For my first few years of experimenting with polymer clay, I didn't even try to make millefiori canes. Then again, I refused to use a pasta machine too, go figure... Once I did start caning, that was all I wanted to do! I soon got to a place where I had created loads of canes and wanted some way to...
Over the weekend, my family and I visited the local Sugar Creek Arts Festival held annually in Uptown Normal, IL. My 7 year old mistakenly thought we were going to the "Sugar Free Taco Bell" (not the Sugar Creek Arts Festival) but that's for a whole 'nother blog. My husband splurged on 3 polymer clay light switch covers designed by...
Besides loving all things polymer clay, I am extremely fascinated by fabric. I am very oftenly inspired by the prints and the patterns and the color combinations that tantalize my eyes through fabric. I could go on and on about how much I love fabric and fabric stores and shopping for fabric... But since this is a polymer clay blog...
I was thinking what I would like to write about next and I got this idea to make a gnome. I guess I am kind of sticking with a garden theme this month. My inspiration came from that funny travelocity gnome that you see on TV. I really love gnomes and have made them before but I wanted to make...
We are very lucky in Brunswick to have a wonderful farmer's market on our downtown green every Tuesday and Friday throughout the summer. I look forward to going each week. It is just so nice to walk around and look at all the beautiful stands filled with vegetables, fruits and berries. There are flowers, herbs, plants and local honey. The...
Inspiration can come from so many places. Some unexpected! My boys and I were over at our neighbor's house taking care of their cats while they were away. I happened to notice this cute little painted wooden sign hanging on the wall. It said "If friends were flowers I'd pick you". I thought this was so cute. I had been...
Hello everyone! I have so enjoyed reading what my fellow designers have been up to. I have some fun things that I would like to share with you during this month of June. I just finished up another fun of year of being an assistant pre-school teacher. Our classroom consisted of fourteen 3 to 5 years old's. As the assistant...
One of the classes which I am teaching at the Bead & Button Show is my Leaf Fossil class. The class makes use of sheet molds of foliage. It's one of my favorite classes to teach, and seems to be fairly popular. My own work has made use of leaf molds for many years in many styles of application. I...
With planting season just ahead, I thought these vegetable stakes would be a great project to do. They can be an inspiration for other vegetable and flower ones too. You can have a whole garden full of these. Purple- on #1, roll out a sheet of clay and cut out one 1 ¾ x 3 inch rectangle for...
I tend to keep bits and pieces of everything. If a T-pin is too long, I keep the scrap I trim off, bits of clay (of course!), the stray earring wire, the odd bead or two, I keep them. Today, when I was finishing up another project, I got lazy and made the final round cuts without cleaning out the...
Yes, it's true! I just went to the presentation for our Photoshop Users Group Monday night. Adobe has created 4 different apps for the iPad and Android tablets. AND THEY COST ONLY $9.99 EACH! You can get a pretty loaded version of Photoshop (Called Photoshop Touch) for only $10! All the basic tools, cropping, layers, text (limited fonts). It's...
Do you ever feel like doing clay, but not really "doing" clay? You want something easy, yet great at the same time? My One Block Wonder is perfect for that... 1 block of clay and 1 hour of time! Now I'm busy cooking corned beef and thinking about green beer tonight, so this project fit right into my schedule. You...
You know how we often see things and say to ourselves (or out loud...to no one in particular..) “Hey, I could do that with clay!” I distinctly remember in my first glory days of clay when my friend (who also had just starting claying) and I were walking through the deck of the coffee shop at UCSD and she literally...
I've been cleaning out my cane stash and thinking about ways to inspire myself to use up some of my old canes. I decided to re-work some of them into new canes. I had an abundance of chrysanthemum canes that I gave a makeover. I changed them into rectangular shapes and put them back together as square canes. The square...
