Christmas presents!

These are some of the things I was busy with late last year, but couldn't show - just in case the recipients found their way here!

A necklace for my mom - two herringbone ropes with a fabulous pendant made by Mak of MAKUstudio.

For my MIL - a set of ornaments

For a SIL (BIL's new wife, and my former room-mate!), a herringbone cuff with a cluster of labradorite chips as a centerpiece.

For my other SIL (husband's sister), a bookmark.  I didn't get a good picture, because I failed to take one before she showed up at our house, so I had to take this under some pretty bad lighting hidden away in my room.

And for my Grandpa (who I'll see and give this to over the weekend), a portrait of him playing sax in herringbone.  The real thing looks a little better than the picture, but you get the idea!

More fun with polymer clay

Just playin'!  This time doing additive stuff, just putting colors where I thought they'd look good.  The orange is a little more yellowy than it appears in the pictures.

Playing with translucent clay..  see the squiggles just beneath the surface?

This has chips  of a pre-baked disc on the inside.

Now, off to do more!

Just being a show-off again...

I just finished making and listing this cuff, and I LIKE IT.  Not just because it's orange and blue (Gators are National Champs!!  Have I mentioned that?), but also because herringbone always comes out so well.  This pattern took a little while to make, it's pretty easy to make a little mistake.  The actual pattern is actually a very large square, and theoretically I can cut portions of the pattern to make quite a variety of cuffs (or other pieces??) from the one pattern.  

And my final bit of bragging is on the button closures - like em?  I made them!  One more reason to play with polymer clay - I can make my own cool embellishments that MATCH.  (That comes partly from knowing how to blend colors. ;p)

Fishing for Purple

You all know I've been playing with polymer clay recently.  The object, of course, is not simply to have fun with this medium, but to use it in my work.  (of course, if I didn't find it fun, I wouldn't do it!)  I thought it would be fun to wildly embellish a cuff with some polymer clay beads.  I started by trying to match seed beads to some already made beads, and chose a dark purple which was at the center of some blue beads I'd made.  

I faithfully started netting (the obvious stitch choice for these purposes), and quickly realized that would need to make a whole new set of polymer clay beads to match the cuff. (what a drag, right?)

Well, here's the end result!  How 'bout that expanding ruffle at the end?

Gotta admit I'm a little bit pleased with this effort.  It was just.. fun.  You'll probably be seeing more combination of polymer clay and seed beads in the near future, what with it being my new kick and all. ;)

I would also like to acknowledge an award: Stormee has given me the Lemonade blogging award, and just wanted to say thanks!  She does some pretty inventive sewing.  

Now, there's certain 'requirements' for this award, such as picking other blogs to pass it on to. Being a bit of a rule breaker (not really...  I have an overactive conscience) I'm not going to specifically pick blogs to pass this on to.  But if you're itching for an award, consider yourself tagged. ;)

Scorpion Fish

It's done!  

For your viewing pleasure, my Scorpion Fish necklace.  I went with a herringbone rope, and hung the polymer clay strips along with strips of peyote for the fins.  You can vote for your favorite entry in the February challenge entitled 'Tropical Holiday' beginning Feb. 9th at the EBW blog.

Just for fun

Over Christmas break, my mom put on a home show for me.  It was my first, and went quite well!  As a result, I had a little extra, so I went and collected beads from folks I've been admiring from a distance for a while.  Aren't they fabulous??

We have, generally from left to right, two fun varieties of disk lampwork beads from HMB Studios, a fabulous pendant and two surprise raku beads from MAKU studio, and two types of playful fiber beads from Ebrown2503.  Feel free to check these folks out for yourself. :D 

Of Poisonous Fish and Polymer Clay

Warning: lots of pictures ahead.  For the summary, just look to the left! 

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Just before Christmas, I started playing with some white Sculpey I had leftover from a raised relief saxophone-playing jackalope I had made a little while back.  (What??  Yes, sax-playing jackalope - as a Christmas present for my sax-playing and figurine collecting Grandpa.)

I picked up more polymer clay at the store over break.  I stood in the aisle for a while hypnotized by all those colors.  But being the good budget-keeper that I try to be, and having taken enough art classes to know how to make more colors out of what I had, I went with red, yellow, blue and silver of one type, and sienna, silver, and translucent of another type.  I've been playing the last few days!

Task 1 was to figure out how to imitate scorpion fish fins (see post below for fishy picture).  Here's the final result, using the sienna alternating with mixed translucent and silvery clay.

And here is the final result with the prototypes.  I used the lower cost stuff to figure out how to make it work.  And I might end up using some of the prototypes in the necklace.  (This is for the February challenge - tropical holiday, remember?  Don't worry, there will be plenty of beadweaving as well!)

And then I just played with the clay to see how it worked and try out different stuff.  I like this blue set!  The largest is ~ 1 inch across.

These were the fin-making leftovers.  I like the stripedy one just beside my pinky.

These are red themed, I promise.  (Okay, so they're pink.  sigh...)

Just for fun!  I baked a little disk of reddish clay, then chopped it up and mixed it into the light blue clay for baking #2.

Purpley beads.  We'll have to find a use for those spirally beads.

And random leftovers.  The white spiral has some of the silver mixed in, so it actually shimmers a little in real life.  
...Now I'm inspired to go make more!  I know, these are pretty rough, and have fingerprints on them, but I'm having fun playing.  And besides, some of them need to be a little rough.  It's in their nature!