A free video

Hi All,

Cindy Leitz, whose work I admire and who is a talented video tutor for clay has announced that she will be giving access to a free video starting Monday, May 2nd.

A few years ago she developed a teardrop skinner blend video that shortened the Skinner blend technique be several minutes and gave that away free. I forget to use the technique but I think some of that is because I work with a stiffer clay. When I do remember to use it though I ask myself why I don't use it all the time.

The new technique that Cindy is giving away for free is how to shift your skinner blends. I've done some blend shifting based on Lindly Haunani's technique, but Cindy always manages to make something tedious look a lot easier, so I'm curious to see how it compares.

Anyhow, Cindy doesn't give away free tutorials very often so do take advantage of her freebie.

Here's the link: Teardrop Blend Shift a la Cindy Leitz.

Cheers,

Sandy

The Aurora Borealis Technique

Hi Folks,

At Morrisburg Diane had some clay that she was playing with to cover a pen. When I saw the results I was blown away - the colours are beautiful and I loved the free-form of it.

The technique is from Cindy Leitz and you can see a preview here.

Despite my strongly worded hints and outright begging, Diane wasn't willing to part with the pen, which is the top pen in the photo. I can't really blame her, the pen was perfect and we don't often get perfection at Morrisburg, so she was entitled.

But, Diane was kind enough to give me my very own sample to play with. After our Morrisburg adventure with pens (thanks, Margi!) I went to Lee Valley and bought some other pen kits to play with. The bottom picture is my attempt using the clay that I was given by Diane. I covered it with Future and I'm very happy with it.

Because we're penny pinching at home for the next while I'm not spending a lot of money on clay supplies or tutorials. I've also got enough experience that I can usually figure out what I want to do through extra resources on the Internet. But Cindy's technique is definitely unique and not something that's easy to reverse engineer, nor do I want to try because it is so different. It is a bit reminiscent of Desiree's braided cane but I do know that it's a whole lot simpler.

I did e-mail Cindy about possibly doing group prices since I know many of the women at Guild would love to learn it and she's considering it. I was also so very pleased to hear that she's definitely thinking about offering her videos on a one-off basis.

I can hardly wait!

Cheers,

Sandy

My favourite piece I've ever made

Hi All,

I thought I'd post a close up of one of the pieces that I made at Morrisburg. Inspiration came from just about everywhere on this piece.

It's made from one of Wendy's Cabezels and is about 1.5 inches tall.

The background is some scrap clay that I've had forever and have been just waiting for the perfect thing to make with it. It reminds me of our most amazing trip to the southwest a few years ago.

The bodies were from a spiral cane made by my new good friend, Diane, using the technique that I taught at Morrisburg - and when she showed me the cane I promptly demanded a piece and I knew it would make wonderful people. The heads are Jones Tones foils using the smallest Kemper cutter circles. Gera Scott-Chandler was my inspiration for the people - she was doing a lot of work with pebble people last year and I loved the simplicity of the shape.

Gera Scott-Chandler taught us how to use UV cure resins and I knew that this piece cried out for that. It took me three tries to get the resin right.

My mother, who attended Morrisburg with me, started looking all pathetic eyed and wistful about the piece, so I ended up giving it to her (gladly, or pretty much gladly, of course). I have enough bits that I can make another.

I love it and I was smiling as I was making it.

It's so much nicer when things go together the way you want them to.

Cheers,

Sandy

Wow, it's been a while...

Hi Everyone,

I'm not sure why I haven't been blogging - I seem to have lost a lot of creative oomph. I really wish I were a tidier crafter because whenever I venture into the disaster that is my hobby room, I loose momentum, particularly in the winter.

So I haven't been claying as much.

But now that the sun is out, the days, are longer, and it's starting to be beautiful out, I feel compelled to venture into the depths of the basement to start my hobby once again. It makes no sense, I know, but it happens each year

And, last weekend was Morrisburg, my annual claying event that I love. I'm happy to say it was my second favourite gathering ever. We switched up the format a bit. Instead of finished projects and workshops we had several 15 minute demos. I think the format works well for people that are well versed in claying and it was just perfect for my attention span.

I taught versions of the spiral cane that I posted on my blog last year which you can see here. The samples in the first picture are those that were created with the spirals - they're good as an accent piece.

I've modified the technique a bit - I no longer extrude the squares that go into the extruder - it's sloppier than that now, and easier, since you only extrude once.

