Year of Clay - Little of this, little of that
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
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
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
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
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.
Next ‘Year of Clay’ is a project I’ve been playing with a while that is REALLY out of my norm.
Year of Clay - Put a Nice Face on it
Usually when you say “put a nice face on it” you’re talking about making the best of a not-so-hot situation but in this case I’m being literal: put a nice face (cane) on it (the bead).
The addition of a fancy or more complicated cane to a focal bead adds elements of interest you may not have space for on smaller, more tightly designed beads. Personally, I like to make little scenes or stories on the focal beads, setting up simple floral canes and more complex insect, face and animal canes as a part of a whole. These are the fronts of 4 recent ones:
The reverse of these beads have butterflies and other little details - you can see them in this flickr page.
Year of Clay - O Canada
This is a week early I suppose - Canada Day isn’t until July 1st - but I was pretty happy with the cane! You can see that cane here on my Flickr. I used it to make some very simple slice beads and pendants, strung on satin-type cord with sliding knots. This was probably my first ‘cookie cutter’ cane though I didn’t make it with a cookie cutter. I cut around a drawn design. The process is the same though. Now I have a head full of ideas for other similar canes!
Year of Clay - Pillows for a Small World
Before I started with polymer clay I had never really heard of pillow beads. When I made my first few, my daughter ‘borrowed’ them to use as Barbie doll pillows so to this day they remind me of little doll minis rather than beads.
These are 2 each of beads I made with little clay fabric swatches I made a few weeks ago. They are all 5/8″ squares, plumply stuffed with scrap clay… and a fabulous way to use clay fabric. Since you can flatten sheets of clay in the pasta machine, to reduce the bumpy feeling, I often recommend pillow beads to new clay bead makers. If you are careful, there is minimal finishing to do, the shape is easy to hold to sand or varnish and does not roll away when being photo’d or worked on.
Year of Clay - Flower on a Necklace
I have been making these tsumami kanzashi-inspired, faux fabric, clay flowers for almost 4 years now. And I have made many, many hundreds. Have I used more than a few? No. They sell even as ‘beads’ at shows but I don’t think I’ve done a thing with them. So I decided this after noon I would turn the larger one from the weekend’s batch into a pendant one way or the other!
I stared at the pendant for a while and was lacking inspiration - I am out of practice with jewelry design! - but I didn’t think my usual leather choker was going to do it for this one. In the end, I settled for two strands of glass beads. The pendant is large enough (about 2.5″) to hide the front clasp attachment and the necklace is nice and light.
Year of Clay - Little Things, a Bit Different
Somewhere in the production of making a stack of new canes, beads and finished items for upcoming shows and online venues, I found the time to fool around with some new work and old favourites.
I hadn’t played with shrinky plastic for more than 20 years even though I’ve begun to see it around again, a lot. Friday I was stranded in a Michaels waiting for a thunderstorm to end and a pack called… The suns are based off of a large stamp of mine. One side shows the frosted side I coloured on, the other is shiny smooth top side. Tons of fun with these!
In the search for pretty icing on my food beads, I tried the very simple thinned out TLS as a sweet looking glaze. Voila! It worked. I thinned out a teaspoon of TLS with a few droppers of mineral oil and iced beads! Next, try with alcohol colouring.
The final ones are the end slices off some older face canes I reduced for my shop - I reduced them a little small (still perfect for beads though) so they are all a very reasonable $3.00 instead of the $3.50 or $4.00 my semi complex canes are. Distortion can sometimes be a fun thing.
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