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Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Cookie and Cathy


"Out of the Blue," I received a phone call from a lovely woman.  She said she had been carrying my card around for four years since she had purchased a some of my Flora Bead jewelry at the New Mexico Arts and Crafts show.

She said she looked for me every year since and she could never find me.  Since I joined Yucca Art Gallery and started teaching I haven't had as much time for shows...or I admit, had wanted to do one.

We made arrangements that Cookie and her pal Cathy come to the house and see what I had left in that line which amounted to about 10 pair of earrings and one pendant.  Not much to choose from.

They were so sweet, wanting to see some of everything I had been working on over the years.  You who follow my work know that I have a kind of "Art ADD."  It's very hard to keep making the same style of work for too long.  Polymer clay has sooo many applications and that it's just too much fun playing.

Anyhow, they settled on gifts for 2 friends and gifts for themselves.  Cookie said that she had always wanted a Flora Bead Bracelet and wondered if she could special order her very own.  How could I say no?  Such fun ladies, I felt like we were already old friends.

So, she hasn't seen this one yet...the flowers are actually smaller than I used to make for the bracelets so we'll see if she likes it.  I'll make another blue and pink (the requested colors) so that she can pick.

She may have opened up a can of worms again! :-)


Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Souffle Clay experiments

I was able to get a hold of some of Polyform's new clay "Souffle."  Per Iris at Polyform: "Michaels won’t be carrying SoufflĂ©, it is going to be available at JoAnns, AC Moore, Dick Blick and online."




Here are a few of my observations:

  • It is a soft, stretchable clay before curing and a very bendable clay after curing.  
  • If you use it in a single layer as I did for these blue earrings, you can actually bend a convex shape into a concave shape.  I believe they were done on a #2 setting on my Atlas.
  • It has a very slight grainy texture and sort of a soft matte feeling in your hands.  
  • The raw clay also takes additional texture very well.
  • The excess white oil paint that I used for antiquing could not be sanded completely off the surface.  So it made the color appear to be a lighter blue. 
  • It's not made for sanding and buffing which is a big plus sometimes!