August’s theme is exploration which is oddly fitting given my spring and summers activities! I went with the less literal interpretation of exploration and focused on pieces that were a little off the beaten track from my standard neatly symmetrical jewelry.

I’d gotten comfortable making craft fair and production work and only recently reminded myself that I’d GOTTEN popular by doing interesting and different work and how was I to keep that unless I explored a little?

The little shaped flower beads are made from my own canes but then slightly sculpted into a flower shape and they act as an excellent embellishment. You can see my regular slice beads, the little flat white flowers,  mixed in for accents. At a bead show where I debuted them this summer, one of the teachers bought a few to use with her vintage lucite flowers.

I like how you can get a whole garden on your wrist with these or add a little more in the way of bling and keep the flowers and leaves for interesting detail.

I’ve had requests for other versions of the flowers so we’ll see what I can figure out. Pansies and orchids, oh my! I guess you could say I’m exploring my flower garden this month.

I supplemented with a few of my own seed beads and metallic bits and came up with quite a few pieces from only 4 packages of paper beads (what can I say, I didn’t shop until the end of the show and they were low on the colours I wanted!).

I can honestly recommend the beads – the quality was great, the colours were just right and you can’t beat the prices. And that’s without even considering that they all help teach a trade and self-sufficiency to women and children.

I often ask people who step their crafting up to the next level and begin selling what their motivation is. Some people want to pay for their supplies, some are running out of space for their pieces in their house. Some want to pay for the family vacation. Jennifer is selling her work to pay for her fertility treatments.

CraftyBabyHope doesn’t only have polymer clay work in it. There’s a variety of trinkets, many of them made with wire. Wire was my pre-clay obsession and still figures heavily in a lot of my work.

On the clay side of things, there are a lot of cute or kawaii items in the ArtFire shop including this sweet little charm bracelet:

My daughter’s favourite piece was this little Scottie:

• You can read about Jennifer’s efforts with her work on her blog
• Visit her fan page
• Or follow her on Twitter

It actually WAS descriptive for the classes. The first was the colour version of my basic caning class from last time. We revisited cane construction but using block colouring and Skinner blends. People made everything from flowers to butterfly wings.

My second class, geared to middle schoolers (the people my daughters age! yikes!), was to make ‘Turtle Rocks’. Basically it was to make pet rocks but I wanted a name that was going to catch eye. The actual items for the project class were very loosely inspired by Jon Anderson’s amazing Fimo creatures.

I walked the kids through how to make a few quick canes, how to wrap and construct the turtle and then I turned them loose on the clay and pasta machines. We ended up with a herd of turtles and critters.

I always comment that I’m a reclusive, introverted cave dweller but classes and shows are fun for me. Probably because I get to pick the time and the audience is generally people enthusiastic about what I’m enthusiastic about. It was a great group but now, I’m exhausted and looking forward to next weekend’s project: the Bead Show.

I love bowls and little vessels. Maybe as much as beads (shhh! don’t tell my beads) if that’s possible! Sassy has several bowls in her shop and they’re all cute.

She also tries out several other techniques including beadmaking (see the cute charms above?) and faux. This faux ivory piece is nicely done and definitely easier on the elephants!

You can follow her claying journey on her blog !

If you have a look around ColtPixy’s shop you’ll notice that she has a whimsical take on clay, a completely different style from mine – definitely part of my love for clay is just how different it is from artist to artist – with more in the way of sculptural and texture elements. I love the pea pods she makes, they’re so sweet.

The heart pendant above is my current favourite shiny in the shop because it’s something a LITTLE like what I might make but with a completely different technique. The end result is a lovely, simple pendant with shades of pink, gold and pearl on a casual cord.

You can check out Star’s blog, photos and shop here:

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To prove that even with very similar materials and sources you could make very different jewelry.

I have this one pic of what I made because I made it at my Tuesday networking group and one of the members came and bought it! Which is great but means that I will have to make another because I quite liked it. Mine uses very traditional wirework links, the pearls, clay beads, turquoise and a few twisted jump rings for interest.

You can see Cindy’s here and note that apart from the beads, they look nothing alike! And I have one more idea for the same materials again that will look completely different than my FIRST piece. So stay tuned.

I had my first class since my move this weekend and it was a bit of an introduction to polymer clay, caning and beadmaking all in one. I limited it to black and white so that I didn’t overwhelm everyone that first class (I’ll save that for next time) and we just stuck to how to make simple, fast canes.

The class was open to everyone from tweens on up – my line to the coordinator was: old enough not to eat clay or stab themselves with blades deliberately – and everyone cranked out beads, little covered tins and switchplates. Black and white jellyrolls, checkerboards, strips and flowers abounded. Some people made little hypnotized eyes.

Here’s a little of what the class made. I’m privileged to have worked with such a great group!

We’ll be running more classes – on colours and canes and small objects covered in clay – in June. If you’re interested, give Laurie a shout at the gallery.

To make her opening an ArtFire shop into a real party, Cindy – a wire-crocheting bud – is sponsoring a giveaway on NatureManipulated’s blog at: http://naturemanipulated.blogspot.com/2010/03/weekly-feature-and-giveaway-cindys.html

She’ll be giving away either a set of her crocheted jewelry or a popcan tab wallet so check it out!

Her work has a lot of elements of steampunk style – a mix of intricate Victorian detailing and industrial components such as gears and watch movements – mixed and matched with beautiful glass, stone and, yes, even a few of my own beads.

Here’s one of her recent pieces with one of my own sea garden lentils. Joan also has a variety of other, more contemporary, pieces in sterling. She also has a sweet sculpture in her Treasure section: