Friday, October 18, 2013

New Jewelry Coming Soon

Beads that make me smile

I've been waffling a bit.  I haven't been happy enough with the things I've been making to want to put them out there for sale.  The beads above might not look like much right now, but when I made them, I found I really liked them.  The little grey cells were activated and my mind has been full of ideas.  I know what I want to do now.  It's a lot more fun to think about opening up shop when I'm excited about what I'm making.  All the putzing around I've been doing for the last month has not gone to waste!

Thursday, October 10, 2013

TARDIS Construction is complete!

All that blue from my last post inspired me to sit down and finally finish my TARDIS cane.  Construction is completed! yay! Although I still need to reduce it.  I'm just going to stare at it for a little while before I do that.
TARDIS construction completed
Really though, it's a five pound cane without a background (it's not getting one for now) and all I want is one slice.  One nice big slice of the full size cane before I shrink it down, and I don't know a graceful way to do that.  I have ideas, and all of them involve a tool I need to invent and I have a feeling the desire to reduce this will come before the desire to have a big slice.

Tomorrow I have to find the scrap clay that will fill in the background so I can reduce it, and then actually reduce it, it will be an adventure.  I'll be sure to take photos.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Diamond Necklace and Dazzling Blue Color Recipe for Polymer Clay

Dazzling blue

I've been enjoying working on things that are new for me lately, one thing I've never done is try to match the Pantone colors that come out every spring and fall.  I've been needing a little fresh air and thought a project like this would be just what the doctor ordered.  I never imagined my first little tutorial here would be for something that's not a cane.  When I was trying to come up with an easy project to go along with this color, none of the canes I tried were right.  It's such a pretty blue I thought it just needed to be left alone.

I feel the need to start with an acknowledgement that my pictures are... not professional.   Is that a nice way of putting it?  I've only got the camera from my iphone and the bench in my backyard to work with for now.  I also do most of my claying at night after the kids go to bed, so the lighting in the progress photos taken at my work table do leave something to be desired.  Rest assured, the color really is a dazzling blue in person.  I'm glad we got all that out in the open.  Onward and upward.

About the color recipe, I use Premo.  I really tried to come up with a mix that didn't include cobalt blue, but it just didn't work.  Cobalt blue is no longer sold in brick and mortar stores but is available from several online sources (I use Polymer Clay Express, but I know there are others).  Also, this mix is also used in the recipes I made for the next few colors for the Spring 2014 Pantone colors, so it couldn't hurt to make a bigger batch if you plan on making the rest of the colors with me.

Dazzling blue


Dazzling Blue

3 parts Ultramarine Blue
2 parts Cobalt Blue
1 part Turquoise
1/4 part White

Once you have the color mixed, roll a sheet out on the thickest setting or your pasta machine.  Fold the sheet in half so you have a double layer of blue and press to make sure the layers stick together.  Use a thin piece of plastic loosely laid across the top of your clay (I used a deli sheet, but Saran wrap or even a small plastic baggie would do the trick).

Cut out your desired shape by pressing your cutter into the plastic covered clay (I used the diamond shape from the Makin's Geometric cutter set).  Using the plastic over the top will give a nice rounded shape to your piece, making the finishing easier.  After each cut, lift the plastic and place it loosely on top of the clay again before cutting your next shape.

Cut out nine diamonds (or seven, or five, however many you think will look good around your neck).  Poke holes in the top part of your diamonds using a needle tool or pin.  I like using a head pin to make a small hole first, then switching to a larger tool to get the hole up to the size I need.  I think starting smaller leads to less distortion when pushing through the bead.

Make spacer beads for your necklace with the blue clay (I added a little pearl to mine at this point, you can use any color you want).  An easy way to make consistently sized spacer beads is to roll out a snake of clay and cut at consistent intervals along the clay.  A lot of people measure, I just wing it.  Roll your pieces into balls and pierce to make a hole.

Before baking your beads, make sure that the holes you pierced will fit with the material you choose to string it with, it will save you a lot of frustration if you guessed wrong.  Also look over your diamonds and carefully smooth any edges.  Place your beads on an index card or parchment paper on a cookie sheet and bake at 275 degrees for at least 30 minutes.

