So there’s a stack of these with a little variation (depending on how they got rolled up). I doodled some of my brain waves -

We have earrings. I think some of them will have to be earrings. Bright fun earrings.

I don’t make stitch markers but one of my favourite teamies and customers, Heather of RyCrafty, makes stitch markers like these. So the idea occurred to me.

And finally, I think some will be buttons. because they could be really cute buttons.

When you all are brainstorming how do you go about figuring what you’ll clay? And if you, like me, make supplies… how do you determine what you’ll make as the end product?

I started this spring off with a new order of pansies. I’m happy with how these came out.

Of course, another sign of spring is that we’re spending THIS weekend painting, too. The windows can be cracked open so it’s not even too fume-y.

We patched, sanded and TSP’d the walls and then got down to priming. The kiddo offered to help with priming. She had ulterior motives.

This is funny because my daughter has spelling problems. This should read Me WANT food. She tried again on the next wall, complete with crossouts and redos there. The guy meanwhile was painting himself as well as the wall.

The worst part about any home project is not usually the doing. Priming and painting only took us a couple of hours. The cleanup and repair and moving stuff however takes FOREVER.

Somewhere in there – before and after we got going – I finished up a custom order and made these guys so the day did end up with more than just Light Sage Green paint everywhere.

• Premo Alizarin Crimson has speckles in it. You can see this in this rose cane made with it
• Submerging clay items with translucent in them, in ice water right out of the oven really DOES seem to brighten and clarify the translucent. No clue why
• Yellow and black clay does not make darker or saddened yellow. It makes olive green. To make a saddened yellow use a browny-grey
• Liquid clay, a transfer medium, is much more useful as a clay glue, top coat and icing maker
• Baking some types of magnets decreases their strength
• Hot glue, the magic of crafts, doesn’t work well with clay. Use epoxy or super glue instead
• Clay tastes awful
• You can add a few drops of oil to soften stiff clay. A few drops of scented oil will soften AND scent clay

Any other weirdness you’ve noticed?

For those following along on my new camera odyssey, these were taken with my old camera setup. I hate to ditch something that works while I experiment if it fools with my bottom line. Especially since the old one is fine or has the same issues it always has: it eats batteries and is very slow. Not so helpful when you’re chasing a moving child with it but beads for the most part stay* where you put them.

* Ignore the runaway rolling ones.

Long story short: they were happy to meet me and yes, clay class would indeed be interesting. I’ll start by demoing beads one afternoon and then teach classes for the older kids and adults. And if I was interested, there are shows at the gallery that even take complete newbies.

So if you happen to be in the small town of Swift Current, Saskatchewan on March 21st, I’ll be demoing caned clay beads at the Art Gallery.  Until then you’ll probably find me hovering around cloud 9.

Of course, life would be TRULY grand if this were not still the view outside my window.

As a complete side note, the picture is taken with my new camera, in a halogen lit studio, with flash, at 12inches or so. So it’s not a macro picture, there’s no lighting correction. Not bad! The Ti1 is much smarter than my old Olympus but I guess 7 years of technology will do that!

I grabbed the clay for myself since I lucked out and found it on sale at the same time I was near a craft store. Mom, my enabler, bought me beads. I picked up a few spools of sterling silver wire to try my hand at. And last, but definitely not least, is my new camera.

The cat is already starting to slink away when I pick up the camera. I’ll have to find other guinea pigs.

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: