Challenge a Day!

I'm participating in the Earrings Every Day challenge, sponsored by Beading Daily, this month. I'm also challenging myself to make a Zentangle every day, just because I want to. I won't post pictures of every one to this blog, but I'll be putting up the best of the lot. Today's Zentangle will go up later, since I don't have it's picture taken yet, but the earrings may or may not make it - they're Judy Belcher snowflake beads on base silver ball headpins with another small base silver bead at the top. Nothing fancy, but I made them today and they count!

Hooray for PolyClay Play!

I won third place in the January PolyClay Play competition! The theme was 2011, and I made a star decorated with metal stamped numbers and stars, as well as HotFix crystals from Jolee's Jewels and Perfect Pearls powders. It's simple, but I (and apparently quite a few other people) liked it. Trish from PolyClay Play has these contests every month - she gives great prizes and makes it really easy to enter, so if you work with polymer clay, put something together and enter!

http://polyclayplay.com/challenge/index.htm

It's a Marshmallow World...

...that has hardened and been converted to gears! Okay, not quite, but here is a piece I call Snowpunk, meshing gears, snowflakes, kumihimo, and this really great bead mix I found at Artful Bead in Carrollton.


No snow yet here in North Texas, and seeing Ontario and Kansas City on the news, I'm surprisingly OK with that. Besides, I grew up in the high desert of the Denver metro area, and March was our big snow month. One year, Mom wished for a white Christmas. It's known as The Blizzard of '84 to the natives. Worst part - a household shortage of toilet paper! 


Here's a closeup of the gears - I like them a lot and owe Christi Friesen (Hi from the other Christy!) for showing me the coolness available in headpins and stuff you can stack on little bitty gears!

It't time for the Great Pumpkin!

That's actually the name of this pin. It's the first of what I like to call Steampunkins. With the clock element and the watch gears, it just begged to be called Time for the Great Pumpkin. Do you think it's sincere enough?

Here's another piece!

This one is called Heart of Stone. It's kind of silly, because the heart isn't actually stone, it is polymer clay. The beads in the necklace, however, are semi-precious stones. Oh well. If anybody thinks of a better name, I'm open to suggestions.

I give up!

Okay, obviously I'm never going to post on a daily basis. However, I will try to maintain once every week to 10 days. I didn't win the Visual Arts League Show- gee, big surprise, my entry was one of two 3-dimensional pieces there. But, the good news is that a girl came up to me while I was holding a piece (Seaside Cross- see the July 1st post) and said she liked it better than anything else she had seen. The best part is that I was holding it because it wasn't accepted into the show, and I was getting ready to take it home. So, someone likes my stuff, even if the "artistes" don't.

Here is the piece that was supposed to be July 5th. It's a mix of glass beads and polymer clay.

Ouch again!

Okay, so it's been a month since I posted again. Sorry about that- we've had some changes around here. My husband, Rob, started working from home, and he is usually on this computer. That shouldn't be a problem, except that my laptop is really configured to run from the network at school and doesn't like to be separated, so it pulls all sorts of stunts like refusing to connect to the internet. Add to that Elora is in a play and rehearsals have been tough, and, well, this blog got pushed to the back burner again. To try to make up for that, I will try to bring you a new piece each day this week. Some of these are going to the Visual Arts League Lewisville show Fresh Ideas, so you can get a sneak peek online and then see them in person if you're in the area.

Starting us off... Seaside Cross. It's polymer clay on a wood base and measures 9" by 6.75". There are real pearls and tiny seashells attached to the cross.

Here's the link...

...to the Dallas Morning News article. Thanks Shawn for the great article! Now I'm off to work on my Elemental Dragons Snowbelly series- I'll keep you posted on the adventures of Aeris, Aqua, Ignis, Terra, and their eventual offspring Nimbus and Lava. I'm using metalic Kato clay with the concentrates to do Aeris (he gets to be first, and he's very proud of that fact). I haven't used a lot of Kato until the new formula came out, but I have to say I am liking it so far.

Things I hate...

...fibromyalgia, back pain, rainy days... Actually, I just hate that they keep me from getting anything done. On the upside, I did finally make a Flickr page since my incredibly talented sister (who actually was interviewed by Lucasfilm earlier in the week) kept insisting I had to. Here is a piece I posted on it. This one is in a private collection, but it's still one of my favorites.

Corrupting a new generation

Ok, all I actually did was teach my daughter's Girl Scout troop some beginning polymer clay. They have a badge on "Making" hobbies and one of the requirements was that they have a craft professional come in and talk about their craft and how they ran it as a business. So I showed them my website and talked about balancing creating and administrative tasks, and we all made polymer magnets. The girls were really creative and went in directions I didn't expect! Thanks to Mrs. Nancy who invited me to come and speak.

