I Heart Macro 04/15/2012

I'm joining Lori Plyler of Studio Waterstone for "I Heart Macro" slash "I Heart Close Ups: Up Close Photography for Macro Makers and the Camerologically Challenged". Please click on the link below to view photos by other participants, or to add your own macro photo.

In March I signed up for Cindy Wimmer's Button Swap Blog Hop, which will be held on May 13th.  I am honored to have been partnered with the very talented Lynda Moseley of SCDiva.  Lynda makes beautiful, beautiful polymer clay pendants, beads and buttons.  She also makes some wonderful Scottish and Irish Tartans Series pendants and necklaces.  Please visit Lynda's Etsy shop to see her gorgeous creations and check out her tutorials.

Last Monday I received my buttons from Lynda and they are lovely!

I am in love with these buttons!  I have some ideas and have pulled out beads to go with the red and blue floral and the purple and green bees buttons.  I'm excited and worried at the same time!  These buttons are so pretty and I hope I do them justice with my design ideas.

I also wanted to share a picture of a visitor I had while working on taxes yesterday.  I felt something light on my ankle and casually swished with my hand, thinking it was probably a fly or mosquito.  When I felt it again and looked down, this little critter was on my leg.

My natural instinct was to scream "Whhaaaaa!" and shake it off my leg.  The poor thing went flying across the room and was probably scared to death!  My son helped me scoop it up in a container, so we could release it outside. 

Blessings to you and enjoy your week!

Inspired by Nature Challenge, Week 2, Feather

I have been wanting to branch out with my jewelry designs and have been intrigued with the beautiful beads that other jewelry artists create with polymer clay.  I bought a couple of books to read up on the subject and finally bought a colorful selection of clay.  My first couple of attempts at bead making didn't go very well.  It seems to take a lot of work to make the clay pliable (unless I bought old/dry clay) and this was frustrating.  Someone told me that a pasta machine helps, but I'm not ready to invest in one just yet.  I over cooked the first batch of beads, so I knew that I needed more practice with the oven temperature and the length of time that the beads were in the oven.

I decided to try to make a pendant for the Inspired by Nature, Feather Challenge and I'm relatively happy with how the pendant turned out.   When I took the piece for the pendant out of the oven, I could see that the clay bubbled in some spots.  This was probably due to my impatience with how long it was taking for the clay to soften.  I'm not giving up just yet and will be more patient the next time. 

Check out all of the challenge entries that are posted on Flickr.

Polymer Clay Art Bead Give Away

Art Bead Give Away

Jeannie (of Jeannie's Blog) is having a wonderful giveaway for her gorgeous polymer clay art beads. Each of the beads are all rolled and sculpted by hand and are about 12mm in size. One lucky winner will get all 72 beads. You better hurry though, as the winner will be posted on Monday, June 20th.

 

Source Jeannie's Blog