Happy Halloween

Yesterday at work we had a pumpkin carving contest which inspired me to play around with this year's pumpkin. I had read about sculpting pumpkins with a dremel tool so I thought I would do that. Here's where we're outlining the pumpkin with a dremel tool. We thought we would try to do the fancy type of pumpkin where there isn't an actual hole through the pumpkin but that the pumpkin was carved in relief.

Dremel tools don't work well for the untalented on the larger portions to be carved out.





Chiseling went well at first, but every time we tried to see what it would look like with the light inside, we realized that we needed it to be thinner and that it was going to take forever. We were already more than an hour into carving the pumpkin at this point. So it was decision time, do we persist in trying to make it a shaded pumpkin or just say screw it and just go for the traditional cut out type of pumpkin.




We got out the jigsaw at this point and carved right through the pumpkin for the larger areas. Then refined with knives and clay kit carving tools. Here's what it looked like finished in regular lighting.




And here's what it looks like lit up. We're happy with it but will likely stick to simple faces for next year.

A pair of earrings...

Hi Everyone,

I've been playing around a bit with the dichro slide paper. Here are a pair of earrings that I made yesterday. First I crackled some black clay with red foil (which changes colour a bit when a heat gun is applied), then pressed into one of Bev's stamps that isn't publicly available yet. Set it into some silver bracelet links that I bought at Walmart and filled with liquid clay.

Cut out a small piece of the warm colour block pattern dichro slide paper. Put it on the earring after a few layers of liquid clay, and then filled with more liquid clay.

Presto, earrings.

I like them.

I'm not sure how I feel about the dichro slide paper. I have a couple of other pairs of earrings that I've made that I'll post later.

Cheers,

Sandy

Trinkets from my father...

Hi Everyone,

My father and his girlfriend were up to visit us for a week. Dad decided to clean out some of his old hobby stuff and I was fortunate to inherit his trinkets. He started to get into wire-wrapping a few years ago and decided that it was too fiddly for him, but not until he had gathered some supplies.

I confess to not having a clue as to what the top photo is - he seems to think it might be a set of polishing compounds. I think I might agree. I haven't gone searching the Internet yet to figure it out so if anyone wants to volunteer some advice, I'd be more than keen to hear about it.

He also gave me his tools - they'll come in handy. I don't know quite what the bottom two do, but he gave me some wire-wrapping books that might have some instructions on them as well. Again, feel free to volunteer what they're for. I can figure out the rest.


This last photo is of the stones that he brought up. I'll use the cabochons in tins and embellish with clay somehow. Maybe make some brooches out of them.

It was a good visit. We ate way too much. But it's always nice to have him at our house. I get a lot of my personality from him and I consider myself very fortunate that he's been such a big part of my life. He was the Cool Dad among my friends when I was a teenager. We live several thousand kms apart, so I don't get to see him more than once or twice a year.


This last photo is one of him with his relatively new goatee. I confess to finding very few men attractive with goatees. There's a character on Stargate, Ba'al, that I like with a goatee, and my friend, Nick, that I wrote about earlier, looks OK with one, but other than that, I can't think of too many men that can carry them off. So when Dad mentioned that he was growing a goatee, I groaned. But, surprisingly, I think it suits him very well.

Thanks for the trinkets, Dad, they'll certainly be put to good use.

Cheers,

Sandy

Killarney Provincial Park

Hi Everyone,

I haven't been claying the last couple of weeks because I was getting ready for a canoe trip. My husband and I finally decided to go to Killarney Provincial Park. It's about a six hour drive from home and we've never been.
It's famous in Ontario for its beauty, particularly in the fall.

The one thing I was dreading was a 3 km portage which we were going to do twice. I carry 65 lbs on my back which is most of the typical camping gear (sleeping bags, tent, clothes, sleeping pads, first aid kits, etc). My husband carries the canoe and the food. It was as hard as I was expecting and it was a long two hours each way but it's nice to know that I can do it.

The park is beautiful and I can see going back. But I'd double check the forecast before making any plans again for the fall. We had over 35 mm of rain one day which manifested in thunderstorms, high winds and even hail. Fortunately we weren't on the water that day, but only because of the weather.

Overall, not a great trip due to weather and other minor misfortunes such as equipment failure, but not a bad trip either.

I'm sure my husband will be posting more photos and more description on his blog so here are just a few of my favourites.



Cheers,

Sandy

Felt like covering a tin today...

So I did...



Inspiration is from the leaves and a Mike Buesseler technique that Janice taught at Guild a few years ago.



It came out OK, could have been better, but it's not bad. I baked the bottom circle first and then added the sides, but I didn't use liquid clay to cement the sides to the bottom. If you look closely you can see where the sides have pulled away from the bottom in parts in the bottom photo. I've not had that happen before, but it'll make me more cautious the next time I do it.

Not sure who I'll give it to. I think I'll try one with maple leaves and fall colours for my father for when he visits.

Cheers,

Sandy

Tears....

There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept,
things we don’t want to know but have to learn,
and people we can’t live without but have to let go.

~~ Author Unknown ~~

taken directly from Renee's blog.

Rest in peace, Sheldon. I wish I had been able to meet you.

A Mirror for a Friend...

Hi Everyone,

Today's craft was making a mirror for a friend. This was about my fifth attempt and I finally got something I pretty much like.

We have cubicles at work where we don't face the entrance to our cubicle. Bad Feng Shui, apparently. One of the women who clayed with us a couple of weeks ago has a mirror set up so that she can see who is approaching her. She liked my happy face cane and kept a sample on the mirror. She's on vacation at the moment so I thought I would surprise her with a hand made mirror for when she gets back.

Wow, talk about difficult for something so simple in concept. I thought to myself when I stole her mirror that this would be a two hour job max. Tried something last weekend, didn't like it. Tried a couple of other things later on in the week, still didn't like it. Finally came up with this design today but it was almost an all day task. Tried several different things even today.

Then it turns out that the thing is also hard to photograph. I guess I've never taken a picture of a mirror before.

There's a fairly thick coat of liquid Kato between the borders. To do it again I wouldn't do that and instead would probably have just used a shiny glaze.

Overall, though, I'm fairly happy with it. It's by no means perfect, but my friend and I were discussing our approaches to crafts before she left on vacation. We're both hackers, perfection and beauty don't come easy to us. Unlike my friends Janice, and now Anoushka, who wants to start claying and, I suspect, will be very much Janice like in her approach.

So I think my friend will like this. It might be a bit gaudy for her and I won't at all be offended if she doesn't want it in her cubicle. But I know she'll smile even if she politely puts it away somewhere else.

Cheers,

Sandy