Grow Your Blog Event is this Sunday!

Just a reminder to everyone... this Sunday, January 25th, is the 3rd annual GYB, hosted by Vicki Boster of 2 Bags Full. Many of us will be posting the evening before, so drop by early and join us. Over 600 bloggers took part last year, and we had a ball. Hope to see you this weekend!

**And YES there is a GIVEAWAY again this year, by many participants, including *ME*

Polymer Clay Challenge Week 3

For Week 3 of Katie Oskin's polymer clay challenge, I am continuing on my quest to use canes I have been collecting. This was a kaleidoscope cane from Donna Kato, which for some strange reason I made with translucent rather than white. The effect is interesting over a base of white. A bit 3D but too subtle really:

Anyway, a learning experience in many ways (slices too thick; next time I will bake the core bead, as is my usual practice; baking in soda did not work for me, but contributed to scratching when I sanded and buffed, etc., etc.) But overall, I like this big bad boy (57mm or 2 1/4" tall) :)

Hope to see everyone next week for Week 4 of our challenge!

Gratuitous kitty photo (Miss Lucy):

Look... I'm a Christmas present!

Polymer Clay Challenge Week 2

For Week 2 of Katie Oskin's polymer clay challenge, I have only manged to squeak out a single little pendant. As I said last week, I have a terrible habit of making canes and then never actually USING them for anything. I'd like to address that this coming year :)

Again I have recuperated a lovely cane design by Cindy Lietz, the beautiful Peacock Cane. This is based on Premo brand clay, which always causes me problems when I use it (not that it's not a great product, just different from my usual, Kato, so needs a different "approach"). Takeaway: remember that some brands take an oven temperature LOWER than you are used to LOL. This was the second version of my pendant. Pretty cool huh?

Hope to see everyone next week for Week 3 of our challenge!

BONUS: Completely gratuitous and unrelated kitty pic. On Juli Cannon's online auction today, she asked us to share a funny photo. I thought my latest shelter rescue, Tristan, looked like Rip van Winkle realizing it was a different world than when he fell asleep *TeeHee*

Polymer Clay Challenge Week 1

I am a day late posting to Katie Oskin's polymer clay challenge (though Katie kindly added a few extra days grace due to Holiday schedules). I need to keep myself on a strict schedule, however, as I have a tendency to put my OWN creativity behind all other obligations... don't we all?

Without further ado, here are some beads and pendants I have made, using some of my favorite canes. Regular readers will recognize the red rose cane, and perhaps my sparkly blue variation of the brain cane, which I have used in numerous projects shared here in the past. Both cane designs are by Cindy Lietz. The leaf cane is from a wonderful tutorial by Eugena Topina. 

Hope to see everyone next week for Week 2 of our challenge!

I'm Taking the Plunge

Yes, that's right! I am committing to Katie Oskin's year-long PC challenge. While I am a card-carrying "non-committing" party member, the spur here was winning a place in another PC event, Polymer Clay Adventure, with over 800 fellow clayers (thank you Marlene Brady). So, I will have to get out of my creative shell, one way or another! Hope to see y'all along the way :)