A Week of Crafting

Joni and did lots of different crafts during her visit last week. We took a great class at Bare Knuckle Arts, where we made paste paper and marbled paper.

We found white shirts on sale at Anthropologie and decided to dye them with red cabbage.  We did a ton of research and tracked down alum and cream of Tartar to prepare the cloth. We added ammonia to the dye to make it more blue, and look at the gorgeous color we got:

Sadly, the color almost completely washed out! Now we have off-white shirts. Is there some way to fix the color?

Joni decorated a store-bought frame with some of my polymer clay tiles:

While she did that, I painted some handmade polymer clay pendants that I made a while ago.

I'm lucky that I have some art/craft friends here in Madison. After Joni left, Tsela and I went painting at the Memorial Union at UW-Madison. Here is mine:

And here is hers:

Art/craft and friends are a pretty amazing combination!

Pricing Is Hard

With a craft fair coming up at the end of this month -- not to mention that Thanksgiving and Hanukkah fall on the same day this year -- I am beginning to freak out a little bit. This week, I've been working to turn out a few necklaces made of these beads:

I love these beads and I get tons of compliments on the necklace I wear. But this week I've become painfully aware of how much work they are. First I have to make the beads from clay; second, I have to bathe them in brown acrylic paint to give them an old, worn look; and third, I have to wipe and then sand off the paint.

All in all, it's a time-consuming process. And while I love they way they look, these beads make a simple statement. So I have no idea how much to ask for them! There are all sorts of books and articles about how to price your jewelry, but in the end, it comes down to this question: What will people pay?

I have a feeling that I'll be making this decision at the final moment!

River Rocks and Sea Glass

Obviously, you won't find river rocks and sea glass in the same place, but then, these beads are not stone nor glass. Nope, they are plain old polymer clay. And I can't even claim originality. These beads are taken right out of this book:

For the most part, I like to make jewelry of my own design, but now and then I fall in love with someone else's ideas and want to make something for myself or someone I love.  That's how it was with these beads.

The trick to the stone-like appearance is to mix Tim Holtz distressed embossing powders into  translucent clay. I used Premo brand clay. My only twist was to make the stones small:

I'm trying to come up with some "matching" earrings that are not too matchy-matchy.

But not today. It's the last day of spring break and I need to work on my teaching license. Like most states, Wisconsin has implemented a complicated system requiring us to design a Professional Development Plan every five years -- and mine is due!

And a note on my last post: There is a lot to see and do in Northeastern Iowa, but not in March and certainly not on Easter Weekend! We cut our trip short by a day because so many things were closed and the wet weather made hiking less attractive. However, the company was excellent, so we enjoyed the trip.

Valentine's Day is Coming Up

While this idea is not original, I still love these hearts. I thought I might gift a few to some special people in my life.

A few decades ago, Tory Hughes pioneered the methods for using polymer clay to make faux natural materials -- faux corral, faux turquoise, and faux ivory and bone -- the later of which I borrowed for these hearts. I especially like the idea of using polymer clay instead of using precious materials like corral and ivory.

One thing I really love about these pendants is that they are easy to wear -- they match so many different color schemes and they are casual enough to wear every day.

Where The Heart Is

I come from a family of guys -- dad, brothers, male cousins -- so most of the recipients of gifts from me are not going to be very happy with a bracelet or shawlette.

Last month, I was really struggling to come up with a gift for my brother Eric. The idea came to me one day when I was going through my craft supplies. I came across some adorable rubber stamps in the shapes of hearts and houses, and I came up with the idea to make this:

All the tiles are handmade (by me!) from polymer clay. They are stamped, cut to shape, and painted with acrylic paints. If you look closely, you can see these words: Home is where the heart is.

I know it's not a super manly gift, but I think he'll like it. (No, I haven't mailed it yet, but, hey, he was England over Christmas!) He's moving into a new phase of his life and somehow this seems to fit.

It was one of the most fun projects I have done in a while.

ETA: The stamps are from Invoke Arts. Check them out. They do amazing work!

With France In Mind

 I've been making quite a few beads because I got into a juried art show that happens over Thanksgiving weekend. I attended this show last year, and I really liked it. It's very relaxed and focused on local artists.

I've spent a lot of time expanding the color combination in my Big Beads series. This one reminds me of the linens you get in Provance:

Here's the way it looks as a full necklace:

I can't describe how endlessly fascinating I find these beads. Playing around with colors is just so much fun. I once wrote that I love knitting because it's like holding pure color in my hands. It's the same with polymer clay.

I am learning a lot about color from working the clay. Who knew that you could make a great orange by adding a little bit of blue? I used to think that color theory was simple, that mixing colors was straightforward. Boy, was I ever wrong!

Making the jewelry is the fun part. A this point, I need to hold off on that and look at selling the stuff. In addition to the art show, I'm trying to get serious about my Etsy store. There is no point in making so much stuff if I don't start actually selling it!