Spirals and Slices

I'm having a hard time getting started today, but at least yesterday I finally took some photos of new items so that I can list a few more things for sale. I also took a few quick photos of other things I've been working on, just so I'd have something new for this blog.

I wrote a week or two ago that I was having fun making spiral beads, so I'll start with photos of several sets of those. There are more in different colors, but this will give you an idea, at least, of what I'm talking about.

There's nothing in these photos to use for scale, but they're all relatively small-- under an inch long, and some about 3/4 of an inch long.






It's especially fun choosing the colors for each new batch. I usually have at least one large ceramic tile covered with a variety of clay mixes-- everything from "straight out of the package" solids to hand-tinted translucents with glitter inclusions. Looking over that selection, trying out different combinations, deciding what's lacking (and then mixing up whatever that might be) is a good way to play around with colors and perfect your color-mixing skills.

More recently, I've been working on a new batch of pizza slices. I made a new pepperoni cane because I needed some bigger pepperonis for these larger slices (which are destined to become magnets). I can't decide whether I prefer the new pepperoni or the old one. Both will "do" just fine, but I ought to decide which is better, for future reference. These larger pizza slices are about two inches long:

And now I need to get up and do some housework so that I'll have time later to sit at the clay table. (I also need to work on listing an item or two. . . and spend some time figuring out the system at the new online shop!)

Christmas cookies (almost)

I made up a batch of "gingerbread cookies" / "gingersnaps" for this Christmas. Most of them were turned into pins, but a few took the tree ornament route instead.

This is a pretty poor photo, but I should have a better one in a day or two.



For those who might be wondering, the pig shapes come from a small cookie cutter my mother-in-law, Britt-Marie, gave me while we were in Sweden. For some reason, the pig is a traditional shape for homemade gingersnaps, in Swedish homes. (I have no idea why they use the pig shape, but I've read about another holiday tradition involving pig-shaped goodies. I think it was a Victorian custom to smash and eat a pink peppermint pig.)

It's a bit late for gingerbread men, but I didn't want to post photos before Christmas, since there were various family members getting these with their gifts. I was planning to make a tutorial for these. (Not that they're extraordinarily unique, but I did put a few of my own twists on the basic idea. ) However, I ended up running out of time, so maybe I'll do that next year, instead.

I think I have quite a few little things that I need to photograph, so maybe I'll work on that tomorrow. Yesterday I spent some time making twisted spiral beads-- such fun to make. Well, all except for the texturing, which I do to cover my fingerprints. That part (and getting them in the oven without the bead-loaded pins falling off the rack) isn't the best, but every other part-- choosing the colors, "doing the twist", and spiraling them onto a pin-- is a blast! :o) I love that shape, too. It's so reminiscent of the seashells I love to find on the beach. It was really nice to make something with the clay without there being a deadline or the feeling that I was supposed to be doing something else. (Ok, so technically I could've/should've been cleaning something, probably, but you know what I mean. (g))

Pullin' out the ol' electric buffer. . .

I haven't used my electric buffer (a bench grinder fitted with buffing wheels) for quite some time. (One of the major benefits of making miniature food is that you don't really have to sand or buff that much.) So when I set it up and switched it on again, I had to remind myself how things worked. I was a little nervous. It didn't take long to get back into the groove, but even "the groove" isn't very groovy, when it comes to buffing. ;o) I love the incredibly glass-like shine you can only get by "power-buffing"-- and I like doing a piece now and then just for the fun of seeing the shine pop up-- but I wouldn't mind passing off the bulk of my sanding and buffing to someone else!

So, now that I've gotten the whining out of the way. . . ;o) . . .you may be wondering what I was buffing.

I started working my way through a small pile of mokume gane beads. I've had these things sitting around for I-don't-know-how-long. I know it's been over a month, maybe two. (They were probably sitting on my clay table for a month before I even got around to curing them!) I used a ripple blade a lot in this batch, as you can see from the rippling pattern in some of them. . . What else? I'm pretty sure this batch didn't have any leaf in it-- just various types of paints. The golden-green must be Dazzling Metallics-- Festive Green-- because I got that as a gift back at Christmas, and I wanted to try it out. As for the other paints, I don't remember which I used. Probably Blue Topaz from the FolkArt line of metallic craft paints. . . and a blue-green from Posh Impressions' Luminous Metallic Inkabilities. Oh, and some of my trusty four-colors-a-dollar glitter. (g)

Some turned out better than others, as usual with mokume gane. Maybe the colors were a bit too similar for maximum impact, but I do tend to like monochromatic and limited color schemes.

I also buffed a few "shell-shaped" beads I made a few weeks ago. Well, I call them "shell-shaped". A couple of them are nautilus-shaped pendants (with the wire bit taken out for the sanding and buffing stage), but the first one just makes me think of spiral seashells.

This is my first attempt at a bead shape I admired in Making Polymer Clay Beads. It's pretty simple to get this shape-- just make a snake that's relatively "fat" in the middle and "skinny" at both ends, then wind it around a skewer or rod to shape it. My technique still needs some work, but I had fun playing around. I used scrap clay-- a mostly opaque pale blue with flecks of aluminum leaf in it and a mostly translucent aqua with lots of glitter in it. (Aqua is one of my favorite colors, these days. It's perfect for summertime, I think, and a fitting color for sea-themed pieces.)



Next, here's one of the nautilus-shaped pendants. Again, I used the aqua-translucent clay with glitter, this time paired with a Skinner blend that goes from aqua to more of a periwinkle blue.


One last photo-- another nautilus pendant. This time, I used the same Skinner blend from above, but I switched the glittered clay out for pearl.


Incidentally, I think this was the first time I made a Skinner blend that I was actually happy with. I think I've only tried it once-- maybe twice-- before. (I know, it's shocking. How can someone have used clay for a couple of years without blending?!) Now that I know how to do it, I'm going to have to give it another try. I'm thinking of peachy-orange and pink-- or sunset pink and purple. . . more beachy colors for seashells. :o)