Funky bowl

I can't believe it's mid April already.  The weather has finally improved, though we had temps in the high 80's to 90 last week.  Boy, it was hard to keep the air conditioner off.  Thankfully, it passed and this weekend has been gorgeous!

My daughter spent yesterday organizing my "craft room", which is in the middle of my kitchen.  I bought an 8 drawer rolling cart from Staples a few weeks ago and she straightened, stocked and labeled all the drawers for me.  What a great help!  Now I don't have to dig through a million boxes to find what I want.  I still have some things that need to be better organized {boy, you forget all the stuff you buy!}, but I finally felt like claying today. 

I found a new bead shop, not too far from us, and am thrilled to have some place to go where I can get the jewelry findings I need and thinner satin cording for my kumihimo.  I'm still working on home goods and am making ring things and bowls.

Here's my first ring thing.....

It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but the impressed lines have been filled with silver mica powder.  I have many ideas for this item and look forward to seeing them to fruition.

Here is my first funky bowl....

It measures approximately 5 inches in diameter.  The top layer was made from a cane I made with my Makin's extruder.  You can't see in this picture, but the back was a layer of black tinged translucent clay.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, and like the ring thing, have many more ideas.

I hope to get both of these items listed on my web site tonight.  It's still a work in progress, but feel free to stop by.

DreamWeaversDesigns.net 

Till next time, stay safe and be happy!

New site

We had a busy first show of the season on Saturday.  Although the crowds were light, we were pleased with the sales, and had the opportunity to chat with a few other vendors.  The day passed quite quickly.  I must say it was the first chance we had to use the Square to accept credit cards.  It was great!  Very easy to use, the ability to take a picture of the item you are selling and you can text or e-mail the receipt to the customer.  There is a small fee per transaction, but, the Square itself was free.  I was even able to order a second one for my daughter to use.  I think it arrived in 2 days.  If you are interested in an easy method for accepting credit cards in your business, I highly recommend it.  Just go to square.com.    

Her is part of our set-up from Saturday with my daughter.

I have been spending this week redesigning my website and am slowly adding items for purchase.  My goal is to have it completely set-up with new pictures of our items posted in the next week or so.  I hope you will stop by and let me know what you think.  I still have some tweeking to do though!

You can visit the site at DreamWeaversDesigns.net

Til next time, stay safe and be happy!!

Adventures in Clock Making

Well, it's almost spring and we are getting ready for our first show of the year.  Hard to believe it's been four months since our last show. 

As usual, I've been busy trying to get some new items ready.  I really want to get into making more home items and bought some wooden pieces at Michaels to use for clocks.  I made several clocks already, thinking if I made the clay thick enough, they would be fine.  What I have noticed is they tend to bend when warm.  Not sure if I need to try to bake them more, so they will get harder, or what.  I may have to try to put another layer of clay on with an old CD disc for more stability...we'll see.

Here is the first wooden backed clock I made.  I wanted to make something with a southwestern theme and used a drawing program I found on the internet {inkscape.com} to come up with a design.  The pattern looked pretty good on paper, but when I attempted to replicate it on the clock, I realized the pieces were going to be too big for the clock base.  I changed the pattern to be able to have large enough tiles.  The colors are brown, turquoise and a terra cotta type mix, with a white/ecru mix for the background.  At first I wanted to have the background under the other tiles, with a faux leather imprint {using crinkled foil} and an umber wash.  I baked this layer, though I wasn't too happy that there were areas of air bubbles.  I applied my hand mixed colored tiles, again impressed with the foil and baked.  Low and behold, there were still some bubbles.  I let the clock sit for a day and when I went back to it, I wasn't happy with the look.  I decided to back fill the entire area with the ecru mix to make it look somewhat mosaic.  Using alcohol, I wiped off the excess background that was covering my colored tiles, causing the ecru color to fill the crinkled areas of the colored tiles.  This wasn't intentional, but I kind of liked the look it gave.  Finally, I used the foil again on the background and baked one last time.

