MERRY CHRISTMAS

This is the best time to spend with family and friends. Enjoy and let the worktable sit for a day or two.

Flowers

This is what it looks like outside my window today.

With a view like that you may wonder why in the heck I am posting about flowers.

Hubby has a special lady at the auctions that takes care of him real good. Last year she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and I wanted to make a special pink rose to show how much we care about her.

I have been a flower making fool just trying to get a good flower made for her.

First I tried with the circle cutters I had on hand. That did not work so I orderded some from Clay Alley http://www.clayalley.com/  this woman has great customer service and her shipping is errily fast.

Okay I got my rose cutter set from Clay Alley superfast now I just needed to sit down and make some roses.

I made so many stinking roses that I ended up turning them into christmas ornaments. The looked good but just not exactly what I wanted to have my special rose look like.

So I made some more…..

Better, still just not right.

What I learned is that it is very important to see whether the petal is above the next one or under it. The rows make a difference as well. One row may need the petals one way and the next may be just the exact opposite way. Another thing I learned is cussing helps not only to make it look right but to ease your frustrations. I have never cussed so many roses in my life. The cussing must have worked because look what I made just for her. She will get the sexiest one there. And now I know how to make a rose.

Dang I am good!

Snowflakes

　

So I love to make canes when I say I love I mean I really love it!

One of the recent canes I made was for a unique gift for a friend. She is Palestinian and very proud of it. I am not going to get political here but I wanted to make something she could have to show exactly how proud she is.

So I made her a one of a kind rear view mirror thing a ma jig and she liked it a lot but because of where she lives she was not able to hang it. I made one for myself I liked it so much and I am lucky because I am able to look at mine every day while driving. Of course I can see every corner that was not filled correctly so as to not distort the image when reducing but every artist is hardest on themselves. If there are any that do not do that I do no know who they are! This is not the one that hangs from my mirror its cold and I did not want to go and get it out of the car. This is an extra uglier cane slice “ just to see” it worked!

This is a cane I made that ws inspired by a shirt. I wanted to recreate the intricate design. Here is a link to the shirt on my practice Flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/82656386@N00/3339471544/

I also wanted to submit it to Polymer Clay Cafe so I have detailed pictures of this cane being built. If anyone wants me to I could post that one week. I built that baby perfectly maybe a little too much detail but I built that baby good! I am so blessed to have been able to take a class by Lynne Ann Schwarzenberg at about the time I made a terrible cut in the cane while trying to reduce. Lynn Ann and the wonderful hostess Seana graciously offered to reduce the mangled cane to help me. This is what came from their hands! They are the best cane reducers I have ever met.

Okay so its winter and we had our first snow what better way to celebrate then to make your own snowflake?

http://www.popularfront.com/snowdays/

　

Here are my snowflakes by number you can search and find mine.

8867513

8867554

8867578

8867604

Getting freeken inspired by making your own snowflake!

So where does the snowflake come into play with clay you may ask??

Well while making mine I realized that that stinking snowflake pattern is almost like a triangle for a kaleidoscope. Why don’t you play around and see what a log here or a long plug there will do to your kaleidoscope?

You still have the reducing part to do and I am no help there but while watching Lynn Ann and Seana I have some ideas of how to reduce correctly.

Guess another kaleidoscope is in my near future!

Swap Mistress

This week I am really thinking about the new swap duties acquired by me at City O Clay. I am thinking about it so much I had a dream about it (((okay so this was really a week and a half ago but I totally changed my page last week)).
In my dream I missed many of the people who signed up for the swap and some were very upset and left the group because of the fact I missed them. So after a lot of begging on my part most came back to the group and we were able to set up the different groups for the swap.

Then when the mailman was delivering my mail that had all the swap items which had been mailed to me by the swappers, it crashed. Okay so don’t ask me how in the heck ALL the swap items were in the same truck it was a dream okay?

So when the vehicle crashed it rolled over in the middle of the street and all the swap boxes were in the street. They had come out of the boxes and there were beads all over the street. It is a bead swap this time and so that is why there were beads everywhere. Again don’t ask me how they came out of the boxes when the mail truck rolled over in the middle of the street it is a dream.

The swap was cancelled and the beads were never recovered. They had been so badly damaged by cars rolling over them while they were in the street. The same people who I had begged to come back and join the swap quit the list again along with a lot of other people who were very upset and just could not understand how ALL the beads had been lost. They too could not figure out how beads being mailed in from all over the world at different times could all end up on the same truck. I KNOW I thought the same thing too.

First swap not due till January, but that dream gave me an idea that hopefully can be implemented with future swaps.

So what is in it for me? I am not really a selfish person but at my 40+ hour a week job that is one thing I always joke about “it’s all about me and how it affects me”.

I will tell you. I am so proud of my swappers I can not even put just how proud I am into words. They are having ideas running through their heads. They are sketching out on paper what they want to make out of clay for the swap. Questions are rolling in because they want to try a new technique that they have seen in a book or online.

In a nutshell I am like a proud parent. These are people I have never met and chances are I never will but I am so stinking proud of them all. I feel so proud of them and of myself because I am helping them realize the creativity that they have living inside of them.

I so want these swaps to be successful!