Polymer Clay Beads » Shout Out

A Horse Tale

Elaine — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:00:37 +0000

The last class, in my last series, for the grade 3 to 5ers was about how to make small animal figures. One of my students is horse obsessed so I wasn’t surprised when she built a horse. However, this one has a full foil and wire armature, right down to her mane. I was so impressed!

Playing with Silk

Elaine — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:27:14 +0000

Right in the middle of the busy season I’ve had the chance to play in two other creative places – the visit to the Ring Lord last week and then, yesterday, I got to visit Skyswept Designs the studio of Louise Perrin. Louise is known for her fibre art including all sorts of hand dyed pieces. She offers in studio scarf dyeing sessions where she provides instruction, all the colours you could imagine and a stack of “blanks” to use. Chloe and I took advantage, leading to us making a few scarves. I figure the aunts and grandmas will be happy to not get ONLY clay jewelry this year for gifts!

You start by figuring out your colours and mixing them up. Since Louise has every colour there is… this took a few minutes of thinking.

The process is simple – you dribble (yes, on purpose) dye onto your dampened and scrunched scarves. The dye settles into the hills and valleys of the scrunched fabric making lovely marbled patterns.

See? The scrunching technique is very technical. Ahem.

From that scrunchy pile, Louise ended up with the subtle browns and turquoises on this.

We got our first four done this session. I’m looking forward to making a few more – must try purples! Thanks for letting us come over to play Louise!

Wired at the Ring Lord

Elaine — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 01:41:51 +0000

Before I got into clay – yes, there was a Before – I did jewelry with wire and chain. I STILL use wire and chain but back then the Wire was the big part of it. So this weekend when I moseyed on over to Saskatoon to do the 20th Annual Christmas Fair at the Western Development Museum I also got to visit the Ring Lord. The Ring Lord is a wire worker and chain mailler’s dream and it’s comparatively close to me. In Calgary it was 8 hours away.

We got to stare at the sheer volume of wire and rings everywhere…

see the industrial maille maker in action…

and even roped the very patient proprietor into posing with us (well, with Cindy) for a picture.

Everyone was very patient with my fan girl clicking away and ooo-ing over all the pretty wire. There’s a few more pics over on Flickr.

Meet Gingerbell

Elaine — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 03:08:10 +0000

This week’s Smoosher is a special treat for me as it’s someone I know outside of the ArtFire Smoosher’s guild. My long time clay buddy and internet friend Ginger – we joined the message boards of Polymerclaycentral.com around the same time, years ago – of Rosedale, IN is also the talent behind Gingerbell’s Gifts on ArtFire.

There’s a couple items I’m partial to in her shop of course – she uses my canes on a few of them!

One thing Ginger is well known for is her beautiful bead weaving. She often surrounds her handmade polymer clay cabochons with intricate layers of seed bead weaving. This is one of my very favourite:

Outside of her jewelry, Ginger also crafts handmade soaps and candles. I know you’re not supposed to lick them but these look so tasty:

You can follow Ginger’s clay journey on her blog:
http://gingerbellsgifts.blogspot.com/

Visit her ArtFire Studio at:
http://www.artfire.com/users/Gingerbells

* last week was my turn to get “Met” by the Smooshers! They wrote such sweet things!

Meet PositivelyCharming

Elaine — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:41:35 +0000

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

Elaine — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:06:42 +0000

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

Meet Tamed

Elaine — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:31:50 +0000

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/

Meet Haffina

Elaine — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:19:59 +0000

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

Meet Catswire

Elaine — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 02:06:37 +0000

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

Meet Valerie’s Stuff

Elaine — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:52:52 +0000

The ArtFire Smoosher of the week is Valerie of Valerie’s Stuff. Valerie is based in Columbus, Ohio and has been working with polymer clay for about six years now. She primarily creates beads to use in her own beaded jewelry and accessories.

A few samples show how Valerie prefers a simple jewelrymaking style that puts the emphasis front and center on the handmade clay components:

One special technique Valerie adds to her pendants is that she paints designs with alcohol inks. Here’s one of my favourites in her ArtFire shop:

You can follow Valerie’s clay journey along on her blog:

http://www.artfire.com/users/ValeriesStuff/blog

And visit her studio at:

http://www.artfire.com/users/ValeriesStuff