No more microwave clay!

This is really frustrating, because I had really high hopes of Staedtler's new microwave clay. However, the results were extremely disappointing. I opened my sample pack last night to work with it. The texture was really soft and fluffy- similar to Model Magic by Crayola. Okay, I could have lived with that, BUT- it left a sticky residue on my ceramic tile worksurface that quickly dried and had to be scraped off. Then, I noticed that it seemed to be drying out as I worked alcohol ink into it- no colors available yet except white and terra-cotta. Okay, maybe it doesn't like alcohol ink- acrylic paint was somewhat better. I extruded a rope and made it into a loopy shamrock (more on that later). The clay did not stick to itself when it overlapped, but that was livable. Microvaved it for 10 minutes on medium power per the directions with a cup of water (half full- also in the directions) and when it came out- it was hard! By this time my daughter was calling, it was late, so I left my colored balls of clay, along with some uncolored clay on my table and left it.

By this afternoon, everything had dried out! Colored clays, uncolored clays, and when I picked up my shamrock, it broke! It seems to me that someone discovered you could microwave air dry clay and speed the drying time! I am NOT advocating that anyone try this, but the more I think about it, the more the stuff I used last night has many of the same characteristics I associate with air-dried clay. I wonder if someone at Staedtler's lab got a bright idea to try the microwave on their air-dry clay and it worked, so now they are marketing it as a microwave clay.

Bottom line- I'm sticking to FIMO until they reformulate this stuff.

Hooray!

I am so excited! Yesterday I was awarded "Best Use of AMACO Bead Rollers" in the Bottles of Hope Designer's Challenge!

This challenge is sponsored by AMACO, and this time Staedtler since they have taken over distributing FIMO clay. Thank you to Dawn and all the wonderful people at AMACO, Michael and his staff at Staedtler, as well as our presenters, Lisa and Julie.

I've already posted the picture of the necklace- but I'll post the award when I get it.

New clay by Sculpey

Well, there's been a lot of buzz about the new Studio by Sculpey clay. I have to say that I don't usually like soft clays, but this one bakes to a really nice finish, which I find different from any thing else on the market. I'm working on several ideas to submit to magazines using it- I'll let you know when those are available.

Right now I have a picture of one of their introductory projects, designed by Donna Dewberry. The frame is wood, painted with 3 colors, then accented with Studio Sculpey leaves and antiqued. I've never antiqued before, and I'm not sure this is a sterling example, but maybe my students won't feel like this is something they just can't do.

Still trying!

Okay, so I'm still not caught up- stomach viruses are no fun! I did get the Hope on a Rope entry in- here it is. They are being gifted to children with cancer this time, so I tried to make one that a boy or young man could enjoy even if they didn't wear it as a necklace. I'm also going to be doing a demo at my polymer clay guild in May- showcasing my snowglobe designs.

Still hoping to improve on blogging and claying!

It's been a long time...

Wow- I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted. The holidays kind of came crashing in on me this year- my daughter and her preschool cousin were decorating the tree on Dec. 23- and usually we do that the day after Thanksgiving. I did get an Ott light for Christmas, and am planning on exploring color in the new year- I'll also be teaching a polymer clay class through our adult and community ed department and writing some articles. 

Hopefully I'll be posting on at least a weekly basis- right now I'm working on two very big, very light weight pendants and an entry into the Bottles of Hope- Hope on a Rope contest. I'll post pictures of them as soon as they are finished.

After-Show Letdown

Well, I'm done with shows for the year. This last one wasn't nearly as good as it was last year- not sure why. We didn't see many people buying at any of the booths, so who knows? I've got two custom orders, and then it's time to make Christmas presents for the family and my colleagues at the actual bill paying job. I've also got to update my website. On the up side, this ornament I donated for a local charity fundraiser was well received, so I won't give up hope yet.

Welcome!

Well, this is my first blog. I'll try to let you know what inspires my pieces, maybe give some sneak peeks at new items, and generally keep you up to date on the land of Shouting Stones (as opposed to the "real world" where I'm forced to spend part of my time)

Right now, I have about a week until my final show of the season- Liberty Elementary's Holiday Bazzar on Dec. 1. I've got candle rings to finish, ornaments for my personalizing expert (and sister) to have to work on, and my latest creations- snowglobes! I'm focusing pretty heavy on polymer clay right now, but I'll be doing some beaded jewelry as well.