Sunday, February 28, 2010

Faux Serpentine Necklace

This is something I planned to enter in the Monthly PCAGOE Challenge and didn't make the deadline.  It was created with translucent polymer clay with a touch of yellow and inclusions of black embossing powder.  The texture on the beads and pendant are from a leaf texture sheet.  Overall, I'm very pleased with the piece.

PCAGOE Monthly Challenge (with prizes for people that help with the judging!!!)

The Polymer Clay Guild of Etsy (PCAGOE) holds monthly challenges for their members.  We are all invited to enter a piece that meets the predetermined theme.  This month's theme was "Texture."  There was a huge turn out of talented artists and gorgeous work submitted.  I invite you all to go and cast your vote for your favorites at http://www.pcagoechallenge.blogspot.com/ between March 1 and March 7.  5 lucky voters chosen at random will receive a prize donated by our talented guild members. 

Edit : My entry was late and not included because I didn't read further through the forum thread.

A New Design Focus

Gone are the days of making beads and hoping that I can figure something out to do with them.  My new focus for my polymer clay art is creating things were designed for each other.  This is a total shift in my design process and it's taking some getting used to.  It's a whole lot more prep work and requires a whole lot more forethought.  I've begun creating color palettes with recipes so that if something terrible happens to a bead, it's not the end of the world.  I can always make something similar that will probably work better knowing what happened to the piece that didn't work.  It is, however, making my work station a quarantined disaster area.  The mess is worse than I can ever describe with several color palettes/series in the works at once.

The things that I have produced over the last few weeks I'm very pleased with.  Here are a few that are totally finished and ready for the Etsy shop.


Saturday, February 27, 2010

TEH CAMERA TIMEZ!

OMG OMG OMG!  I finally bought a camera.  It is a sweet Canon SD1200 IS (probably not THAT sweet but a whole lot sweeter than having no camera at all).  I'm so excited.  Now I can blog properly with photos of things that I'm working on, and upload items for sale more frequently than once a month.  I think you all will be pretty surprised at the drastic changes in what I'm doing these days.  YAY!  Now get that camera battery a-charging!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

February's PCAGOE Monthly Challenge!

Hey there, all!  Haven't blogged in a few.  Been busy getting my entry ready for the Polymer Clay Guild of Etsy Monthly Challenge.  Some of the entries have been featured in a treasury here: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=115450.  Go take a look and see what we've got cooking this month.  Starting March 1 and running through the 7th, you can go to this website: http://www.pcagoechallenge.blogspot.com/, and vote on your favorites.  5 lucky voters will be chosen at random to receive a free polymer clay creation. 

Friday, February 5, 2010

1st Etsy Sale

 

I have officially made my first (and second) sale on Etsy.  A necklace/bracelet set and a pair of earrings is going to live in Guam.  My friend Rachel (Kail) from Warcraft bought them and I'm pleased as can be!  Thank you, Miss Kail!  I was just crying on my Etsy guild's collective shoulder about how I hadn't sold anything.  This was just the pick me up I needed.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Feeling Blue

I'm doing something new.  I have a tendency to create pieces that stand alone or (slump alone at times).  Right now I'm creating a theme of canes in blues, browns and purples. 

These are some of the canes in progress.  It was impossible to get a good shot of the teeny-tiny brown cane.  That particular cane is going to be used in groups to create flower clusters. 



The next stage will be to create some coordinating abstract designs for accent beads and backgrounds.  Not totally sure how I will be using these canes.  Might even try something non-jewelry.  Who knows.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Texture and my paralyzing fears

I'm scared - scared of texture.  With a medium that if you mess up, you mush your clay up and start over, why would I have such a paralyzing fear of texture?  I haven't the slightest idea. 

I appreciate texture in other people's work.  It's usually one of the principle reasons I like a piece.  I NEED SOME TEXTURE!!! 

And so this is my new focus.  I'm going to start using textures on everything.  No more fear.  I'm going to pour on the texture till someone pulls on the reins and says, "You know, you really might want to sand this."