Image Transfer Bead Workshop

Thanks to the gorgeous ladies who joined me on Saturday in the studio to work on some beautiful image transfer beads.  I asked the ladies to send me some photos that were personal to them and then had them printed by Tricia from Midwest Prints so everyone had a good lots of images to choose from.

What a fantastic way to spend the day.  Finally caught up with some lovely friends who I haven't seen for ages and made some new friends which is always nice.  Thanks ladies for making my day so awesome.  Unfortunately I didn't get pics of all the finished beads (sorry ladies) but here's some pics from the day anyway.
     

     

 

   

   

   

 

Shine Workshops

What an amazing project I'm involved with at the moment.  I'm working with some beautiful girls, teaching them the wonders of polymer clay of course, from the Shine Programme.  Here's a bit of an outline of what Shine is (I've taken this from their Facebook page - Shine Today).

Shine is a values based training model, targeted at ‘at risk’ female youth aged between 13 and 15. These students are in danger of disengaging from the education system and society; negativity impacting their employment and life opportunities into the future.

In addition, Shine develops confidence and wellbeing in the young female participants, through a structured program of experiential learning.

The program’s hands-on nature assists in developing the participants skill set, in a purpose built hairdressing salon.

Through the structured Shine environment, the young women’s life skills and capacity are developed; having a great effect on fundamental skills such as accountability, responsibility, trust, connection and employability.

This project has been made possible with the support of ACDC and Healthways.  The girls ended up creating some amazing Symbolic Beads which were very impressive.  I was incredibly proud of them  We also had a play around with a very simple 4colour stack mokume gane - now this was fun that's for sure.  Huge thanks to Mandy and her gorgeous girls for making this day so enjoyable.  I loved it.

Image Transfer Bead Tutorial and Rachel Weaver Long Lash Lady Download

After lots of playing and testing and experimenting the new class (Image Transfer Beads) has been released at CraftArtEdu.  I used some of Lisa Pavelka's Waterslide Images and some images from my very good friend and exceptional artist Rachel Weaver.  Rachel kindly allowed me to use some of her Long Lash Lady images with the prints very kindly donated by Tricia at Midwest Prints.

Rachel has also very kindly created a free download of her images for those who purchase the tutorial.  Simply follow the instructions once the class has been purchased and you'll be able to create your own gorgeous Long Lash Lady beads.  Thanks Rachel.

To find the tutorial simply go to:    Image Transfer Beads

Luscious Debbie Sanders Inspired Beads

You know I totally blame Sage Bray for my current obsession with creating faux "Debbie Sanders glass beads"!!!

Sage featured Deb's glass beads the other day on The Polymer Arts Daily Blog and, as I've been in love with these beads for a such long time, I thought I should probably give them a go....but with polymer clay.

This was my first attempt

which I must admit I was pretty happy with...but I knew I could do better.  So out came all the products that I thought I could use to help get the particular look I was after.

This is what "tickled my fancy" the most:

yes, that's right....it's Friendly Plastic.  I've had a love of this product for a long time and have pulled it out every now and then to team it with polymer clay.  Nothing ever seemed to work so I would pack it away again ready for the next time I got inspired.  Well today was the day.  I simply loved how it turned out on the edges of these beads.  It was a little tricky to get it to work but after many failed attempts I was really happy with how these turned out.

Thanks so much to Debbie for creating such awesome glass beads and thanks to Sage for the "prompt".

Oh! How I Love "What If" Days

Today I had a free day in the studio!!  woohoo...that doesn't happen very often - there's normally always something to prepare for.  Anyway, today I decided to simply play around with "whatever".  I cleaned my workspace free of everything and grabbed a few things out I haven't played with for quite a while and just started experimenting.

What would happen if I do this?

What if I add this on top?

What if I folded it this way?

What would happen if I put these two together?

It's always so much fun and my journal was definately on hand to take some notes so I don't have to ever ask these "what if" questions again!

I ended up with some really cool things at the end of the day.

These are some of my experimental tiles.

Played with shapes and surface treatments.

I really love this one.

A good play but lots more to explore with this one.