To string your necklace you have a lot of options.  I chose a vintage brass beading chain with matching crimp ends and a small lobster clasp.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy your new dazzling blue necklace! Here's a preview, there are more color recipes coming soon:

Pantone Spring 2014

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

New Directions

Sunflowers


I haven't been posting, but I have been productive.  I've been making pendants, bracelets, new canes and doing lots of thinking.  Most of the things I've been making haven't been what I want to be making.  I'm pretty sure a lot of artists know what I mean.  You have an idea in your head, you sit down to work and make something fabulous, and then the result is not what you pictured.

I've been wanting to open for business, but the things I've made are not the things I ultimately want to be selling and making regularly.  I think perhaps I'll post the jewelry and raw canes I've made and just keep working away.  I'm getting closer to what I want to be making, it's really just a simpler style than what I've been doing up until now.

Yellow
Soon to be sunflower petals

I've always loved playing with colors and the style I've developed over the years came from that.  Recently I discovered I'm more in love with the component canes I make to go into my bigger pictures, like the one above.  When I look at that I get more ideas than when I look at the finished sunflower.  I always thought I never finished things but maybe it's because I don't know what to do with a real finished cane.  I like the patterns and the stripes, so I'm going to follow my gut and see where it gets me.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

New Things!

Pendants and beads


I have been working on several things since last post, mostly just trying to get something finished.  I've decided I like my pendants enough to put in my Etsy shop, even though I hope to always be able to tweak and find ways to refine my work.  Now I just need to photograph and post the listings, which is also a pretty daunting task, hopefully I'll get to it today.

Blue flower progress


Next on my plate is that I want to create earrings with the few canes I have now, make some bangle bracelets, maybe a beaded bracelet.  I also have to finish a certain blue police box I started last week, it's a big project and I've been waiting for a big block of time to devote to it, that will hopefully happen this weekend, I'm looking forward to having it finished.  I was also thinking I might do a simpler TARDIS cane and make a tutorial for it.  I've never done a tutorial before but you can rest assured that it will be riveting.

Blue flower assembled


I made a new blue flower cane this week, and a red pansy cane before that (but forgot to take pictures of the process for that one, you can get a glimpse of it in the picture at the top of this post).  The finished blue flower is up there too.  I'm hoping to add a lot more to my collection of flower canes very soon.  I think I tried to not make them because I wanted to do different things for a while, but really I just love making flowers. 

Friday, August 30, 2013

A Ghost Cane

Ghosts

I'm trying to make more new canes for the next week or two so I can open up shop.  This little ghost came together the other day.  I have a strong desire to make more sophisticated stuff, and then I sit down and make butterflies and cute ghostesses.  I'm always trying to figure out how to merge my two sensibilities, I like simple, organic looking jewelry but then I sit down to my clay table and make rainbow fun stuff.  I know I'll figure it out eventually, but for now I'm just happy to be claying regularly again.

Ghost
For what it's worth, I think he's a very sophisticated ghost.  And he glows in the dark.

This weekend I need to focus on canes, but maybe I'll sit down with more of a plan.  I'll try to work from a sketch (a rare occurrence around here).  There's some jewelry that I want to make for myself, so maybe I'll get to work on that.

And maybe make some Christmas stuff.

I love holidays.

I think I just need to sell my items in collections?  The geeky collection, the holiday collection, and the attempting to be sophisticated collection.

I also get to start work on the TARDIS again now that there's more blue clay in the house.

Thanks for reading my meandering thoughts.

I like to think that someday someone will read this blog.  If that person is you, let me just say... hi :-)

Saturday, August 24, 2013

The Butterfly

Reduced butterfly canes
This one was supposed to be a small cane.


I'm having a lot of fun now that I'm back into caning everyday.  It didn't take long, The TARDIS was my fun project to get started after too much time off, and now I've got more ideas than I thought possible last week when I may have let myself get a little discouraged (we don't need to talk about that right now though)

I was going through all my clay trying to find something I could make without using much blue or black clay and I came across a bag full of clay colors I had mixed for a project back in June.  I'd made one small background cane for it and it was meant to look like a sky, since I'd scrapped the original project idea I decided to see what I could do with it.  I wanted a quick cane, not a week long project like most of my canes turn out to be.

