Guild holiday swap

As always, the holiday season was a busy, crazy blur.  I can't believe it's been almost three months since I last posted!  I'll start the catching up with showing you what I made for my polymer clay guild's annual holiday gift swap, back at our December meeting.

At the time, I had a stack of clay sheets in a nice palette left over from my guild demo on "Lizard Tails" (from Julie Picarello's book).  Her book also covers makume gane techniques, so I decided to use one of the small stacks for that, using my square and rectangle clay cutters for the impressions.

We currently have one male member, so I always try to make something unisex.   I decided to make a nice, chunky key ring, using the makume gane as a veneer.  The result is below.  I sanded and buffed to give it a nice feel.  I ended up not liking the metal key rings I had, so I made kumihino cord in matching colors as a loop and added a tassel on the end.  Not your typical key fob, but I like it.

I received the lovely little box below made by Celeste Mouchebouf.  The whole top slides off from the base with a nice snug fit.  Celeste demo'd her technique for making those at the January meeting.

Mandala purse is finished

I finished the mandala purse.  Here are front & back photos.  I will have this for sale at The Majestical Roof's Art Market this Saturday.  If it doesn't sell there and/or the store doesn't take it, I'll post it on my Etsy store.

Front view, open

Front view, closed

Back view

In the view above, you can see what the lining looks like.  The whole inside is lined like the lid.

Halloween/Autumn Art Market

I'm signed up for my first craft fair in a long time.  I'm excited!  I'm almost done with the mandala purse, so that will be ready for sale.  It came out beautifully, if I do say so myself.  I'll also have the extrusion jewelry (shown on a previous post), as well as a new rainstick I'll be putting the finishing touches on this week.  Plus, I'll have a nice selection of polymer clay and gourd items -- see my Etsy store & Flicker blog (links on the right) for previews.

This market is hosted by The Majestical Roof, a great little gallery store carrying handmade stuff by local artists.  If I get enough interest in my wares, they'll carry some of them in the store!  So....Please come out and support me! 

Hope to see you there!

Playing with extrusions

A few months back, I was playing with extrusions to inlay in a gourd.  The colors which looked so bright separately, ended up looking too dark together.  Not enough contrast, I think.  It seemed a shame to waste them, so I put some slices onto the turquoise clay I had used in the blend and brightened it up with some mica powder.  I'm quite happy with the result.

I've also been playing with making kumihimo cords to match.  They're fun to make.  I gave a demo on them at my polymer clay guild a couple months ago and we had a blast :)   The middle pendant is on a custom-made kumihimo cord.  I'm keeping the set with the rubber cord.  The rest I'll list on my Etsy store by next weekend.  For the pendants, you can have your choice of kumihino or rubber cord.

Computer troubles & a new gourd brooch

My computer crashed a couple of weeks ago.  My husband thinks he can retrieve my files, but his first attempt somehow recovered an old backup of my files from 2007.  Odd.  And my computer stopped recognizing my back-up hard-drive a month or two ago and I never got around to getting a new one.  Doh!  When hubby gets back from his business trip, he'll try again to get my files back (HOPE! HOPE!).  Until then, I am sharing hubby's computer or using my computer at work.  If anyone's wondering what to get me for my birthday, a new computer or back-up drive would be awesome!

Luckily, my wonderful hubby had sent me a photo of one of my newer creations to my work address, so I have something to share.  Here it is...

It's done with Huichol-style beading on a piece of a gourd.  Rather than the usual opaque beads, I used more translucent, glassy beads. They gave a nice jewel-like effect.  I made embroidery-thread kumihino cord for my border to keep the beads in and bring out the color.

I've made a few other new things, but haven't had a chance to photograph them.  I'll try to get them up soon.  But probably not until after this weekend--I've got a very small part in a group bellydance performance this Sunday.  I'll be one of a bevy of bellydancing pirates and have been busy making costume parts.  Aargh!  Should be fun!  It will supposedly be filmed and posted on YouTube--if so, I'll post a link.