I owe a lot to Sculpey that is for sure! Traveling the world to teach, writing books, doing television. It's been an amazing time for sure. But I think what Sculpey helped me the most with was being able to connect to my boys- even though I was working full time at my "real job" and working for Sculpey all these years. My boys were my team, my cheerleaders, my idea factory sometimes. Here are a couple of examples of some of our teamwork through the years.
This round box is one of our first collaborations. This was created when Premo was first introduced and my wonderful friend, Judith Skinner, had introduced us to the Skinner Blend. (to further date this piece, it is Premo covering a metal 35mm bulk film can!). My oldest gave me the idea of the sea monster going over/under the water and my youngest showed me how to use a heart stamp to make the water lilies. They also did most of the head sculpting for me - you know that look...the head shake, sigh, "give it here mom"...
The boys had cracked their light switch plate in their room so they asked me to make them one. Well, of course, I made them a monster plate (that didn't withstand the years of boys in that room). But that led to me making ALL my switch plates in my house with clay!
Of course I had to find ways to combine my clay with my photography - first with making frames for their photos...
To actually transferring their photos onto my darling clay and coloring them after baking with colored pencils.
When Sculpey introduced the mini cutters, my "Lego Masters" helped me build these crazy 3D bracelets using the mini cutters designs.
This is one of the last collaborative projects we did when my youngest was in his culinary classes at college and he wanted a special spoon rest for a seafood presentation he was making. I got the idea to create faux kelp and with the help of Premo Translucent and alcohol inks, this is our final design!
I miss those days when I would come home from a particularly rough day at work (or rough commute!) and they would look at me and say, "Oh mommy, go out to your clay table and we'll come get you when we are hungry!" It can be hard to give ourselves permission to play, but I readily accepted that permission from them!
xoxo, syn
