Natalia's fold it class on Craft-Edu

I know some of you have admired my work based on Natalia Garcia de Leaniz's class at Polymer play Days in Nottingham 2010 (see below for a reminder). The focal in my Giveaway (still a few days left to enter!) is off course also made with this technique.

Well the good news is now you can take the class too on Craft-Edu - Natalia's fold it class on Craft-Edu

Further good news is that there will be a Polymer Play Days 2011 in the UK - see the blog for more details.

And even better is that tomorrow I shall be packing to go to Polymer Pamper Play! I can't wait to see some old friends, meet some people I know from online but not real life and meet some totally new ones and spend all that time with nothing to think about but polymer clay! We have a workshop in the mornings on Sat and Sun. I am really looking forward to Christine Dumont's butterfly beads workshop as this will compliment the Pods and cocoons workshop I was lucky enough to take with her earlier in the year.

So my next post will be an exciting one as I will be announcing the winner of the give away and sharing what I got up to on my polymer clay weekend. Hope you all have a good weekend!

Cara

Cutting polymer clay

I was reading a discussion on the Polymer Clay Central Message Board about which clay blades were rigid and shared my home made clay knife so I thought I ought to share it with those of you who don't read the forum (you should there's so much useful information there from such wonderful, friendly, talented people).

I do have an assortment of clay blades but more often than not use my own trusty blade. It's a snap off knife blade which I have made a polymer clay handle for. I have used several of these over the years (have only just stopped using the first one I made 20 years ago!) and find them very useful. The are sharp, rigid, cheap and easy to get hold of. The point makes it more versatile than a standard clay blade. I now make the handle with a flat bottom so they stand up on the table. I use the wider blades ( about 18mm across) as they are more rigid.

Although the blade is meant to snap off it won't unless you try to bend or curve the blade. For cutting and downward pressure there is no risk of snapping. As I say I've been using one for 20 years and never had any problem.

What do you use to cut your clay?

Square inspiration

I am busy completing a few orders at the moment but am feeling the urge to try a new shape.Here's some inspirational 'square' polymer clay jewellery by other polymer clay artists I have found on Flickr. The pictures are all links so you can click on them to see more photos from these brilliant artists. Enjoy!

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Blue Dog Beads

Blue Dog Beads

Silvia Ortiz de la Torre

Purple Cactus Studios

zarzamel / melanie gautronneau

Wired Orchid

Don't forget my giveaway http://surfingcatclay.blogspot.com/2011/02/giveaway.html

CPAW8 work in progress

It's the children's school holiday week so not much clay time for me. I did manage to sneak in a quick hour this evening in order to keep up with the Color Palette a Week Flickr group . I had lots of ideas but not enough time to fulfil them so I opted for some quick things. Here's what I've made, the sanding and finishing will have to wait til next week. I will try and remember to show you the finished items.

This weeks colour palette - back in my comfort zone ;)

Striped jellyroll cane covered oval cabochon pendant, domed disc pendant (getting good mileage out of my light bulbs  at the moment ;) and 2 small cane slice beads which will become earrings.

There's no black in this mokume gane and the dark purple isn't really showing in these bits. Not sure if I will leave them as they are or do something more to them. 

The mokume gane shavings on a sheet of black, domed disc pendant. This is probably my favourite at the moment.

GIVEAWAY!!

It's time for a giveaway! There are now 100 lovely followers for this blog - amazing!
 Thank you all for reading my ramblings.

To enter the give away simply leave a comment below, making sure I have means to contact you should you be a winner (easiest way is of course to be a follower).

 The winner will be drawn on Monday 14th March by random number generator.

They will win this lovely necklace!

Should there be more than 100 comments I will add another prize. Everyone is welcome to join in, friends, family (yes even you mum!), followers, people new to my blog.....

Good luck!

Cara

PS If the number drawn out is for someone with no contact details I will draw another

Colour Palette Challenge - week 7 - coffee

Being as I am working on my mokume gane technique at the moment I used this weeks colours from the Color Palette a Week Flickr group to play about with it some more.  You may I have seen the sheets I made, here's some of the jewellery I have made. Got some beads too but I haven't polished or strung them yet.

Textured domed disc with a centre from the stamped mokume gane sheet

Domed disc pendant made with the shavings from the stamped mokume gane, it has such a different feel to it

Pendent made up of 2 oval pieces, one plain colour the other mokume gane. 

I am half way through a series of blue, turquoise and green mokume gane pendants. Can't wait to show you but I will have to as it is the kids school holidays and we are busy, busy, busy! Hope you all have a good week.

Remeber these extruded stripey beads?

A while ago I posted a tutorial for making these beads

It never really occurred to me that people actually used it until recently when someone commented on another post to say thank you for the tutorial. If you have tried it out - how did it work for you? Did you get the crumbles? I haven't tried it with new formulation Kato yet, I might need to do some leaching to get it to work.

If you have photos of beads you made can I see them? I've only made them in brown and green for some unexplainable reason. Would love to see other peoples versions - everyone always adds their own twist to things. Leave me  a comment with a link - or mail them to me (there's an email me link in my profile).

I find this blog fun, and it helps me focus and think about things a bit more than I might otherwise (sometimes anyway ;). I love it when people leave comments so please do if you have the time. I am often guilty of reading things and not taking the time to comment when I have something to say but I know how much I appreciate it when people do.

Only 2 more followers to go before I launch a giveaway of some jewellery. I shall have to go and decide what the prize/prizes are going to be! Thanks for reading

Cara x