Sunday, June 24, 2007

Spotlighting some sites.

I was out surfing and looking for patterns and Ideas. I ran into some sites that had some awesome work. I wanted to post them here to share with you.

This site has a miniature beaded garden. What Work. It took Her ( I am assuming )
hours upon hours.

Diana has a blog featuring beaded Flowers. She also has one featuring Ganutell which is similar but doesn't use beads rather wire and thread.

Carmen's site has a slide show that says Ganutell but her working has beaded projects too. She did one that is the tomb of Jesus that is beautiful, as well as various flowers and bouquets.
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Saturday, June 23, 2007

Site Meter Brings New Blogs.

I Hadn't checked my meter since setting it up. I really am not that obsessed as I used to be about my visitors, since most of them are random from the navbar, or thru google.

Anyhoo, I just checked on it and I discovered another clay blog, and she has me linked in her sidebar... WOOT... I got a Fan? LOL


So Please go and Visit Michael from Mossy Owl.... Tell her KC Sent you.

I just came from her ETSY Shop. Wow. She made some pop tart earrings...LOL My youngun loves 'em.
That is something I am going to need to try!
I made choc. chip cookies, though. It is probably the only miniature I made so far ( my hands are too big...LOL), but I never thought about making them as Jewelry.. WOW, now I am inspired again...
So if you would like to see what she is selling or has sold go and visit.

Pics of this week.

As Promised... Breakfast was good and I feel a lil better.
Here are some pics of this weeks works.

I made some Barrel Beads this week. Was just sitting there watching tv when i picked up the scrap clay I had sitting before me ont e table and just started kneading and twisting. I love barrels, they're fun, simple, colorful, and playful, most of all they are e-z, e-z. I have been practicing with the wire, using the copper craft wire before I buy the more expensive silver wire for stringing. I wired up a few barrels to try my hand...







Here is my Bucket-'O-Beads! I have been sanding and hand rubbing beads at night while watching TV and then tossing them into the bucket until I decide what to do with them. I may just end up selling the beads I f I can't find a comfortable design for jewelry..*SIGH* Sometimes ya just gotta leave to someone better then you....*SMILE*
Ok, Here is a Petal. ( or a leaf)
Here is another shot. The beads are strung 1,2,3,4,4,4,3,2,1 ~~6 of these Puppies give me one of theses.....
A Frong. or one leaf 6 times equals a petal..... I prefer a frong, thanx.




Yes it can be tedious , but the end results are beautiful and stunning, but it makes me practice my patience, something I am short of... ( I like instant gratifications).
If you want to see pictures or learn how to make these, go to this site....BEADED FLOWERS
I don't know the site owners name. She has this site in English and (dutch or german?) Click on Patterns.

A Bag 'O Frongs....


Here is a tray of Jump Rings. Everyone knows what they are, right? They hold your charms to your bracelets, and necklaces... Well how about a Bracelet made of Jump Rings?






It is Called Chain Maille. It is an Art stemming from emulating ( my word of the week...LOL) the ancients. When knights wore the silver neck coverings, and bracelets, sleeves, etc.
By connecting jump rings, ( alot of these are homemade) in a particular fashion, over under and thru as they say you come up with some really cool designs.
One sight I found here, has some good tuts, and pics. You don't have to be a member to browse the sight.
Jewelry making has jumped the chain maille wagon and these are popping up everywhere.
I used to love wearing the silver slave bracelets when I was younger, ( yes I rode with an MC, I so miss it too).
These can be made in similar fashion.
They remind me of the jewelry and chains we used to make using the can tabs...LOL. NOW that is telling my age. They don't have the removable rings tabs anymore. ( I remember stepping on them at the beach, OUCH!)
WE used to save them and interlock them to make chains and such..... Those were the days....*sniff*
There are earrings, necklaces, body coverings.... Try doing a search and see what you find.. It is Fascinating, very tedious, you need patience and the right tools, oh and a Good set of eyes too. ( Thank Goodness I have several pairs of glasses.)

Learning Chain Maille.

For starters, I found another Kraft Blogger. I have added her link to my Side bar..."TOO MUCH TIME", go and visit if you have time.

As for me this week?
Slow.

The temperature outside dipped quite a bit, perfect for claydays, but I am having a real mental block in my creative side.
I am inspired and wish to Emulate, but am uncomfortable. I want my own creativity to shine, Just isnt satisfying enough to copy anothers work. I am all for learning new techniques, and I love doing that, but then I want to take what I have learned and make it mine, and that is where I am having a problem.....

I HATE CREATIVE BLOCKS!
And this one has been going on for a while.

