystuff.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-i-make-my-chunky-pandora-style-bead.html

A simple tutorial – it is in French but still easy to understand by looking at the photos …
http://loretcreations.canalblog.com/albums/trucs_et_tutos/photos/67227708-tutopp.html

FOR INSPIRATION…..
Please know that some of these are for sale but I am not affiliated with them in any way.

These are just pictures (images) of Pandora beads for ideas and inspiration. 
http://tiny.cc/z6a1nw
- or - 
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=PANDORA+BEADS+%2b+POLYMER+CLAY&qpvt=PANDORA+BEADS+%2b+POLYMER+CLAY&FORM=IGRE

These are sterling silver Pandora beads but I thought I would share them as I sure got a few ideas while browsing through them.
http://www.rothroyale.com/sterling-silver.html?limit=all

YEA!

I am sure there is a quote almost like what I am going to say but I will get lost on the information highway looking for it so I am not going and will wing it on my own I want to blog.

If you depend on someone to help you do or change something they will never help you until it becomes inconvenient for them not to.

Case in point.

My computer has been giving me all kinds of warning signals saying there was low battery and no disk space for a while now. None no space how in the heck is that?? I cleaned all I could to free up space and asked son if he could as well. Still wasn’t enough to free up space so I had to decide what the next step was and today was the day to get that checked off my list. I have the dragon swap mailing in the next week and will need space on the computer to save the pictures EEEKKK.

I went to Best Buy and found an external drive that holds 1.5 tb. A tb is a terrabyte and that is equal to 1000GigaByte. Now that’s not what I went in there looking for I asked the guy to show me what my options were for clearing up some space on the computer. He showed me two items and after I asked what in the heck a terrabyte was it was decided by me that was a shitload of room and I would never have to worry again problem solved battery on order life is good!

When I get home and instruct #1 son to move his music to the drive so there is room on the computer and I can start bloggen again he asks what in the heck a terrabyte is Ha Ha. When it became inconvenient for him to have to use the external drive to add or listen to music suddenly 4 gigabytes magically appeared free on my computer and I am now sitting here blogging again AND will be able to take that terrabyte thing back to the store.

I missed it and really missed sharing my recent creation.

I hope to blog about the Zentangle creation soon and for me this one was a challenge. I know what went wrong so next time it can only get better. Here are the sides of a box before assembly to get an idea of how great it turned out. Enjoy the eye candy and get ready for the two sides of art retrospect as was soooooo true this time while creating.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

 

 

Texture Sheet Swap DONE!

Finally the texture sheet swap is over and I can share what I did and what others sent in with you. I am amazed that I have never thought in texture before and so happy this was the one chosen so I could.

Here are the sheets I got in the swap

These are some of my sheets and how I made them, a salt shaker.

A basket

A metal earring

And some dots with tools

Here are the swap participants

Shirley

Mozelle

Luny

Linda

Julie

Jan

Fred

Elayne

Beth

Astrid

I hope you will consider joining in on the fun at city o clay. Next swap is dragons.

 

 

 

 

Clean Worktable

Well I got a clean work table finally (this is the before picture) and I have a swap due soon so I need to get cracken. I feel strange it has been a while since I was able to touch clay. At least I have something on my to do list with the texture swap at City O Clay, and scrap clay warming in my seat so I think life is good.

My favorite vacation picture is this one.

It is my first view from the land and I cried a lot. What a wonderful gift to be able to see this on a cloudy day.  I am sure the work table will look like a tornado but looking out the window will be amazing.

I am going to play with clay! What are you doing creatively?

Blue Dragonfly Swap Pics

The task was to create a blue dragonfly and see the different ways each creation followed the directions but were sooooo different. Have fun looking at the pics while I am on vacation see ya in a month!

Buffing for Dummies

The absolute best information on buffing is here in my opinion. Please go to her site she has a lot of great information.

http://desiredcreations.com/howTo_TLBuffing.htm

That is the tutorial I tried to follow and here are my mistakes so you will not make them in your artistic journey. My mistake was that I bought an arbor not an arbor adaptor. This is what you do not want.

You want to be able to screw the piece you are attaching (ARBOR ADAPTAR) to the one from your machine! Make sure to look for that when buying on-line as your local store is not likely to sell it.  

So I have a grinder which was a gift for Mother’s Day I must tell you I was very proud of hubby he got the exact one that was in the tutorial and I had no way to attach it. Whadda ya going to do? That’s right go to your local hardware store and find a guy who is crafty like you, his job is to get it done in the best way he can. After a few minutes I remembered the gentleman that came to help me from a while back I do not remember what crazy phase I was in but am hoping it was not the clean dirt one that was bad even for me. I also forgot I had told him I would bring something for his wife for helping me and went a few times but did not find him and forgot about it.

He listened patiently while I stated my dilemma adding of course that he had helped me last time and I really was going to bring something for his wife this time. He had a suggestion that required finding a nut to fit on the piece so we began looking but did not find one that would fit. I then remembered that the piece sticking out at home was larger with the grooves so the only logical thing was to go home and get the grinder that I had already dismanteled. This time I go back to local hardware store with my son carrying the grinder and I with a necklace for his wife. 

The following is a tutorial which is a solution to my lack of the ability to follow directions.

His idea was to build the buffer onto the ________ his name for the thing sticking out.

Take a washer and put it on.

                                         

 

Then you want to attach the metal piece that came with the buffing wheel. This photo shows the piece on already and  the other one for a visual.

Next put your buffing wheel on I put two on.

Then you will want to put another metal thing on.

Another washer.

And a bolt.

Make sure your bolt is tight I mean really tight. You may also want to make sure what ever you are attaching to table wise is cleaned off. This is not good!

.

There was stuff flying everywhere and that made me realize just how powerful this machine is. Be careful and follow proper safety instructions provided with your machine. Do not attach to your messy dining room table as damage may occur.

And always take care of your local hardware store guy’s wife!