...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

Hi Everyone,

At last month's Guild meeting, Wendy (the Wendy of Cabezel fame) wasn't sure about one of the shapes that she was playing with. It's about 2.5 inches square and I thought I could put it to good use so she gave it to me to play with.

Dad has been wanting a replica of one of my pieces that he calls "The Three Wise Men", which you can see here. But he was disappointed that the original piece was only about 1.5 inches tall, also made with one of Wendy's Cabezels. I thought Wendy's prototype would be perfect to try out for this project and it worked really nicely.

The piece can no longer be called "The Three Wise Men", but I've decided that it can represent Dad and his four children.

For some reason or other I couldn't get the colours to come out the way that I wanted them in the photo, but you get the idea. It's also not as crooked looking as it is in the photo. I think there's some close up distortion going on. It's prettier than it looks.

I've already done another piece with the frame and I'll post more on that later. For me, Wendy's prototype is a keeper. It's such an easy way of making something that looks nice.

And my hobby room is still clean though I do have some putting away to do. I'm teaching the reindeer tomorrow at Guild so I've got my supplies strewn all over so that I don't forget anything.

Cheers,

Sandy