Massive 50% Off Sale

Yes, it's time....50% off all my handmade polymer clay/mixed media jewellery.  I'll be in Dongara on 16th and 17th April teaching at the Midwest Autumn Craft Round Up and as the teachers are also allowed to sell items I thought I would organise a few bits and pieces.  Well as I unpacked box after box, I realised....hmmmm perhaps I do have a bit too much....so let's have a massive sale.  I don't normally sell my work and this will be the only time this year I will have stock available so come and see me and grab a few pressies or maybe something for yourself.  

Very cool polymer, wire and beaded choker.

I have a selection of large, funky beaded necklaces.

New stock (samples for one of the classes actually) combining gorgeous (well I think they are) polymer clay focal beads, gemstones, crystals, shell and coral beads and wire.  I totally love this new collection.

A close up of some of the focals.

For those who love something a little different, I have a range of funky, tribal pieces.

....and another tribal piece.

Beautiful brooches - new stock.

The Story of Blue Fish - Part 4 - Blue Fish Meets Red Fish 3

Another lonely day goes by and Blue Fish is about to give up on finding love when all of a sudden he swims past Red Fish 3.  Hmmmm first impressions are good.  She looks like his kinda fish!  She's nothing flashy, no crazy eyes, no silly horns or head plates and she's just the right size.  She has sweet little kissable lips and perky little fins.   Blue Fish thinks she could be the one and so do I!!

I think Blue Fish is in love.

Stay tuned, there could be more of the story to come!!

The Story of Blue Fish - Part 3 - Blue Fish Meets Red Fish 2

Blue Fish is still single.  Red Fish 1 totally wasn't his type.  The very next day he meets Red Fish 2. Hmmm what are his thoughts about her I wonder?  Well for a start she has what looks like a moustache....or perhaps it's just lips that are way too big, yes that could be it!  She has a crazy looking horn and also has two unusual looking plates on the top of her head very similar to Red Fish 1 (that totally didn't work the first time so why on earth did I try it again - really what was I thinking!!).

She is a curvaceous looking fish and certainly has a perky tail!  Very attractive...but those strap on fins - it's sure got Blue Fish wondering.  She's not really red either, she's more orange so she should really call herself Orange Fish!!   Is she a fake???  I sure hope not because Blue Fish is just a simple, down to earth kinda fish who wears his heart on his sleeve and he's just looking for someone to share a simple life with.  I'm just not sure Red Fish 2 is the type of girl Blue Fish should be dating....there's just something about her that's not quite right.

will Blue Fish ever find the love of his life??

Stay tuned for more of the story.

The Story of Blue Fish - Part 2 - Blue Fish Meets Red Fish

Blue Fish is sad!  He has no-one to love!!  One day Blue Fish met a girl.  Her name was Red Fish. First impressions were kinda good, she has sparkly scales and some really fancy "body work" but he wasn't sure.  She had these crazy eyes that made her look....well....just plain weird!  and why she had those two plates on her head, hmmm not sure.  She was very tall too - way too tall for Blue Fish.  She was just crazy, tall and not his type at all.  Poor Blue Fish, he's still alone.

...and the story continues....stay tuned for Part 3 of Blue Fish.

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**  I have such a long way to go to learn more about sculpting with polymer clay.  Looks like I might be searching for some good tutorials to help me along.

The Story of Blue Fish - Part 1 - Blue Fish is Born

I've wanted to have a go at a bit of polymer clay sculpture for a while now so decided it was finally time!!!!

Hmmm so now that decision was made, what on earth do I do now!  I'm not sure where the idea of "fish" came from but I was happy with that and I knew a basic fish shape so figured it was as good a place as any to start.

and so "Blue Fish" was born.  He was made by creating a paper towel, aluminium foil and wire armature which was covered with scrap clay then white clay.  I baked him and then coloured with oil paint to finish (this was applied then rubbed back).  My friend Rachel told me he looked kinda sad and I figured, well it is getting close to Valentine's Day and he's single....so no wonder!!!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the story of Blue Fish.

