What makes an ugly Christmas sweater so ugly? I was shopping a vintage store today where they had a special display of ugly Christmas sweaters. (Not sure how they acquired such a large selection, they were truly vintage, though!) But I noticed something as I perused the assortment: the worst had the most traditional colors, closest to what we all...
A good friend of mine hosts a Christmas party for her husband’s office. He is the head of a government research facility here where I live. For the past 4 years, I have made a cane design to slice into ornaments for the party favors she gives the employees. Every year, the design includes the lab’s logo, a shaded blue...
It’s been more than 4 years since I’ve done a retail craft show, but this spring, I decided to do one at my local botanical garden. It's coming up fast! The show allowed applicants to pick an indoor or an outdoor booth. I chose indoor! At least I won’t have to worry about the weather. But I am needing to...
Ever see something and think, "ooh, that'd be cool in clay?" Well, if it's something you see repeatedly, you'd probably better just do it! Such was the case for me. About two weeks or so ago, I bought a new tablecloth for my dining table. In the screen printed pattern, there are many variations of a William Morris-esque oakleaf and...
At the Bead & Button Show, here I am doing a demo during a class titled Mokume Gane at least 5 ways. We organized the different techniques according to two variables: 1: How and what comprises the clay "strata" (ex. solid vs. translucent layers, inclusions, etc) and 2: How the Strata is manipulated or textured and sliced. The students quickly...
Have you seen and tried the new Sculpey texture sheets? There are many very versatile patterns included, in a variety of scale and fun patterns. I have been playing with them for several months and thought I'd share a project that combines some simple techniques to good effect. I started with a layer of the brick pattern in black clay. ...
Our Thanksgiving weekend tradition is to get our Christmas tree up and decorated. I'm not one of those people who pick a theme and buy all matching color ornaments and ribbon and lights. No, our tree has no theme, it's an on-going record of our family. And each year, as we decorate the tree, the kids reminisce over the ornaments...
