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Etsy
Scarecrow
I have a stack of bead orders waiting for me here but I jumped into another project of course. Here’s my little scarecrow art doll:
It’s almost 9 inches tall which makes it the biggest non vase item I’ve ever made out of clay. The head was originally hollow, broke and got stuffed and fixed (the poor guy has been decapitated twice in his short life).
NOW back to regular clay life!
Oooh! Morning Coffee!
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!
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/
Weekend Sunshine
The theme of this weekend was sunshine. As in: too much of it. Here’s a few highlights while I hide in the basement with water all week.
When not being used at outdoor shows – which is oh… most of the year – my little pop up gets used for family parties!
The party house has a big pool where we spent most of the day but we had few guests that were not impressed like this monster. By this point in the summer, they all look like helicopters to me.
And then because one day being in the water and sun was not enough for me, we did it the next day too. Out on the lake with friends, their boat and a ton of sun.
Some of the company was pretty darned adorable though, I have to admit!
Now, back to clay in my nice, shady cave. How was YOUR weekend?
Meet Haffina
The Smoosher of the week is Haffina(other shop), a polymer clay artist from Mt. Barker, Australia. With five children and a ton of other commitments to online communities she helps organize or coordinates, Haffina STILL makes scads of beautiful beads and beaded pieces!
Here is a lovely focal (I’m a sucker for beads) with a sweet, sweet glossy finish:
Or what about this impressive beaded piece:
Not all of her pieces have clay in them. These pretty earrings have lovely artist made lampwork glass:
If you’d like to follow Haffina’s journey, check out her blog:
http://haffinacreations.blogspot.com/
And don’t forget to visit her bead shop:
http://www.artfire.com/users/beadsbyhaffina
Or her jewelry (and other nifty items!) shop :
http://www.artfire.com/users/HaffinaCreations
Classes Galore!
Historically, my summers are my slowest periods for work, both computer and art. This year I prepared for that by booking extra shows leading up to the summer and a week of classes in each of July and August! Phew. Plus the 20% off sale in my Etsy bead, Etsy cane and ArtFire shops. That ends today.
Here are some of the excerpts from my week of class. I had returning students and all new ones:
One of my regulars is a die-hard football fan (the local team is the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the team colour is pretty much Premo’s sea green): 
One of the adult classes we covered small bottles to make wish bottles. Combinations of embellishment, canes and imagination were on the docket. One of my first time students whipped up something awesome right to order of course!
A rerun of a popular kids project class for a local day camp were the Turtle Rocks. We had neon turtles, winged turtles, fanged turtles… and lots of fun:
Of course, after all that over-planning and over-preparing for a “slow summer” it hasn’t gone slow yet. Go figure. How’s YOUR summer going?
Meet Catswire
The ArtFire Smoosher of the week is CatsWire, from Germany. CatsWire is primarily a wire crocheter who frequently uses polymer clay to embellish her pieces.
Some of my favourite pieces are the wire only ones, particularly these kitties:
and these lovely pearls:
She uses a mix of her wire crochet and clay talents in some of her pieces like this little miniature basket of fruit:
You can visit her on her blog: http://www.catswire.blogspot.com/
Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CatsWire
And definitely visit her studio: http://www.artfire.com/users/catswire
