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.

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.

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.