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Monday, May 19, 2008

Some new necklaces





So I've been working on some new styles of necklaces. I like them. I think that they are a little crazy, a little wild, and a lot of fun. They are a lot of fun to make as well. I just keep tying on the waxed cord, doubling it, sometimes fraying it, and then adding beads to the frayed ends, etc. etc. I'd ask what you think of them, but the last time I did that, I didn't get any response. So forget it, I'm just going to tell you all what I think instead! So there! (sticking out my tongue at you!) Just kidding. Thanks for reading, be back later.


Sally

Thursday, May 15, 2008

All the colors of the rainbow


These are all of the colors that my fried marble teapots will come in. I've only posted 2 on my etsy site so far, but soon I will get the others posted so that i have one of each color listed for sale. I need to get some better pictures of the other new wrapped fried marbles, (see post below) before I can post those as well. I'm working on it, I'm working it.......

Saturday, May 10, 2008

New Marbles



Well I still haven't figured out how to post the tutorial to this blog, so it looks like it will be posted to PCAGOE site again. Sorry about that. But I just couldn't seem to make it post here in the way that I wanted it to. I'm still working on it though, so if I figure it out you will see it here. When it posts to the PCAGOE I will post a link here as well. In the meantime I've been working on alternate ways to hang or mount my fried marbles. Here are 2 pictures, what do you think? Yeah or neah?? Leave me a comment, let me know. These have been made using the smaller peewee sized marbles so they are very cute and tiny. Well at least I think so, give me your opinion. Back later.

Sally

Friday, May 2, 2008

An important item and very helpful little tool





I wanted to share something with you that I alluded to in my last post. That ‘thing’, that I said would make my next tutorial much easier to accomplish and bring the sanding involved to a minimum. That ‘thing’ is my new handy dandy, nail filing, buffing, polymer clay sanding gizmo. It is a little item that I picked up from Wal-Mart for about $15.00 - $20.00. You see, I really hate to sand. I will do it, but I don’t like it. Well, lately with all of the hollow beads that I have been making, sanding was an important issue. I needed to find something that would make this much easier to handle. I think I have found it in this little tool. This was well worth the money and quite a handy little tool to have around. You can use it in many ways with your polymer clay, not just this latest tutorial, so if you can find one, I would suggest that you buy one. The brand name of the one that I bought is “Homedics”, which I think is the generic name that Wal-Mart uses for their home care products. Basically it is just a little nail filing, and buffing machine. It even has this dome shaped area in the front where you can place your hand in the dome and it dries your nails. So far, I have only used one of the filing heads, the flat one, and the main unit. It has 2 speeds and it comes with 7 or 8 metal covered filing heads that you just pull on and off the main unit when you want to change them out. The cool thing about this one is that it is cordless. You only have to plug it in to its electrical adaptor once in awhile to charge it. You can use it while it's plugged in charging, or use it cordless. I have just adapted it to use it to sand some items down quicker. I own a cordless, variable speed Dremel but sometimes it is still just too much power. Not to mention the fact that it would grab one of my beads and send it flying across the room. Or it would make big gouges in my beads. So this has worked out much better for me. I know that there are numerous other things that certain ingenious people on the internet have come up with, to make sanding your polymer clay easier. Scumbusters, spinning grout cleaners, and tide stain removing gizmos to name just a few. In fact Desiree McCrorey has a great website with all kinds of very good ideas and ways to adapt tools for using with polymer
clay. ( go to http://www.desiredcreations.com/howTo_Desk.htm). I have tried all of them and none of them quite worked out as well as I had hoped, until now. So, using a few of Desiree's ideas (Velcro), here is what I did. I took the flat filing head and attached a 1 inch x 1 inch piece of strong Velcro to the top of it, (see photo). I then cut out a circular piece of 280 grit wet dry sandpaper, a little over 1 inch in diameter and attached that to the sticky part of the Velcro. When the stickiness starts to break down after having changed the sandpaper too many times, I just get out my hot glue gun and add a dab of that to attach the sandpaper. This tool really works great to sand down the inside edge of the hollow beads that I have been making. And it eliminates those raw fingertips that can develop from using the drywall screen! So I just use this little device around the bottom edge of each domed shaped bead. Then, I only have to run the bead across the drywall screen quickly a few times to make sure that I have a flush sanded surface. Then I can glue both domes together as nicely, and seamlessly as possible. In fact I was able to cook, sand, and string together 3 bracelets the other day. That’s pretty amazing, considering it used to take me a few days to complete just one! So if you can manage to get one of these things before I post part 2 of the tutorial, it will speed things up for you immensely. Now I have some other computer work to do, and that tutorial to finish up. So until next time....

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Some New Things!



I completed a few new things and a few old things. In other words, I completed a new leaf pendant, because the other one was sold to a very sweet customer. So I have posted a pic of that here. And I've completed some more bracelets and I've posted that pic here as well. But the exciting news is that I have been working on part 2 of my hollow bead tutorial, and it is almost finished. This tutorial will explain how I make the textured type of hollow beads, so stay tuned for that. This time I will be posting the tutorial here on my blog. So look for that to be posted here sometime next week! For now, it's back to work for me! Oh wait a minute, you need to go to http://pcagoe.com/ and vote for your favorite "flower" themed item that a bunch of us submitted for the May challenge. You could win some very cool prizes just for voting! You've only got until May 3, so go do that NOW please! Thanks ==