Now I've done it... I've basically invited the whole polymer clay community into my studio, and you know what they're gonna find out... I'm just not that organized! You'd think with 3 filing drawers, 26 storage drawers and 30 cabinets, I'd have "a place for everything and everything in its place." Well, I do have a place for everything, but...
Welcome to my home studio. I am one of the most fortunate artists I know of because my husband is so supportive of my art (habit, addiction, whatever you wanna call it). A couple years ago Tom decided that my studio needed to be remodeled and I'd like to share how awesomely he remodeled it here with you. As you...
2009 found me making Santa's sleigh. My husband designed the metal cutter that I used to create the sleigh shapes. Cookies for Santa plates was the theme of the 2010 ornament. I used silver paint pens to highlight the edges of the plates and put the name and date on. And my favorite design yet...
I know it's the New Year and we are all ready to move on to new things, but on New Year's Day, when I took my Christmas tree down, I went reminiscing through my collection of polymer clay ornaments. Shortly after moving to this small rural community in 2000, I was commissioned by the local Jr. Woman's Club to...
Here is a super easy way to make fun Holiday Candy Canes or Lollipops for gifts, packages or your own tree! I used Premo clays in Frost White Glitter, Pomegranate, and Green. Condition your Frost White Glitter clay really well and then roll out a long snake maybe 5" or so about 3/4" thick. Next make two very thin snakes...
Well, the wrapping has begun! I actually love to wrap gifts. I love to go out and pick out the wrapping paper. I am kind of picky about it. I like to get a few different kinds with matching ribbon and bows. When it's time to wrap I get all my supplies ready and spread out on the floor and turn...
I would like to mention first that my favorite medium to go along with polymer clay is acrylic paints. I love to paint! Using paint allows me to add details to my projects that I really would have a hard time achieving using all clay. One thing about painting on your projects though is that they always need to be coated...
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...
November and December always find me knitting. I have a long tradition of making a hand-knit sweater for my husband for Christmas. I've been doing this for almost 20 years. The sweaters are almost all original designs, and depending on my timeliness, sometimes they are vests! The past two weekends marked the end of the soccer season for my kids. ...
I love the season of Fall. I don't get into Halloween much, and I'm relieved now that my kids are a little older that I don't have to deal with costumes and trick or treating anymore. But I love the changing seasons, the leaves changing colors, then making piles that crunch underfoot. (Thankfully, we live in the country and blow...
Who knew that you could take little pieces of clay (these are only about 2-1/2 inches high and overlap them and create a shortened version of a Skinner Blend? Just overlap each piece with it's neighbors and I added a thin sheet of Premo Gold underneath to add shimmer and help hold it all together. Run it through the pasta...
My friend Jen buys jewelry that features owls. It's like a free pass - she's got to have it. Sort of like when kids want you to buy them a book - you can't say no. so I decided I was going to try to figure out an owl for her for Christmas. Since I'm still obsessed with cabochons, I...
So I was going around the house changing all the empty papertowel rolls (other people obviously think little elves come in the night and change these because they certainly don't bother to!). I reflexively put the empty cores in my "studio pile" of stuff to go to the studio next trip out. Paper towel cores are wonderful items in...
Do you ever get an idea stuck in your head and you just HAVE to work it out in clay? I'm recovering from foot surgery and was not able to get out to my “deluxe designer studio” (also called the garage) for several weeks. So I asked my ever-patient son, Koji, to go fill a box with some stuff from...
Inspiration is truly everywhere we look. I remember vividly when I first started doing clay back in the olden days of the 20th century, I once grabbed a coffee mug in a coffee shop and said to my friend, "Look! We could do this in clay!" Needless to say, I wasn't inhibited at all by the fact that the mug...
Okay, so we all love Premo Peacock Pearl. But it has even more tricks up it's pearlescent little sleeve! I was cleaning up my clay table and I happened to end up with some Peacock and some Premo Silver in my hand. They were equal parts, so why not? I started to mix them. I was liking what I was...
