Summer Tie-Dye!

     In 2012 I created a few canes out of scraps left from a guild challenge. The first cane that I created was my magic swirl cane, which instantly became a big hit. I made a few other canes while experimenting and the tie-dye chevron cane was one. The cane I made initially was small, so I only had enough for a few cute projects. I'd always wanted to experiment more with it, though - and after a demo trip to Houston to show how to create my magic swirl cane, I had left over colored scraps, so decided to try round two. I was tickled at the response - it completely took me off guard and want to thank everyone for all their excitement and kindness.

     Admittedly, I was head over heads over my new cane as well, so off I went experimenting with different variations. And then I had to use them! Bangles, hearts, geckos, and I know I'll do a few more things down the line. I now have three new classes on CraftArtEdu with these fun new canes - a variety for folks to choose what they want to learn. The first is a class on how to make the three different cane variations. You can view the preview here. The second is to make the tie-die chevron cane and use it to cover a bangle form. It's a simple, fun class that you can preview here. The third is making the tie-dye pinwheel cane and creating a fun gecko pin with the cane. The preview is here. There canes are great and can be used with techniques taught in my other classes, too - like the hollow hearts in my Lacy Floral Hearts or Inro and Hollow Heart Bead classes, the necklace and earrings in my Dragonscale Gems class, to makes some tie-dye teddy bears using my Jointed Floral Bears class, or as a background for my Rock & Roll Tin class.

     The cane and gecko classes are normally $20, but are on sale through midnight tonight for $15. The bangle class is regularly only $7, but is on sale for $5 - which is a great way to learn a fun new cane! As a bonus, you can get ALL THREE classes for only $25 using the code tiedye3 when you check out with all three in your cart! In addition, all my other classes are also 25% off! So now is a great time to get a wonderful variety of classes that you can mix and match the techniques and canes in to get a great variety of polymer clay options!

Giving a Hoot

Life is odd sometimes. I generally like to get out my sketchbook, research pictures to figure out layout and colors - plan designs right now to the amount of clay I use. I experiment with scrap clay to figure out shapes and sizes and get my bearing on new techniques. But sometimes, art just grabs you. My new owl pieces came about like that.

I was sitting at my workbench staring at all the ends and ends from the projects I just finished and starting to clear up the clutter to work on the next project.  I picked up a few leftover canes from owl cane projects and while starting to put them away and wondering what the heck I'm going to do with these leftovers, I glanced down at my workbench and saw some teardrop shaped cabs I had made out of scrap clay while experimenting with different die-forming ideas.  Well, the bulb went off and within an hour, I had a owl that I had little owl necklace that I had sculpted from leftover canes.  I made a couple more - just because one hadn't really put a dent in my leftover pile, took and posted some pictures, and headed down to Houston to meet the wonderful folks in the guild down there.  And they disappeared....   and I had requests for more.

While in Houston, they talked about different charity ongoing and one of them was the Brazarre Houston 2015.  Well, owls were on my brain, so I though owls and bras - which is what you see pictured above.  I'm donating them to their charity auction.  The one with two owl faces is called, "A Nice Pair of Hooters" and the other - thank you, Cheryl Pope Roach - is called "Owl Support You".  They are little pins about 3" wide with buna cord bra straps with my signature cane on the back.  If you'd like to see more pictures of my pins, you can click on the large image above to go to my Flickr.

I miss blogging and my newsletter.  The last year has been very, very busy trying to work full time while my classes and art were taking off in a way that sometimes brings me to tears.  I've now dedicated myself to working my art full time and am putting out more new classes, workshops, and trying to find the time to ... well, just be around people.  It's a good feeling, but still scary at time.  I'll be starting up my newsletter again soon, but only temporarily as I work on a way to publish it so folks can subscribe to it and read it on their apps and kindle.  And for those that like owls, I'm currently working on a new CraftArtEdu class that will be coming out the end of this month or the beginning of next.

Here is a few more pictures of my different owls.  I've including links to my Etsy shop for any that are still available.