Year of Clay – Little of this, little of that

Posted on August 3, 2008 by Elaine

As I was cranking through a bead order I made little dimensional roses from the scraps. The cane decorated size of the sheet is on the inside of the rose for little faux fabric roses. The individual beads are small – about 3/8″.

Then, because I distract like nothing else sometimes, I got making canes. One of them was to match the order I was working on (so, you know, vaguely related). The other was a cane on my To Do List – a sea turtle.

This post marks my 55th Year of Clay post. It took me about 18 months to actually do a year of posts but I had taken six months off in the middle of that. I’ve now been back on the wagon pretty regularly so I am going to discontinue the series and keep all my show and tell / in the studio posts in that category. Hopefully it won’t make me save up things for only once a week showings!

Year of Clay – Fall Leaves Necklace

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Elaine

I’m trying to work through the piles of beads that I have that are perfectly good but for some reason haven’t been used, sold or tossed!

This necklace has a stack of them. I’ve used little antiqued copper filigree rounds between graduated beads for a simple strung necklace. The total length isn’t that long – perhaps 17″.

I hear that other bead people are like me – buying or making beads because they appeal and then hoarding them instead of using them. It’s a bad habit because you then eventually do what I did and knock over a tub of them!

On the plus side, I got to find old ‘friends’ and other goodies I’d forgotten I had.

Year of Clay – Yes I Cane on Vacation

Posted on July 24, 2008 by Elaine

We just got back from a few weeks out of town where I brought my limited tool kit – a tub of clays, a pasta machine and a knife basically – and I did manage to whip up a few canes.

One yellow, sunflower like flower seems to have escaped the group photo. Hopefully it is not sitting, unreduced, gathering dust on my friends countertop…

Year of Clay – Little People on my Cake

Posted on July 16, 2008 by Elaine

I make beads. And I make canes. I make a lot of both and I have for about 10 years so I’m not bad. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many sculpted items I’ve made from polymer clay. For some reason I still insanely promised two new friends that I would attempt cake toppers for their wedding cake!

The wedding was this past weekend, out of town, so I have some raw, unedited pictures of my toppers on the cake:

You can see the bride and groom cutting the cake here and notice I didn’t get a lot of the details correct he he. But I was impressed with actually making the little people that I can sort of forgive myself and the bride and groom, themselves, are enthusiastic supporters of handmade items. The brides jewelry, the decorations, cake, flowers, the flower girls and ring bearers – all wore handmade items or clothes. The overall wedding was cheerful and sweet, full of family and friends.

Technically speaking, the cake toppers are made based off Maureen Carlson’s children’s book for sculpting Your World In Clay. They have little magnets in their feet to stick them to the magnets in the clay base (or to the fridge, I guess). The toppers are about 4 1/2″ at the height of it which makes each little rose about 1/8″.

Year of Clay – Bowls of Sunshine

Posted on July 11, 2008 by Elaine

Red and yellow and sunny, warm colours are not my usual scheme but this bowl just called for a little bit of sunshine so I indulged.

The bowl got more sanding and finishing than I usually do to the glass bowls and the result was a much more translucent look vs the usual slightly frosted one I go for.