Tag Archives: craft

Tidy desk tidy mind true for creatives?

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I was having a chat with a friend on Twitter yesterday morning (you can find me here) about studio spaces. I had tweeted a photo of a great way to organise scrap clay, (see the photo below from Leigh Ross via craftgossip.com) and her response was “wow what a tidy space!”. We had a long, for twitter at least, discussion about studio spaces being tidy and how we fantasised about a great space….and it got me thinking….

great idea for sorting clay

Does the expression about a tidy desk, tidy mind really hold true? I know plenty of people who it rings very true for…and you should see their desks. But is it true for creatives? In a recent blog I talked about my creating process, and I know many people have more than one project on the go at any one time, so that creates stuff, which creates ‘mess’.

But what about the mind?  I would say I was a very organised person, I’m a great one for lists, but my ‘creative’ side is full to busting with loads of cracking ideas I do feel sometimes that a bit more order in there would help sort out what I’m doing next!

My conclusion is ‘no’ for creative types…if there is order in your chaos and you know the order and can create lovely work through the order then chaos is fine! I sound like I’m defending myself! Well it did make me tidy my desk after I’d finished working yesterday!

Let me know if you agree or disagree. And here’s a picture of my tidied space!

A rare day after tidying

Finally got some pictures taken of some of my jewellery

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Here are some of my polymer clay jewellery pieces.

All of course made by hand from scratch from a block of coloured clay.

Still deciding on the best places for me to sell them. At present it is mostly through word of mouth and people seeing the work.

I’m considering taking a stall at an Art Fair in May which is something I haven’t tried before.

Experiences and ideas welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 mins in the cooler

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I read or heard somewhere that if the clay is a bit warm to handle, pop it in the fridge for 30minutes or the freezer for 10!

I tried it with the blue and black marble beads in this picture.

The Fimo black gets warm and very soft quickly, so I popped the beads in the freezer for ten mins before I pierced them and it was much easier to keep the shape while piercing them!

Cracking idea whoever came up with that one!

Gold and Navy Jelly Roll

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This was my first attempt at a Jelly Roll. The biggest lesson I took away was not to mix different brands. The Gold was Fimo and I think the Navy was a Sculpey clay.

But the biggest problem, and one I’m still having is getting the Gold conditioned. I think I did this before I had a pasta machine and was kneading small clumps of clay by and, but even now with my pasta machine i’m having really problems with this particular clay. It crumbles really badly even after loads of rolling or kneading. I haven’t stored it any differently to any other clays and don’t have the same problems with the Fimo Silver.

The result is a strange texture on the large jelly roll slices, which sanding didn’t seem to solve. The reduced and merged canes seemed ok, and I really enjoy the jewels I made from them….one of the few sets I’ve managed to hang onto!

I haven’t tried softner at all, but as this is the only clay I’ve had problems with I don’t want to be spending money on softner that I could be spending on new colours!

Let me know your experiences.

Oh and I made some little Gold hearts too, but there are air bubbles ad the clay is too thin really and the glossing didn’t work…am I too critical!

 

Fully paid up member!

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Very excited to get an email from Kay Vincent at the British Polymer Clay Guild tonight confirming my membership and saying this blog has been added to the links page on their we page, which you can see here www.bpcg.org.uk/links.hmtl

I’ve also added a Polymer Clay set to my flickr account here

And finally, I think I need to crack on with turning some of these into jewels….I want to get the clay out again at the weekend!

 

Busy few clay days!

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I’ve had a busy few days in my Polymer Clay life!
I sent my membership form and cheque off to join the British Polymer Clay Guild and I’m looking forward to sharing my new found passion with new friends!
I also had a trip to the Harrogate Bead fair and was delighted to find a stand with Fimo….so I had a little spend! Some new colours and some varnish to try out.
And today I began my purple phase. Funny I don’t even like purple but I had a couple of key ring commissions for friends and I got a bit carried away! I’m really pleased with the way they are looking so far and hope my clients will like them too.

 

Planning ahead….in theory

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I can’t draw, not being modest. I really am rubbish. But with my growing interest in creating jewellery from polymer clay I feel I should be putting stuff on paper, trying to define what I want to do before I crank up the pasta machine.

I’m not setting myself up as some kind of jewellery designer, but to it feels important to have an idea of where I’m headed before I set out, or I could get horribly lost!

So, for the next project I did I braved putting pen to paper to sketch (and I use the term loosely) some ideas on paper.

Here’s a photo of the ideas from my sketchbook.

So, I ad an idea of what I wanted to create….so how did it turn out?

Well…see below!

I was quite pleased with the results, even more so because my sister saw them on my Facebook page and wanted them!

It was a grat idea ad a good discipline to plan out my work; sadly I’ve not been so organised since! I do think some of that is down to my fear of drawing!

 

Sand and Buff beats varnish

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After my disappointing results with varnish in my previous blog post, and some actual reading of my Polymer Clay books, (instead of jousting looking in awe at the pictures), I thought I try sanding and buffing my next pieces.

I love silver and turquoise, so putting the two together seemed a great choice; with a touch of Pearl, I marbled the three together with results I’m still pleased with. I could only get 400 and 1000 wet and dry sandpaper, and buffed by hand, (wearing jeans watching tv!).

I’m very critical of all my work and looking at these now I can see that it isn’t flat, but this was before I bought my pasta machine and I was rolling out between strips of card.

Although I made this larger piece a couple of months ago I still haven’t done anything with it. I stuck earring backs onto the two smaller pieces, but I think they should be thinner than they are. I do wear them though and now I have some bails I might make the larger piece into a pendant.

 

The final piece I made with this mix was a piece I love but, another great lesson on my learning curve, or should that be vertical ascent, decide what you will do with it, or what you will make before you start. This lovely shiny dome was going to be a ring, but only after I’d made it did I really thing through what it would look like….a knuckle duster! So it is languishing in a box with no purpose as a lesson to me.

Maybe I could use it as a paperweight?

 

Marbling beginnings

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For my first attempt at marbling in picked black, turquoise and silver clays. Looking back now, they were different brands, which I’m trying not to do mix now in the same piece, because of the different temperatures they need.
I don’t remember how I mixed /marbled the beads together, but I think have needed by hand (this was before I bought my pasta machine), I just mixed them together by hand. In more recent experiments I’ve tried to get, and note down, the right balance of colour mix; but early on, I think I just jumped in and mixed with gay abandon!
Luckily the effect is still one I like, and one I prefer to my marbling experiment using the pasta machine, which just turned into a blend of all three colours.
I formed the beads in varying sizes by hand, bakes and then varnished the beads with a water based varnish.
The effect looks good, but the beads are a bit tacky and when warm stick together a bit; interesting,y I have avoided varnishing anything since I did these…. I think I mustn’t like the effect as much as I thought.
Not too bad for a first effort though and my Mum loves the necklace, earrings and bracelet I made with them! But she is my Mum so she is allowed to be over indulgent!

if you’ve had more luck with varnishing let me know!