I cannot get my frame of mind right, I am too stiff.
As my youngest keeps telling me, I need to Relax..... But I can't, I try, but it ain't happening.
Not to sound whiney but perhaps dealing with all the pains my body has been experiencing has something to do with it.
I still have pain and pressure in my coccyx, and believe I may have broken it, which is not uncommon from what I read. In addition my lower back has been giving me real grief as well.
I am not supposed to be lifting anything over 20 lbs, and my gr.son weighs in around 25 lbs. Watching him 4-5 days a week for as long as 12 hours some days is taking its toll.
I don't complain, because I don't want to sound like some people we know, but If I don't say anything people get all surprised and even annoyed, and think I am just saying it to be mean or lazy. Ya know?

AHHHH, I didn't start this blog to whine and cry, thats what my rant blog is for, this is supposed to be my Zen place.

So I have been sitting on my butt this week and learning chain maille.
I love the look, but it is really frustrating to play with those lil jump rings with big clunky hands and poor eyesight...LOL.
I have also been pushing forward on the beading. I am nearly done making the petals for the Hyacinth flower.
I need 6 petals to make one frong, and approx. 30-35 frongs to make a plant.
You do the Math!
Yup thats why it has taken so long...Plus I got bored and I moved~ 2ce.
I will try to post some pics later on of the beaded petals/frongs, and maybe my chain maille bracelet in progress.
For now, I am going to have breakfast.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

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.... SmileyCentral.comSmileyCentral.com

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.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Yea, I Did it..

I am so proud of myself. I made a drying Rack.

I needed something to put my beads on after sanding, polishing, etc... I didn't want to spend all that money on a drying rack, and I couldn't find a small enough size box to make one.

But I had this. It used to belong to my daughter, it was one of those buckets/bins, that was part of a shelving unit we used for her toys when she was a toddler.
I used a small handsaw and after measuring and scoring, I sawed some notches.
Then I had to find some mandrels. My daughter had some wire hangers that were left in her closet...I scooped them up and cut them down. I curled one end so I only had one side to worry about holding while spinning the beads and applying the finish ( Future floor polish) with a shader paint brush.

I am patting myself on the back for my invention! SmileyCentral.com




Following the chain reaction....And Finding Aliens

I landed here at Barbara Forbes-Lyons Site. She had a Tut on doing Mokume Gane the Lazy Womans Way...LOL....
After extruding all the cane toss it, squeeze it and roll it . When done it should look like Mokume Gane- sorta...
TADA..............
Yea, I know you can't see it all that well. Here is a slice of it, slightly stretched.


Here is a bead.

The bead with the strectched slice, it looks more like swirls at this point.


I also covered some eggs with the extruded cane, But I was not feeling it when they came out of the oven. On a good note I was not so frustrated by air pockets when i wrapped my eggs in this fashion, or by sliding cane. Can ya tell I have frustration doing the eggs? I am going to try embellishing them with some seed beads, or maybe rhinestones or crystals to cover the bad spots ( uneven fill ins)

Now the next question is, what do you get when you take a bored 12 yr old, a lump of kiddy clay, 2 glass marbles, and a broken fuschia beaded necklace?..................
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AN ALIEN!



I found this on the desk upstairs. My daughter was playing and somehow she made this.....LOL... Way to go Kylee.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

A Chain Reaction Brings Extruded Cane Beads

...And I love them!
So here is the story, I went surfing around to some of my bkmk'ed clay spots. One stop I made was at Silastones Blog.
She always has such nice Beads. She is one very Talented Lady and she inspires me.
She had a link to Polymer Clay Notes where she referred to Extruded Gane.
That in turn Linked to a French Site where the showed What they did. ( Of course I can't read French, Thank Goodness for Piccys...LOL).

Well, I being one who is always looking to try something different and unique decided I might put some of my ugly cane , ya know, flowers gone bad, in the clay gun and extrude some snakes and give it a whirl.

This is what Happened....I wish you could see the Colors. They remind me of some of the planets, and I have aptly named them. I will see if my daughters camera can tkae a better picture, in the meantime I have these.





Also this past week I did this to kind of use up some of my excess leaf cane ( the ones I wasnt quite satisfied with.)


It is something Different for me, the first time I tried a 3d jar.
As for my Paper mache bowl I was working on? I scrubbed the flowers out and picked up so silks instead, as soon as I attach them I will post a piccy.

Meanwhile due to the heat and restriction on my clay time I have gone back to beading. I can't really clay with my gr.son running me ragged anyway, but I started doing a hyacinth flower in beads 2 yrs ago. I put it down when I moved and hadn't picked it back up until now, finally.
I found a tut on line on how to do it, and will post those pics and links shortly as well.

As for now I am going back to my room.
I slipped on the steps this morning and I am a hurting unit. I took something for the pain and am now sufficiently tired...LOL, unfortunately it didn't kill the pain completely, just took the edge off....

I should have more to post tomorrow.

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