A Thank You to Tripadvisor and Happy New Year

Hi Everyone,

Happy Belated New Year!  My husband and I somewhat spontaneously decided to spend some time traveling at Christmas and did a road trip through New Mexico.  It was a wonderful journey and the compilation photo above only shows a small portion of the trip.

We were fortunate to have a lot of help from the excellent New Mexico Destination Experts at Tripadvisor including CasaAzul, bleicherblog, KthSch, NM_Photojournalist, Tet14, and others.  Some of these people were also so very helpful a couple of years ago when we were planning our amazing Arizona trip and it felt like I was reconnecting with old friends.  The recommendation to spend Christmas Eve in Santa Fe was spot on as well as many of the other pointers that we received.

I cannot say "Thank You" enough to the Destination Experts.  Their help makes the memories as wonderful and magical as they are and continue to be long after the trips have been completed.  The journey would not have been the same without them.

If you'd like to visit the New Mexico forums, click on the link here.  In those forums if you go back a couple of weeks you'll see some trip reports from sw123, those are my lengthy tomes of our journey.

We had more snow and colder temperatures in New Mexico than where we normally live in Canada, (almost 3000 km away) but it certainly added to the beauty.

There were many sights that we didn't get to see due to time limitations while we were down there and we do hope to return.  The southwest has a particular draw for us and it didn't disappoint this time.

In the mean time, if you're curious, here are the links to some of the places we went.  There were many more, but these were places that were the big draws for us.

• Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument
• White Sands National Monument
• Bosque del Apache
• El Malpais

Feel free to read the trip logs for more information.  And if you're ever planning a trip, do consult with the Tripadvisor forums.

I've already been claying in the New Year, but haven't been taking pictures yet.  I must do something about that.

And last night I discovered that I might have to journey to Croatia and Slovenia.  All because of a photo that I saw of Plitvice Lakes.  Turns out we've got our very own Croatian experts at work who are already planning my must do itinerary even though it might be a couple of years before we get there.

Cheers!

Sandy

...And to All a Good Night...

Hi All,

Created this piece this morning.  It's about 2 inches tall, and 3 inches wide.  It's going to a friend and I know it's going to be a surprise for them.  It's got a hole drilled in the back and through the top so you can't see the hole from the front, but yet it can be hung like an ornament.

The leaf cane works very well with it.  The background is some of the bits that I had left over that I was mixing together and fortunately stopped at the right moment.

It seems so peaceful and I'm very pleased with it.  

Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night.

Sandy

Six snowflakes

Hi Everyone,

I subscribe to Polymer Clay Smooshers on Facebook and always enjoy what they highlight. A few weeks ago I saw some ornaments made by Kael Mijoy and I knew I had found my inspiration for my Christmas ornaments, particularly once I saw this one.  So off I went to make snowflake ornaments.

Actually, first I tried one of her tutorials on making a beautiful flower cane which looked simple enough.  Since I hadn't done any caning in a while, I thought it would be a great start to getting back into caning.  Surprisingly, I had a difficult time (through no fault of Kael's) and gave up with that cane and went my own way once it became apparent that it wasn't going to work for me. 

But, it turned out to be a great snowflake cane as you can see in the detail below.  I also loved her leaf canes and decided to make one of my own.  I think this leaf cane is one of my all time favourite canes that I've ever made.

Anyhow, thanks so much to Kael for helping me (though she doesn't know it yet) create a series of ornaments that have been very well received by family and a family friend..

 This is likely my last posting of the year, so Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,  Season's Greetings, or however you call the finish of 2011 to everyone.  May 2012 start off with magic and continue to get better.


Cheers,

Sandy

Simple Santas

Hi Everyone,

Here are a couple of ornaments that I've made for one of my nieces and her best friend.  They're rooming together as they attend university (so far so good and they're still best friends) and I wanted to make them something flat that was easy to ship.

I'm happy with them and I think they will be, too.

Cheers,

Sandy

A trio of tiles

Hi Everyone,

As I mentioned previously, Wendy of the famed Cabezels gave me a Cabezel prototype that she wasn't particularly happy with.  I promised that I'd post my journeys in experimentation with it.

I love it!

I think it's a great opportunity to keep things grouped within a bit of a theme.

Here's my first Christmas trio.  There definitely was some experimentation going on and I really like the potential variety in the frame that can be done.

The one on the right I've decided to give to someone who has been particularly kind but I've never met in person.  I hope she likes it.  The other two I'm not sure about yet.  The one in the middle (starting to sound like a Johnny Cash song) is OK, but a bit plain and the one on the left is too busy and I don't like how the lettering on the outside frame isn't perfect.  But I do love the colours and the theme.

Anyhow, I do have two other themes that I'm working on and I'll post those later.

Cheers,

Sandy

My New Favourite Food Website

Hi Everyone, 

I discovered foodgawker.com through my friend Diane Boivin yesterday.  I hadn't spoken with Diane in a while but e-mailed her to let her know that I was impressed that she was famous because she was mentioned on Polymer Clay Daily here.  That started up a conversation, in which she agreed to continue to talk to me since I had also been mentioned on Polymer Clay Daily.

She asked if I were a member of Pinterest.

I'd never heard of Pinterest but signed up because it looked interesting.  I spent a few happy moments browsing Diane's Pinterest site until I discovered foodgawker.  And then I lost a couple of hours as I scanned through the the selections.  I became a foodgawker addict and posted several recipes to friends' Facebook walls that I thought would appeal to them.  I've also forwarded on the link to several friends here at work and sighs of pleasure can be heard from the cubicles.

I'm not sure on the protocol on posting pictures from foodgawker so I'll leave it to you to explore.  It's definitely worth a visit.

Here's the link - http://foodgawker.com/.

Enjoy.  I sure am.

Sandy

Rudolph had babies...

Hi Everyone,

I taught a somewhat (we had a very small meeting) successful class at Guild and while prepping for the class I decided to make smaller reindeer. Essentially it's the same formula as the tutorial I posted earlier here, except that the jelly roll log makes two reindeer.  Use less wire for the antlers and that's the only real difference in technique.

I can't seem to find the oval googly eyes in the stores, but haven't really looked too hard.  One tweak to the tutorial above is that you may want to make an indent for the eyes before baking, particularly for the smaller ones.  Otherwise they might end up a bit skewed looking.  But that can be part of the charm, too.

And I'm thrilled to have been hosted on CraftGossip.  Thanks to Elaine for doing that.  I confess to not knowing what CraftGossip is but I spent a happy few minutes looking through the entries and I'm in good company.


These might the the ornaments that I give to family.  Right now I've got them in my cubicle at work and people come in and smile. 

Smiles are good.

Cheers,

Sandy