Mom's 87th Birthday Today!

I have been indulging in Spring. Planting flowers and reading fantasy novels on the porch! I stopped making excuses to stay outside and came in to the studio to try something new to make for Mom's birthday. Like, what do you get for an 87 year old? More Spring?

She is being cute! I worked quietly so she wouldn't come into my studio while I worked. Creative mess here! I'm trying another scene now. I cropped the image just to see the composition.

I made these two scenes for Mom. Admittedly, they were learning experiences. Air bubbles have been a problem. But I did learn that zircons can be baked!

Sanding buttons

Today I am finishing buttons to chose for the button swap. I made these buttons sometime ago and went on the learn more techniques. The upcoming swap inspired me to finish them. Yesterday I shaped and did the heavy sanding using 220 and 400 wet/dry sandpaper. This morning I finished the sanding with a sequence of sand papers from 800 to 1000 to 2000. Next I'm going outside to spray the sealer on the buttons. I only need to send four, but which ones?

Desktop: April 2, 2012

I have found another swap to participate in. This time it's buttons. We swap 4 buttons and make something using at least one button from the swap. Then post about it here May 13. Cool, right. So far I have pulled buttons to find 4 buttons to swap. Found some bags full of colored buttons and my polymer stash of buttons to pick from. Thought I would coordinate colors with the polymer clay buttons. So it begins

Charm Swap charms! They're back...

I was totally excited to get the box of swapped charms from Ornamentea Saturday. I posted the green charms I made to participate in the swap and now I'd like to share the charms I got back from the swap. I still need to identify the makers by going to their link. I'm so curious about where they all came from.

New Work Listed: March 10, 2012

I have started listing all the new items I photographed in the last post. I want to share the finished brooches I started blogging about when I was ready to attach the pin backs. If you want a closer look, these polymer clay jewelry items are in my etsy shop. There are multiple photos of each item there. Okay, show and share time.

All day photo shoot...argh!

It took all day to do this photo shoot. I had to shoot everything before I take the new work to the gallery. It's March and the season will be starting. I finished all the stacker beads and made necklaces all day Sunday. Whew...I sure hope Andrea likes my new work!

Stacker Beads Intense: March 1, 2012

I rolled out 10 thick sheets of clay and cut little squares with my cutter.

I stacked the colors and formed them into a ball. Then I rolled them into little canes.

This is how I slice the lengths of clay which reveals the pattern created inside. Then I roll them into beads.

This is a shot of the beads before I cured them in the oven. Love the color stories.

I made coordinating round beads to string with the Stacker beads. Today I am drilling each bead.