Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Earthy inspiration

Finally finished something from a workshop I took with Julie Picarello last year. Yes, last year! You are probably thinking that is a long time and it is, but some times I can't come up with how to finish something and have mentally moved on. This pendant required adding a clay tube in the back to carry the wire.
The workshop was my first from a professional polymer clay jewelry artist and it was fun and informative. Thanks Julie. You are a great teacher


Sunday, June 20, 2010

Black and White continued

After making all the black and white beads for the swap (oh, there are more, but I won't bore you with those), there were leftover canes that I thought might look good as pendants. The first one is bold and geometric as you see below.


This one has a finer, linear design. Different strokes for different folks.


Friday, June 11, 2010

Goldilocks and the three...

Remember Goldilocks? Yeah, the picky little girl that goes into a strange house and has the nerve to complain about the food. This porridge is too hot and this porridge is too cold. yada yada yada. Well, I had a bit of sympathy for the kid when I tried out a couple ideas for the recent guild bead swap, Black and White Beads.


This one is too big, this one too gray, and this one too busy! Will I ever get anything "just right". NO, but there must be something closer to "just right" then these. Keep going and something will resonate right?



This half and half design was what I decided to make. It looked reasonably straightforward until I dropped a couple on the floor and the itty bitty black beads in the middle popped out. A coat of liquid polymer and hopefully they were good to go. Due to the uneven number of participants in the swap, I ended up making another set of 10 beads like the original bead, (above left), but smaller.



Here are 17 of the 18 total beads. You can see they fell into two general types. Those with flowers or fine intricate designs...




...and these, with more geometric and bold designs. I love 'em all. What a creative guild we have!
Hope you enjoy them too and are inspired to create some for yourself.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Bubbles and more Bubbles

Playing around with circle cutters during Lindly's workshop was a lot of fun. Space bubbles come to mind.
You can see the basic unbaked bubble clay in the photo below. Good composition was the biggest challenge in the final pieces.


Here are some pendants and earrings made with more bubble clay.




Below you can see how I used left overs to personalize a blade keeper.