Blue Paper Mache Bowl, DONE!

I wore my earrings yesterday... I like the feel, I haven't worn dangles in ages, just hoops , posts, or nothing.
I love them! But I need to be careful around Anthony, my gr.son, he wanted to pull themm..OUCH! NONO! LOL...

While looking at some of my beads yesterday I found my BFS. Bare Foot Sandals I made a couple of years back. Actually I made 2 but this was more intricate then the first pair which was more straight beading.

Remember that Blue PM Bowl? I tried fresh flowers, & silks? I ended up pulling both out. I made some simple flowers from Polymer Clay, and took some slices of some leaf cane and after scrubbing and repainting the bowl I glued these to the bottom.... I like the look of 3D.

This Week...........

I am slowly recovering from my fall down the stairs. I really Bruised my Coccyx Bone - For those scratching yer heads.... My Tailbone, or the tip of my spine....OUCH! I bruised and pulled the shoulder cuff not tore it, thank GOD. It is still sore and my back has been killing me. Of course running after and lifting a 13 month old doesn't help matters anyway either. Just slows things dooooooowwwnnnnnnn.

I have been redoing the beads I polished with the future acrylic. I was not feeling that flower in the paper mache blue bowl I did either. I ended up ripping that out too....

So far I have little to show for this week. I have been doing a lot of sanding and rubbing ( hand polishing) of my beads.
I did do some more eggs though... Wanna See?


This Egg I did a few weeks back, It looks like metal. I believe I used translucent mixed with Pearlex and then took all the colors ( I made several small ropes of different colors) and twisted them together. I finally polished it.. I wish y'all could see it good.

This was one of my hydrangea's I attempted, a few weeks back. Finally sanded and polished the egg.


This is one of the extruded cane swirls I did. I could only do so many beads.. ( and I ran out of scrap clay) after making 2 eggs with the ropes I decided to smooth the ropes on the eggs, much the same way I did the beads. I very much like this.


Remember the Lazy Womans Mokume Gane I said I read about? ( LWMG). I posted the cane last week but the pic looks like hell. Well here is an egg covered in the cane.....I Like It!



I also got creative and made a leverage block for my clay gun.
Anyone who has ever used one knows how hard they can be to extrude. They get all gummy, even if you clean them out and nearly impossible to push the plunger.... Well I saw someone do this, and I honestly can't remember who, but it stuck in my mind for months, and now I finally did it....

TADA..............

Clay Gun

Lever- Yea a Block of Wood.

VIOLA! No More Busted Thumbs!

I drilled lines down after tracing around the gun. Then I used a Ball Peen Hammer to knock out the center plug...
Look Ma... I did it Myself....

Well I hear Dinner is here so Ima grab me a couple of slices o'pizza.
Meanwhile check out these pretty beads that Barbara did.. Click on Gallery.
She is another artist I love to visit. She does such beautiful work.

You Don't Bring Me Flowers......

Not in the Bowl, anyway.

That Idea didnt work out so well. I thought if I could coat the flowers with decoupage I could preserve them in time, but they started to brown on the edges.

Back to the drawing board.

I want to do something besides decoupage paper pics, not that there is anything wrong with that. I found a bunch of calenders for 50 cents at the craft store and bought them just so I can clip the pictures for decoupage. ( Always thinking ahead!). I thought maybe silk flowers, but I dont want to coat them.

*SIGH*

Back to finding something else.

Im 'thinking' as I re-read this, maybe fabric. I can cut some flowers off the design?
Perhaps incorporate my polymer clay. I think I saw someone make flowers for a table design using polymers......

Hmmmmmm...Someone smell smoke?

Pm Bowls In Blue and Wire

Didnt take long, eh? Here is one of the Paper Mache Bowls I did. I painted this yesterday..I really like the blues esp. the inside. ( yes I mix my own colors).






I am going to attempt to add these "REAL" flowers to the bowl. I will try Decoupage medium first. These are beautiful fragant Rhondendrons from our yard. I will remove the Stamens and try to unfold the petals into the bowl.....X your Fingers.
These smaller pink flowers? We are not sure what they are. At first we thought they were honeysuckle but they look nothing like the Honey Suckle we have growing next to it. ( yes they are both Pink). I took these from my yard, roots and all when I moved from my house. They showed up in my yard suddenly ( they werent there when I moved in...Hmmmm? Strange) I wasnt going to let the banks destroy them..( long story).

I will post more pics when I am done with this experiment.

This Weeks Pics.

These are the Backs of the Cabs ( cabochons)



This is the Front Side...I wish I could get a Clearer Shot.These are the Homemade wire Bezels I made- This one looks like a Musical Cleft, No?


I also made some Rose Canes. OF course I had to wrap some beads.
I am almost done with that yellow bowl. I put the feet on- a lil too close. I got some florals and butterflies decoupaged inside. Now to finish it off. I also tried sprinkling the inside with a lil pearlex powder for a lil shimmer, but I dont think it worked out too well.






I am curently saving to get some exercise equipment. Hoping I can get it next month. After that it is a NEW Digital Camera, Meanwhile I gotta see what I can do about getting one of these puppies up and running again....

Some Eggs, and Some Roses. Oh and I finished another Bowl....Finally

This is the B&W Roses I did. This is Baked but not varnished. They have NO sepal as I didnt put any on.



This one I sprayed with glitter after baking and then I put some Gloss on it. I have Sculptey gloss for clay. I havent tried the future acylic yet.



This Purple Rose I did last night while watching TV. It is NOT baked yet. I didn't add sepals as it was getting really soft. Translucent color clay seems to pick up heat more then regular colored ( most colors). I did add some petals on the lower tier. I need to go back later and add some larger leaves around the top, since I dont know if I can get the sepals on without knocking the flower off the stick..( I have clumsey hands).





These beads I did Sunday Night. The black ones have silver foil mixed in. I keep seeing something called the CD Technique, but hadn't been able to find any instruction on it. I did find , however a Blog *Just Barrettes* that had instructions on scoring the CD Roms, (Esp. good if they are CD-RW, I knew one day I would have some usage for all those CD-RW's that Didn't Burn Correctly! :-) ) and getting the foil out. I just wanted to try it and see what they would look like If I rolled foil into some black clay. LOL, They look kind of splotchy.
The B&W Swirlies was from the Hydrangea Cane I did Saturday.
Got Eggs? These 2 were some left over clay I mangled into a twist. I just played until I saw something I liked. Sliced it and put it on the egg. The other is translucent color I created by added Pearlex to trans and coming out with some neat colors. I twisted them together I got a rainbow-like cane. After Slicing and Applying to the egg, I covered both of these with Pearl-ex. First Lightly with a brush and then with a finger. I used several different colors. I baked both at around 225-250 (My oven sucks) for 15 minutes. After they came out I took a bit of Clay and plugged the blow holes and stuck them back in the oven for 5 minutes after I shut the oven off. I dont think I will sand these. They dont have any lumps really. And the pearlex gives off a nice shine. Almost Metalic Like.




Some Black and White swirlie Eggs, from the left over cane ends ( I have a lot of waste when I try to make my Hydrangeas)

My daughter wanted a bowl from Paper mache just like the one I made first. (The one I am keeping since I know the errors of it). Here is the inside. She wanted sunflowers, and a butterfly. I Decoupaged them after soaking them in water ( they are pre-pasted wall borders. I just cut them out from the background).

Here is the outside and feet. I need to just varnish this and it will be good to go.

A barrette I covered. It kind of..well it aint straight. It took on a bit of a curve.
A Jar I covered too.