2nd Day of Christmas...

Two tins are pictured.

Dollar stores are just the greatest things. On my latest haunting I found several Christmas themed tins. This one was just begging to be covered with my favourite green colour clay. I used the crochet lace pattern from Bev's stamps which you can purchase through Shades of Clay. It does a great mica shift. Handmade candycanes and ornaments, and voila! a nice tin. I know exactly what's going in it but I can't say much more since the recipient is a reader of the blog.

Cheers,

Sandy

On the first day of Christmas...

Hello Everyone,

I figured out that we're only 12 days away from Christmas today so I thought I would make it my goal to do a blog entry a day for the next 12 days. Other than the title, there is no relation to the Christmas carol.

This photo is of the ornaments that I created for the Clayamies swap this year. I've been participating for the last few years with the exception of last year. We were to do up to 20 ornaments in batches of five. Normally I'm very much the keener and do an ornament for everyone but this year I only accomplished half of the batch. They're made with the variegated snowflake cane that I did earlier.

The hardest part was gluing the two jewels at the top of the tree together. I had to get my husband to help out on that one. Overall I was pretty happy with them.

Now to figure out what the next 11 entries are going to be...

Cheers,

Sandy

Hi Everyone,

Janice taught a class at Guild a couple of weeks ago on what she calls "shrines". They're basically three dimensional clay window boxes that can incorporate mixed media.

Here's my attempt at it. I'm particularly in love with my flames cane which isn't done justice by the image here. It was a white, red, and yellow bullseye cane that I had created for something else and simply by distorting it and merging it I got a nice fire effect.

Not sure who I'm giving this to yet.

I'll make more. The concept is really nice and is very adaptable to all sorts of things. And, of course, as well as being a good friend, Janice is an amazing teacher.

Cheers,

Sandy

Ornaments for my older nieces...

Hi Everyone,

Now that my nieces have seen the ornament that I created for my youngest niece they've asked for their own. Here are the ones that I've made for them.

One thing that might not be obvious is the one on the left has a lip ring. My oldest niece has been experimenting with piercings and tattoos and currently has a lip ring, much to the consternation of several family members. She's planning on giving it up soon so this will be a reminder of who she once was.

That's the last of the gingerbread ornaments for now. I have a couple of other ornaments that aren't gingerbread that I'll be posting later.

Cheers,

Sandy

Snowflake Bottles of Hope

Some Bottles of Hope made with the snowflake cane. Tops are the rubber tops painted with the Lumiere Paints and then a plastic jewel glued on top.

Easy and fun.

This year's ornament for Lauren

Hi Everyone,

Thought I'd post a photo of this year's ornament for my youngest niece. I think I'm going to continue with the gingerbread theme for the next while.

Apron is made out of the snowflake canes that I played with earlier.

On the back you can see that I've imprinted a lot of letters - there's a reason for that. If you look to the left of the word "with", you'll see a sideways "W". I accidentally did that and then tried to figure out how to correct the mistake. The rest of the alphabet seemed to be an easy solution since I didn't want to mush up the figurine and start over.

My niece is too young to appreciate this at the moment, but hopefully in a few years when she understands decorating the tree she'll start liking my annual gifts. My older nieces have now started asking for ornaments so it looks like a tradition I'll have to do for a while with pleasure.



Cheers,

Sandy

Clay Day with the New Girls

Hi Everyone,

I've been delinquent in blogging but hope to change that over the next while.

A couple of weeks ago I was very happy to have four wonderful women from work over for the afternoon for a clay day. These women had participated in the monster Bottles of Hope which I had posted here so this was their second time playing with clay.

We started off with simple earrings. I always find it fascinating how the same instructions can generate so many different results. We used foils, Pearlex powders and some bracelet links that I bought at Walmart a while back and can no longer find.



One of the lessons learned is that embossing powder in clay doesn't really do well with a thin layer of liquid clay on top. You can see the effect on the purple earrings up top. It's an interesting effect and when the earrings are worn the pattern in the background is very subtle but it does make people look twice.

The girls were happy with them and so was I.

We then moved on to individual projects. This was a bit more challenging as there were four very distinct personalities in the room and I was run a bit ragged (in a good way) trying to provide support to everyone. Jenn wanted to cane and you can see her leaf cane on the bottle. I'm going to incorporate the cane into something.

Anoushka really liked the saying "Be Still.." and she made a magnet out of it to give to her husband. She also likes big earrings and was happy with the Dollarama pieces that she was able to incorporate into blue clay.

Lauren and Talar worked on clay ornaments. Talar is on her way to losing a lot of weight so it's appropriate that she made a gingerbread clay person with a bite out of it. Lauren's ornament is a gift to some friends who are expecting a baby. They already have a son with curly hair so the ornament is a pairing of that. It's personalized on the back as well.

Lauren is a yoga teacher and made the OM symbol for a pendant. She's a bit like me in that she's a hacker and can bulldoze her way through things. Anoushka has a very delicate touch and helped out with the pendant details.



It was a lot of fun and we're looking forward to doing something again in the New Year.

Cheers,

Sandy