Summer Season

I've done two craft shows recently. One at York Township for Relay for Life and one at the Medina Fairgrounds for the Antique Tractor Show. I wanted something new for these shows so I covered some pens with polymer clay and made some bracelet helpers and covered them with polymer clay. The bracelet helpers are a tool that acts as a third hand when putting on a bracelet with a clasp that is hard to put on. I had fun trying different styles and techniques of polymer clay to cover the pens and the bracelet helpers.

I've entered the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy's monthly challenge the last two months. The last month was vessels and I put a bowl I had made in it. This month is using the extruder with polymer clay. I put a pendant I made that the extruder made little flower canes. I put slices from the canes on a sheet of black clay.

Out of My Comfort Zone

I decided to try something different than my usual pendants and beads. Christi Friesen had a tutorial at Fire Mountain of a peacock necklace. I decided just to make the peacock sitting on a limb as a pin. It doesn't look a lot like Christi's but for a first try, I like it.

Flowers

I've been making flowers with polymer clay and just love the results.  I am donating the above necklace to the Salvation Army Spring Silent Auction.

 Next I think I will make a sunflower if I can mix some clay to the right shade of dark yellow.

Bead Fest - King of Prussia

Recently I went with my daughter Robin to the Bead Fest in Philadelphia. We both took two classes, one the same and the other was different from each other's. The first class we took together was on cold connections and resin. We really wanted to learn more about cold connections but the teacher spent about 10 minutes on that and the rest of the afternoon on resin.

The second class I took was with Meredith Arnold on polymer clay. If I hadn't learned anything new it would have been an interesting day since I love working with polymer clay. We used pearl-ex, textures, glitter and other things to make the polymr clay more exciting. We made a bracelet of tiles with Buna cord pressed into each piece to mark the holes the beading wire would go through. I learned some things to NOT do the next time I make a bracelet like that.

After the classes, we shopped...and shopped. There are so many interesting booths to see and new techniques and products to see. We loved it!

Red, White and Blue Jewelry

I made several pieces of the red, white and blue jewelry but Apropos weren't taking any new jewelry at this time. I put the pieces on Etsy.

Red, White and Blue Jewelry

I wanted to make some patriotic jewelry to take to Apropos where some of my pieces are for sale but I didn't get them finished in time. I'll just say they are made for July 4. I did finish one of them and decided it was for me. I wore it on Sunday and Monday (Memorial Day).

I'm looking forward to taking a class this Saturday in Columbus with Julie Picarello. I've admired her work for a long time. Robin got me her new book for Mother's Day. Really good book.

Easter

My granddaughter Sierra made me some colored Easter eggs, just plain, no design. When we made egg salad sandwiches, I saved the shells to make a mosaic on polymer clay. I think I had the grout too thin. I've never made a mosaic so didn't know what the grout was supposed to look like. I saved the rest of the shells, but I don't know if I'll ever go back to mosaics again.