The teardrop disc works particularly well and the inspiration came from 2 Good Claymates for the flowers since she uses the teardrop with her extruder cane. As I was assembling the flowers I realized that four of the teardrops make a perfect butterfly. I knew my friend, Janice, would be thrilled, and she was.



I have more pictures to post later. Maybe I just needed a bit of a vacation.

Cheers,

Sandy

And the winners are....

The three winners are:

1. Belinda
2 Dom's Little Shop
3. Leslie H

I'll be contacting them and asking them to provide details on what colours they would like.

I've also decided not to limit my BOH to 100, if I can get to all 150 people, I will.

I had a lot of fun visiting all of the blogs. I was most drawn to glasswork, photography, and, of course, others that were making earrings. But everyone had beautiful gifts to offer and it was a treat to see them. I've made some new friends and have bookmarked blogs that I'd like to visit again.

I'm looking forward to next year's festival, which will be slightly different, but will have many of the same participants.

Thanks to all who stopped by and congratulations to the winners.

Cheers,

Sandy

My One World One Heart 2011

Hi All,

I dabble in polymer clay and have been for several years. I try to post a blog entry on clay at least once a week but admit to falling short at times. We have a guild here in Toronto, Canada that's always looking for new members so anyone who is local is more than welcome to stop by and say hi, but that's not a pre-requisite by any means.

I'm participating in the OWOH giveaway this year and many thanks to Lisa of Whimsical Bohemian for offering to organize this incredible event. As of today when I checked, there were over 600 bloggers participating world-wide.

My offerings are custom paperclip earrings that are embellished with polymer clay. I discovered these paper clips at our local stationery store and thought that there must be something I could do with them with clay.

You can choose the centre colours and whether you want them patterned, shiny, or simple. I'll be giving away 3 pairs, with the random draw winners to be announced on February 17th.

The rules are simple.

1. You must have an active blog that I can visit.
2. You must leave a comment on my blog with a way to find you.
3. I think that's it.

Your blog can be about anything - sometimes it's the side trips that I make that are the most fun.

Here is a picture of some colour and pattern options.

If you'd like a link to how to make bracelets out of the paper clips, go here. It'll also give a sense of different colour variations.





In addition to the earrings, I promise to make Bottles of Hope, which are clay decorated bottles that are given to cancer patients. I will do this on behalf of the first 100 bloggers that leave comments and the bottles will go to patients in Toronto. If you'd like to be notified when I make a BOH in your name, please leave me a way to contact you. Last year I managed to make all 100 bottles, but I was overly ambitious in trying to link each bottle to a blogger's website. So this year I may not link to your post, but I'll at least state your name.

You can see some of my bottles here, here, and here. A picture is below as well.



Enjoy the blogging event!

Cheers,

Sandy

Our favourite resort - Hawksbill Beach Resort, Antigua

Hi Everyone,

We've just gotten back from our favourite resort in the world. Actually, it's my second favourite resort, but we can't afford to go to my favourite resort, Petit St. Vincent more than once every 10 years.

Our second favourite resort's name is Hawksbill Beach Resort in Antigua. There's nothing fancy about the resort, it's definitely three star.

But we love it. This was our fourth visit to the resort after having spent 20+ years visiting various parts of the Caribbean.

All we do is eat, read, watch the water, and live on the beach. This is our completely unwind vacation. We don't tour, we don't mingle, and we're often in bed by 9:00. We're old fuddy-duddies on this vacation.

It's a peaceful resort - for the most part there is no loud booming music. The average age is probably 65 and there isn't much to do for activities. You can still come to one of the four beaches at 10:00 or noon and not have too much problems finding a beach chair.

It has its hiccups - and all of the reports on Tripadvisor including the positive and negative are true - it just depends on what's important. If you want glamour and social activity, this isn't the place.

But if relaxing on a beach where there might be more than 50 feet between you and the next person and having a hard time reading because your eyes drift back to the beautiful turquoise waters or because you start to nod off is more your style, then this is definitely a bit of heaven.

On a side note, I try to find books to bring down to read since I go through about 1.5 books a day. This year I managed to get a special on Ian Flemming's James Bond books and I bought 6 of them down with us. I've seen the movies but haven't read the books. They were written in the 1950s and 1960s. Times certainly have changed - in Casino Royale, his first book, within a few pages James Bond lights up his 70th cigarette of the day. There's a full chapter on the excitement of catching a cheater at the card game Bridge in a different book which I didn't understand at all.

We're already looking forward to our next bit of heaven next year.

Cheers,

Sandy