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Magic Transfer Paper from Polymer Clay TV

I must say a huge thanks to Ilysa and Kira for sending some of their Magic Transfer Paper to me so I could have a play around.  Okay so my thing is beads!  I love images transferred to beads...not sure why, I just do, which is why I was really keen to try this transfer paper to see how it compares to the other transfer techniques I've tried.  Let's have a look and see how it worked.  Thanks to my gorgeous friend Rachel for helping out with the printing.  Rachel has created some flat pieces and I created a bead.  Let's have a look at the results.  

http://polymerclaytv.indiemade.com/catalog/magic-transfer-paper

Here is the link to purchase the Magic Transfer Paper

Rachel is getting our images ready for printing.  They must be printed using a laser copier.

Add one page at a time into the printer.

Voila!  Out come our images.  I decided to do some family pieces so I emailed through some of my pics to Rachel.  Rachel decided to create some custom brooches using some of her totally funky images. 

Cut out your images.  We decided to transfer to white clay.

Pop your paper onto the clay, image side down and burnish for a bit.
 ** See notes at the end of this post about the length of time needed to "set" the image.

Wash the paper off in water.  We tried a couple of different ways...water running directly onto the image and near the image so the water flows over it as in the pic above.  The latter worked much better for us.

We had to rub the image very gently the remove all the paper.  Basically the paper pretty much dissolves in the water and leaves the image on the clay.  No difference in colour either.

Hmmmmm nice transfers.

Nice colours!! yay!!

Rachel then cut around the images with a craft knife.

She then backed them onto some conditioned black clay and cut around the edges.  (She could have done this in one step but I didn't mention that!! haha).  She did a great job.

The image looks a little "milky" or "furry".  I think we may have left a teeny bit of the paper on.  We decided not to worry because we were going to coat with liquid clay anyway.

Bake following the manufacturers recommendations. 

Rachel then coated with a layer of liquid clay and cured with the heat gun.

Totally love them!!!

Rachel turned her pieces into brooches and they are so very awesome.

I decided to create a bead with and image of my gorgeous son Cooper (who has just moved to Brisbane - accross the other side of the country from me!!!).  This would now test the paper, ink and image as it needs some manipulating.  You'll notice Rachel didn't need to touch her image at all as they pretty much sat flat on her tile the whole time.

I cut out the image and placed it onto my clay (remember image side down).  

I burnished and then left for a couple of hours then washed the paper off.  Notice how the ink has smudged slightly in the top left corner - I added some powder to my image to stop this as I manipulated the clay to create the bead.  The image turned out beautifully.  The paper washed off completed with almost no residue.  Perfect!!

This is my finished bead and I just love it.  It will become part of a piece I'm creating with all my family on it.  

**  An important note we discovered while using this paper.   In the pic below the image on the right is of my new great nephew Gage (he is just so gorgeous).  This was burnished onto the clay and then washed off straight away.  Parts of the image washed away as well as I possibly didn't give it time to soak into the clay properly.  The end result was quite messy.  This was, in actual fact, my very first try.  The image on the left is my mum and dad and I left the paper sitting on the clay for much longer, probably 10 minutes...it turned out much nicer.  This was my second try.  The image of Cooper (above) turned out even better...the paper here was left on for a couple of hours.  So I would conclude that it's probably best to leave your paper sitting on the clay for at least an hour and then wash off.  It gives a much nicer result in my opinion. 

City of Greater Geraldton School Holiday Workshops

Wow what an amazing day in the city today....you honestly couldn't ask for a better place to work.  The City of Greater Geraldton have so very kindly sponsored a variety of activities for kids of all ages to participate in during these summer school holidays.  Kat and Phoebe from the City joined me today to help run the workshops and set everything up for me so I must thank them hugely.

We pretty much winged it today but we had lots of happy kids and mums and dads and that's what matters most.