Phrases of the Heart

Every year for the past five or six years, the Greater Los Angeles Polymer Clay Guild has done a "phrases of the heart" swap.  We each make a piece that somehow references a phrase containing the word "heart" or about matters of the heart.  This year, I chose the phrase "Hearts afire."  Here's the resulting brooch:

I received this striking brooch titled, "Heart to heart," from Aviva Nizani.  She used a transfer on one and texture on the other, all topped with glossy resin.

Some of my past entries for the swap can be found on my Flickr page here, here, and here.

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.