Monthly Archives: March 2009

Playing with Shells

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I live in Calgary which is just about as landlocked as you can get. Seriously. Very far from the ocean. I have happy childhood memories of the summers I spent on the east coast and of the shells I collected. For my summer pieces I decided on some sea inspired charms and cane designs. The second of these is a Nautilus shell design (the first was a sea turtle cane):

Shell cane

Since it’s a cane that’s new to me I’m still tweaking it with the clay blends I have on hand but I’m pretty happy with it. Slices off the first made some cute beads and the next two canes are ‘regular’ canes with sparkly bits in them. Yes, I know they don’t come in glittery blue in real life.

Weirder Shell Canes Shell Bead Set

Chloe,  my daughter, has asked for pearl oyster shells for the next installment. Terry would like a starfish. I’d like a seahorse and some fish.

Those UFOs

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And by UFO I mean the (in)famous Unfinished Objects of the crafting world. My current one is more of an unfinished project. See, last year I scored a nice big chunk of clay from someone who was selling off her supplies. What’s in the picture is just a small portion of it. The rest is partially used, so in plastic baggies and less pretty to pose.

Old Fimo

The problem is that this is all old Fimo. By old, I mean mid 1990s. It predates the company making ‘Fimo Classic’ and ‘Fimo Soft’. Every single pretty ounce of it is rock hard.

So I am writing about it to goad me into finally get processing it. I don’t have a food processor and I haven’t found an old, second hand one in my price range that didn’t break two minutes in. So I have to do this the old fashioned way. Dice it up, toss with mineral oil and softer clays and let sit. Blend. Repeat. Eventually I will have about 30 lbs of good clay but it is going to be a while.

Anyone else have some tedious craft projects waiting for them?

Bowl Goals: A Common Theme

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This weeks lot of stuff was diverse – little teeny clay heishi, regular cane covered beads, cane slice flower beads and slightly fancier, larger, slice shell beads. There is an underlying theme though: I’m thinking spring and summer stuff. Spring green heishi for stringing. Pastel flower slices. Pink roses on pink beads for mom’s day. Shell beads for summer designs.

Bowl of Everything

With weeks like that I am going to fly past my bead making goal. With the lil’ heishi beads in there, there are around 2000 beads in that bowl. Even without the 20 feet of heishi, there are around 400 beads. Phew! Hope your weeks are similarly productive.

The Shop: Dust Myself Off

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My daughter has a Nintendo DS and a Brain Age game for it. When your score on an activity is lower one day, the talking head tells you to dust yourself off tomorrow and get back on track. So here goes!

As you can see, there’s nifty springy stuff in there and some of the little slice beads I like so much.  I have a boatload of stuff to add to the site here and my ArtFire in the coming days – Etsy’s per item fees makes it difficult to justify adding 30 or 40 things at a time – and I’ll make sure and post then.

My very first newsletter goes out on Wednesday! If you’re interested in receiving occasional news and specials from me (no more than monthly, I promise!) sign up with the little box on the right hand side there.

Bowl Goals: Mayhem

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Life is getting back into the swing of things around here so here’s the weeks bowl o’ beads – and production is on track for my end of May show which is good – that happens to be 45 heart pendants. These are off dancing in the tumbler right now, so we’ll see them later in the week!

Belated Bowl Beads

My ‘office’ is in the corner of my living room and is still in the process of ordering, packing and unpacking after February’s chaos in the apartment. I’m taking the opportunity to sort all my show and inventory totes while they’re out and floating. The mayhem is slowly clearing up but my little corner is still buried it seems!

Ahhhh! Take Me Away! Sorta Organized!