A Beady Ah-Ha!

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Elaine

When I made this necklace, I needed to figure out a way to get the flowers to sit flat and not dangle around like they do for most of the pieces I make with this type of bead. I still wanted to be able to use the pretty stacked seed beads on a headpin for the center. Nothing if not picky huh?

My solution ended up to make it a wrapped figure eight loop in the back. Still using a two inch headpin, instead of a single loop, make a double one and bend it so it lays flat, parallel to the bead. I still had space to do a wrap at the top of the link, which keeps the bead from flopping around. Now the flower is ready to be added to your chain. One the white flower necklace there are little three or four link sections of chain in between each flower.

Ornaments Redux

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Elaine

I had a fun run of ornament making classes with the whole range of clay folks in town. Grade 1 through adults showed up for classes this fall and we made ornaments. These are from my last adult class based on my free tutorial. I will have to update the instructions to include some of the extra ideas that people have come up with since I released it last year.

Quick and Easy Candy Cane Cane

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Elaine

Here is a very simple, very fast and very effective little candy cane tutorial. I’ve used thin slices of it to make things like the stud slice earrings above, handfuls of mint beads or longer slices of it to make the candy cane earrings at the end of this post. Enjoy!

All 3 colours are Premo – red pearl, green pearl and white pearl respectively. The red and thin white layers are each the thickest setting on my pasta machine. The thick white is double layers of the thickest setting. The green layer is two spots thinner than the thickest setting.

Have fun!

You could totally do this with the extruder and the ribbon strip dies. I was just in a rush and it worked, so it’s what I kept doing! Also, you get a more (in my er… humble opinion) realistic colour if you mix the red and green with half translucent and use white and half pearl rather than the colours I used here in a rush.

Making Big Canes

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Elaine

Way back when I first looked at clay beads I love all the canes. People were just starting to use Skinner blends in things and the canes were becoming more realistic looking. I drooled and admired and did nothing for a few years. Then I got a copy of Sue Heaser’s book and made the face cane. The first one turned out well! I was stoked. Since then I’ve done about 30 of them along the same line and here’s the process for the latest one. This one is a little bigger than most of mine but since complex canes are a real time investment I figured I would make it as big as I can easily handle in one work day!

First step is to prep your colours. I wanted the cane to come in around a pound. I drew out my diagram and mixed clay. Having done this before I knew my proportions. I made the component canes first, once I had the colours mixed or the blends done.

This is all of the components done and then wrapped with flesh clay and laid out. It is a little larger than my diagram but not much. Usually I make the eyes MUCH too big and have to reduce them more than this. This time they were just a shade too big in relation to the cheek and nose and I left it alone instead of fussing with it.

The next step is to begin joining your parts. I start with between the eyes with a triangle / wedge shape. Then I jam the nose into it. Then I add triangles / wedges to the cheeks to join them to the nose and the eyes.

Here it is with a little of the scraps of making it. I did well this time – most of my “extra” is just too much highlight or shadow clay. No six inches of eyeballs.

The distorted ends of face canes are some of the best parts. I packed the cane enough and worked it quickly enough that it didn’t distort that much. Even the actual ends were recognizably still faces which may be a first for me. Very little waste here even at 1/2 the diameter (which is 1/4 of the over all area)

Once I got the cane to 1/4 of the initial diameter, about 1 1/4 inch tall and several feet long, I cut in half and put away half. The other part I continued to reduce until it’s 1/2″. At this size there is some distortion on the ends, enough that I cut an inch or two off each side. At the 1/2″ size, there is about 60″ worth of good cane.

This is my assistant. Since I started this early in the morning and my family was out camping this weekend, he was clingy and trying to get stepped on while I mixed colours. By the time I finished prepping though he was bored and sleeping.

Redoing my Booth Part 1

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Elaine

Most of the shows I do are small, indoor shows with a table based setup – usually 1 8ft table, sometimes an 8ft and 1 or 2 6ft ones. I’ve cobbled together quite a collection of display items, table coverings and random STUFF in the last 12 years!

This year I decided I wanted a more custom and cohesive look. I wanted it to fit with the brand I have in mind – to use more of a clean but also nature inspired theme. I started by making notes of how I could do that using what I already have and adding a few pieces.

I kept my old table coverings but plan on editing how they are used a bit as I accumulate more of them. I’d like the green to get draped and mounded a bit on the table tops to make more of a grass or forest floor feeling. In their previous lives, these were clearance queen sized flat sheets and inexpensive fake satin drapes.

Speaking of forest… these are probably the biggest change. I had been experimenting with wood cut outs of trees to hang items on and finally drew up plans. My dad visited over the weekend and cut a TON OF THEM out for me so away I go. I have two sizes here and they will be excellent for hanging jewelry, ornaments… you name it. When not in use, they pack flat and they are super light.

Next up is swapping out some of my other fixtures for easier show items!