This morning I woke up to see that my interview with Lisa Clarke of Polka Dot Creations had posted! You should read it and you should visit Lisa and tell her she is awesome, too!
Oooh! Morning Coffee!
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Monthly Archives: August 2010
Meet PositivelyCharming
The Smoosher of the week is PositivelyCharmingThings. Niki, of Phoenix, Arizona in the US, is a long time crafter though relatively recent clayer. She’s a great fan of Christi Friesen’s work and has a fondness for cutesy beads as she says in her bio.
Some of my favourite pieces in Niki’s studio includes the little blue bird earrings:
or this non-clay paua shell set:
Niki really DOES make absolutely adorable “cutesy” beads though:
Visit their studio at:
http://www.artfire.com/users/positivelycharmingthings
Follow their clay journey on their blog:
http://www.positivelycharming.com/
Meet FantasyClay
This week’s ArtFire Smoosher is Susan of FantasyClay from New Jersey, in the US. She’s been working with polymer clay for around 10 years she says and while most of her work is sculptural she tries to avoid being boxed in and attempts different techniques like beadmaking or caning.
FantasyClay is best know for her little custom Agricola pieces:
Myself, I’m always impressed with people who can sculpt and actually get something resembling what they set out for. FantasyClay has a studio full of cute critters, dragons and little figures like these guys:
Visit FantasyClay’s Studio
Join her clay journey on her blog
Follow her on Twitter
Time Away from my Studio
It seems that I most want to dig my fingers into a bowl of beads or a chunk of clay when I’m nowhere near them (or this week, as I teach). I suspect that’s human nature. Or Elaine-nature at least. I’m a contrary person like that sometimes.
We spent the weekend Not At Home – visiting my family in Calgary and getting errands done in civilization (hello WR Display, you make me happy). Visited Ikea, Springbank Cheese company and other delightful places my wallet is happy I only get to see occasionally. Apart from boxes to mail goodies, I found a guillotine and a hand cart for my studio and shows respectively. Note: the hand cart was appropriated for use before it could pose here.
I made sure to do SOME fun things. Every year there’s the Taste of Calgary and I’ve gone to most of them. My daughter has her favourites like the mini melts but we do always try to experiment a little too.
This year we tried nifty little appetizers from Tango and perfect little pakoras from Delice and some amazing bacon wrapped prawns and stuffed Yorkies from Halo… er, yeah. Lots of good stuff.
Of course, this is a note that you don’t really need to whip out your wallet to relax… you just need to stop and smell (or, in my daughter’s case, eat) the flowers.
Meet Tamed
This week’s ArtFire Smoosher is Tamed, from St. Bee’s in the UK. Her passion is creating scale miniature replicas of animals as a a sort of pet portrait. Her studio is a collection of sweet creatures using polymer clay and felted fibres such as alpaca and merino.
Here’s a cute, TINY guinea pig:
An adorable Husky:
Tamed also has several listings for custom pet portraits. If you’d like a little keepsake – a mini-me of your pet – check out:
You can visit her shop at:
http://www.artfire.com/users/Tamed
And follow Tamed’s clay journey at:
http://timetamed.blogspot.com/