Ok.... now I was ready to paint the remaining wood and attach my clock component.  Easier said then done.  What I didn't realize was, the wooden base was too thick to allow the stem of the clock component to go through, allowing enough stem to attach the clock hands on the front.  Great, now I needed to find another component with a longer stem, which I haven't been able to find, or remove some of the wood base on the back to allow an appropriate fit.  So, I spent this morning using a box cutter and screwdriver and fashioning a recessed area on the back.  Finally, after several hours {there has to be a better way to do this}, the clock component fit.  I used terra cotta paint on the sides of the clock, with metallic copper dry brushed over top, and painted the entire back copper, attached the component and put in the battery.  Voila, finally done.          

Til next time, stay safe and be happy!

Sharing the joy

I had the pleasure of having my oldest granddaughter with me this weekend.  We were pretty busy!  I was showing her different crafts and we made a kumihimo bracelet, soap and a polymer clay heart.  It's nice to have someone to share crafting with; maybe she'll carry on the tradition.

Here she is working on her kumihimo.....

and, the finished bracelet.....

 Here is a sample of some soaps we made.....

and lastly, her hand formed and stamped polymer clay heart...

hers is on the left!

I think all that activity tired her out; it's 7:30 and she just said goodnight!

Busy Weekend

Been busy making beads all weekend, but did have a chance to string a necklace with the blue torn water color beads from my last post.

I love pairing polymer clay with crystals {I used blue and clear with some white glass beads}.  I also made a pair of earrings to match.

I recently caught up on my viewing of the polymer clay tutorials from Cindy Lietz.  I think I found a new favorite technique.  Jasper stones come in many different colors; red, blue, green, tan and brown, to name a few.  Cindy's faux Jasper tutorial was very easy to follow and I think I made a dozen or so beads. 

Here are just a few waiting to be made into pendants or necklaces.

I love the shine I was able to get with my new Dremel 4000.  I have a grinder/buffer, but need some space to set it up.  This new dremel is electric {my old one was battery operated and didn't hold a charge too long}.  Mind you, the pads that come with the dremel don't work too well for shining polymer.  I happened to fine some cotton batting I bought years ago and cut some circles out and attached it to the dremel with one of the screws included with the set.  The batting is very soft and does such a good job, I may use this for my smaller pieces from now on. 

Til next time, stay safe and be happy.

New beads

We have our first show of 2013 coming up in March and I need some new inventory.  I make a lot of polymer clay pendants that we sell with cording {hence the kumihimo strands}, but  I decided I want to add to my necklace and earring sets.

I subscribe to polymer clay tutorials by Cindy Lietz @ http://www.beadvideos.com/ .  If you have any interest in trying polymer clay, her videos are very easy to follow and she makes everything sooo easy!  You can't beat the price either.  I also spend a lot of time searching through the internet for information on different techniques (you can find tons of free tutorials out there! - just google polymer clay}. 

While some of my favorite techniques are mica shift and mokume gane, I recently came across a tutorial for torn water color.  Now, I had seen this a while ago, but for some reason, didn't give it much thought or work.  Well.....I'm on a roll now.  I've been making different colored sheets to make into beads and have multiple colors in the works.

Here are some beads ready to go into the oven. {My two favorite colors!}

Here are a few already baked waiting for sanding...

  I just finished applying liquid wax to the blue beads...

I still have red, green, and yellow sheets to work on.  Once I complete a necklace/earring set, I'll take another picture and post it.

Til next time, stay safe and be happy!

More Kumihimo

For those repeat viewers, let me know what you think of the new look of my blog.  I felt I needed a change and wanted to lighten it up some.  

Been busy working on some more kumihimo strands for our show in March.  I've been lucky and  found several resources on the internet and have been experimenting with different patterns.

This is one of the patterns I found for a 20 strand.  I wanted to make a slightly thicker necklace and  used red, orange and yellow for the strand.  I probably should have used black for an accent, vs white, but I think this one turned out pretty good.  I figured it can be used alone or with a pendant.

Here are a few others made with different patterns.  You can see the pattern a little better in the orange one in this picture.  I'm almost done adding the hand wrapped clasps to all of the strands I made.

Below is a finished bracelet I made with our Baltimore Raven's colors.....just in time for the superbowl win!!!  Way to go team!!!!  This pattern matches the blue and silver one above.  You may be able to see the raised black strand a littler better in the bracelet, than the blue above.