The first thought that came to me was to make a bumblebee, but I ran into two problems with this idea:

  1. Too much black clay.  Something I don't have much of right now.
  2. A black and yellow bug didn't seem like the right fit for the background I was trying to fill.
So my next thought was to make a butterfly, the colors I'd already mixed for my now defunct project seemed like they would make a beautiful butterfly and it's been almost 10 years since I last made one.  That one was very popular with the 3-8 year old girls (hoping to appeal to a wider audience with my current work) and there are things that I've wanted to do differently if I ever made another (I've learned more about color palattes in the years since this last fellow was created, there were too many conflicting purples for my liking in my first one).  One thing I did really like about it was the way I made the backgound,

One of the more time consuming things about the way I cane is mixing all the different colors.  But that was already done for me so the work was quick and I came up with this in only one toddler naptime (and still managed time to make dinner):

Butterfly cane progress 1


You can see the piece of background cane that inspired me in that picture too.  By the time I was done building my butterfly I realized I'd made it too big for the little bit of background, and decided it would be fun to use in in a lot of different ways, so I packed it with playdough and scrap clay and reduced it that way.  After I cleaned it up I cut a slice of the smaller butterfly and made him some antennae and packed in the background clay.  I think I was a little tired because I forgot to take a section of the cane when it was still bigger, so I only have the small size to show you.

Butterflies with some background



As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, I have a lot more butterfly to play with.  And as you can see from the picture right above I have a lot to learn about taking pictures.

I'll probably make some jewelry from the canes without the background, but I also have some pictures in my head that include the butterfly that I would love to turn into canes or wall art.  I'm trying to challenge myself to finish things with them.  The finishing is not my strongest skill, I tend to just make canes, then bake slices of those canes. I really need to up my finishing skills, because I don't know if I feel like just selling my canes.


Monday, August 19, 2013

TARDIS progress

TARDIS cane in progress

My current project has to be put on hold, apparently I am coming up a few pounds short in the blue and black clay department.  Time to work on other projects while I wait to restock. 

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Pieces from the week


The time I had to work on the TARDIS over this last week was spent in more of the prep work for the final build.  I've mixed all my blues and managed to get them together and ready to be turned into a police box.  I also made the sign for the front of the door, nothing too fancy, I didn't include real words, but I like how it turned out.  The last detail I was working on was making everything the proper size that I need to head into the final build stage.

Mixed blues
Mixed Blues


Ready to go
Almost ready to build!


I realized something with this new blog attempt. Blogging everyday is impractical for me, I hope you all can forgive me (hello out there, if you're reading this). I'm going to lower my expectations of myself here, and say once a week is the goal, and more than that means I'm awesome just being productive. I want to make sure I have time to enjoy life without the self imposed guilt that comes along with this adventure.

What kept me away this week? Well, thank you for asking. it was my daughter's fourth birthday, so that involved some celebrating. I made her a princess fairy wand which she "helped" me with. Her help was really more like a tiny dictator standing over my shoulder moaning, "Mommy, are you done? I don't know how to have patience."

Super dupes
The Birthday Princess


Super dupes
This is her patient face.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Beginning the TARDIS

I've had in my head to do a TARDIS cane for a while, and decided to make it my first big project to jump into.  It's always easier for me to work on the ideas I can't get out of my head, so I just decided to run with it.  Hopefully the end result will be worth showing off.  I spent some time today making the words for the top of the simple blue box.  I was surprised by how quickly so many letters came together for me, sometimes caning words takes me forever and I dread it, things went smoothly this time though.

I made the three sections of words in three separate canes so that reducing the shape would be easier (if I'd done it all together I would have probably made reducing it an impossibility because of the long flat rectangle shape.


TARDIS cane WIP


Here's a picture after all three have been reduced. It looks like I have plenty of cane leftover to make more Doctor Who themed things once this one is done.
 
Police box


Time to go to sleep now, or lay awake thinking of how to approach the next step. I should probably attack the windows first, but i also need to mull over how I want to pattern my blues. I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats.

Monday, August 5, 2013

The first post


It's time to start something, my mind is filled with ideas and I want to turn my polymer clay hobby of 20 years into a business (for real this time, not like all those other times).  I have some work to put in before I'll feel like I'm really in business, so I'll use this blog to track my progress.


For now, let's get to know each other a little better, here's a recent picture of me.  I don't know how to tell you about myself without this post getting really boring.  Let's leave the rest of the details for the about me section.


Thanks for sticking with me through the first post, I appreciate your kindness.

~Beth West