Grow Your Blog!

Another opportunity to see who is out there, and make new friends. 

Self Portrait taken for the Focus on Life Challenge.

Last year, I happened upon a blog hop aimed at helping us spread the word about our blogs, and maybe even get new followers. Vicki at 2 Bags Full hosts the "Grow Your Blog" hop, and it is quite an endeavor. 

So, here we are, and I hope that you are enjoying your hop! 

I started my blog when I decided that I wanted to communicate with more people who had an interest in hand crafted jewelry. I participated in my first jewelry blog hops, and joined several Facebook groups. Then I joined a photography challenge that went on for TWO years! Currently, I am participating in Shelley Graham Turner's CREATE. SHARE. INSPIRE challenge. 

Some of my interests include making Jewelry, Creating in Polymer Clay, Photography (especially birds and flowers) our Family, Pets, Cooking, and anything else that sparks my interest. 

How would you like this mug to hold your pens, pencils or paintbrushes? You can win it by leaving a comment below. The winner will be chosen at random on February 17. The mug is covered in polymer clay. 

You can read more about how it was made here. 

Here are some other recent projects. 

Jewelry Display at Christkindlmarkt, Port Jervis NY

Fruit Cake. 100% fresh fruit.

Polymer Clay Beads, Made to match the scarf in the picture.

Queen Ann's Lace

Orioles on the Apple Tree.

Holiday Pins, made of Polymer Clay!

More Polymer Pins. 

Colorful Fungus!

Old Clemson Bros. Building, Middletown, NY

Special order Pendant.

CREATE.SHARE.INSPIRE. Week Three: Winter Animals

Back to the oven.

No, I'm not cooking my winter animal, I'm back to Polymer clay! Our prompt from Shelley Graham Turner this week was to be inspired by a winter animal.

Now I know I have taken a lot of pictures of birds in winter, but I wanted to try something a bit different. 

I chose one of the smallest of mammals that don't hibernate in winter, the White-Footed Mouse.  

Not sure if I am going to make these into pendants as originally planned, but here they are, from sketch, to raw clay and then baked. Not sure if I am going to glaze them yet...

Sketch made with ball point pen at work

Raw clay with details on the first one. I used grated chalk for the color

Baked clay

In my hand to show scale. 

I had fun with these. They really do crouch in little balls, so it was easy to make a simplified image, yet have them be a bit realistic. 

Go see Shelley and the others link up here.

Create Share Inspire:Vintage Winter Fun: Challenge Week 2

Is it Vintage fun, or just my childhood? 

Shelley Graham Turner sent us this prompt to stimulate our creativity this week. It made me nostalgic. I don't think these drawings are from my childhood, they seem more Forties, or even Thirties (look at the "short pants" on the boys playing in the snow!) than my childhood in the Fifties. But they do look like illustrations from books or cards of that era. 

I started by trying to sketch kids playing in snowsuits. That didn't go so well. They came out big, and blobby, and well kind of like snowmen. 

How can i throw snowballs?
If I can't move my arms!

Snow Angels? Toboggan?

 Which led to this.

Sketch book Snowman

And then this!

I sketched one version in pencil, then did it over in marker. So.... it's a childlike picture of a snowman....with glitter! I had fun doing the drawings, and it's been quite a while since I applied glitter to paper. So that is something.  Yup, I'm just a kid at heart. 

I hope to see a variety of responses to this week's challenge. I believe the idea Shelly would like us to bring to this project is to have fun..stretch your wings, and Play! Click here to visit Shelley and the rest of the gang!

CREATE.SHARE.INSPIRE. :: Winter Challenge - Week One

Trying new things with new people. 

I am joining Shelly Graham Turner, who I have followed on her blog Fabric of My Life and in jewelry making challenges for some time,in her new weekly Winter Challenge for artists in a variety of media....

I decided to jump in and join the fun. We will be receiving a prompt on Thursdays, and blogging about our response to the prompt on Tuesdays.  

My idea was to try some new techniques, and challenge myself to follow through in a rather short time. 

Thursday Shelly sent us this prompt: 

What a lovely quote! And a pretty, calm reflection of winter. I got an idea right away. I really wanted to cover something with polymer clay, and rooted around in in a cabinet until a found a mug that had been given away as advertising. 

What I came up with was a very literal interpretation of the prompt. On a mug. It won't be used for a beverage, rather to hold  pens or paintbrushes. 

I started with a big, thin sheet of polymer clay, then cut out some pearl white snow flakes and stars. But I was afraid that I might have trouble getting them to stick...so I invented a technique to inset them into the clay, by cutting out the same shape out of the clay on the mug. As you can see in these close ups, my application technique has quite far to go, but I like that inlay look. 

After I baked it, I put some more clay on the top, and added some appliques to give it a little depth. After baking a second time...I added some little trees with alcohol ink. 

Snowy Evening Mug.

I like it. 

Let's see what the others have come up with!

Click on this link Fabric of My Life.