Til next time, stay safe and be happy.

Kumihimo

I was browsing the television channels Sunday and came across Jewelry Television {JTV}.  It's a shopping channel for jewelry, but it also has segments on supplies for those of us who make jewelry.  Naturally, I was interested in seeing what they had, though I tend to avoid shopping on T.V.   

During the hour they sold supplies, they happened to offer a kumihimo kit.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Kumihimo, it is an ancient Japanese braiding method that has become popular.  I'm sure you have seen friendship bracelets around, and if you have been to any craft shows, you may have seen artisans that sell Kumihimo jewelry. 

A few years ago, I saw something on facebook about this braiding technique and thought I would like to give it a try.  As I mainly work on polymer clay pendants, I thought it would be nice to have a braided strand to sell with the pieces.  I fashioned my own loom and bought some floss, made a few necklaces and put it away.  It took a long time to make a strand and the cotton floss I bought kept tangling.  Even when I broke down and ordered a kit {comes with the loom, a small amount of yarn, a few patterns, and plastic bobbins that hold the yarn to prevent tangling}, I still had problems.

Here is a picture of a pendant on a Kumihimo strand I made back then paired with a mokume gane pendant.

Well, after watching JTV, I thought....Why not??  I'm still limited in my activities since my surgery and spend my days with my foot elevated; reading, watching television or on the computer.  What better time to resume my quest then now?  I found my stash and started perusing the internet for video tutorials. 

I'm not sure what the difference is from a few years ago, but I've been "braiding" all week.  I realized the floss I'm now using is satin floss instead of cotton and {knock wood}, I haven't had one tangle all week. 

Here are a few strands I've made.  The possibilities are endless, for both color combinations and patterns. 

This is the loom I bought, with my new strand I am working on. 

There are several companies out there that sell looms and there are different shaped looms {square, round and octagonal}.   I'm not yet sure what difference this makes with the end result of the braiding, but I'll keep looking.

I hope to get out in a few days to look for end caps to finish the above strands, as opposed to using all my wire to make my own.  Then I'll pull out some pendants and take some pictures to post. 

Til next time, stay safe and happy.

New Year, New Goals

Happy New Year!

   I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a safe and happy New Year celebration.  It was fairly quiet here, though I did make it to midnight.  I had my second foot surgery and I am on the mend.

The New Year is usually a time for reflecting on the past year, both the good times and bad, looking forward to the possibilities ahead, and making resolutions.  I don't usually make New Year resolutions, and this year is no exception.  I have been, however, exploring new ideas for my clay work.

One place to look for ideas is Pinterest.  I love looking at all the pins, especially those related to polymer clay.  I think it is a great way to share; anything from tips on books to sewing to crafting in general and everything you can imagine in between.  If you are a crafter, or make jewelry, this is a great place to get all kinds of inspiration and ideas.  If you would like to browse, you can check out my pins http://pinterest.com/dreamweaversjw/ .  I have to warn you, it can be addicting. 

I am looking forward to being more mobile, so I can get back to claying.  In the meantime here are some great pieces for you to enjoy from some of the Polymer Clay Smooshers.

Lovely sand dollar pendant from Beadcomer.

Like steampunk??  This is from ArtmakersWorlds.

More steampunk from Desert Rubble.

Till next time, keep safe and smiling!

The Christmas Season

Once again, several months have passed since I last posted.  I have been busy getting ready for the holidays and upcoming surgery.  The good news, all my shopping is done!  Now the mad rush for wrapping everything.

We had a few shows and had a good turnout.  I also had a special order for some more of my angel pins.  I love this time of year!  The smells, decorations, songs and just a homey feeling brings back great memories.  I hope, whatever holiday you celebrate, you are able to relax and enjoy it!

Here's a picture of our table from our show in November.  



Handmade gifts are a great way to show your friends and family that you have spent time and given consideration to your gift at this time of year.  There are many shops on Artfire that showcase unbelievable talents of artisans across the country.  Feel free to browse these shops and support handmade!  http://www.artfire.com/



Here are a few holidays pieces I've made.

These are the special order angel pins I finished today. 

What would this time of year be without some cute snowmen pendants.


Til next time.....     Have a great week!