Polymer Pamper and Play was Perfect!

Wow what a weekend Polymer Pamper Play was!  It was so well organised, Rebecca and Debbie had thought of everything! It was a great group of friendly and talented ladies and it was great to get to know you all a bit better. The best thing was staying all together in the same place, sharing meals together, having time to talk and being able to play with our clay before breakfast, in the middle of the night.... Wonderful!  There are some pictures from the event on the Polymer Pamper Play website here.

Here's some of what I made in the workshops

Carol Blackburn's Ikat beads workshop.

My favourite two pieces, I think you will be seeing more like these!

Christine Dumont's Butterfly Bead Workshop

Christine Dumont's Butterfly Bead Workshop

Another inspiration came from my dear friend Toni's top -I shalln't embarrass her with a photo of her but here's her top

Here's the pendant I made at the event

I wasn't   happy with how the cane worked out - once I had started on a small element I realised quite the scale of it and dramatically simplified it. I made a construction error and due to the warmth in the room wasn't able to pull the pieces apart (you often can with Kato) so had to reduced the irregular shaped petals fully constructed which lead to a lot of distortion. I like the overall effect of it and can't wait to make some more black and white flower canes!

If you live in the UK you really should come to the 2012 Polymer Pamper Play, it really was blissful on all levels as advertised! Thank you so much Rebecca and Debbie for organising it, can't wait til next year!

More Bam Bam bracelets

IMG_2844
Originally uploaded by surfingcat clay

I made this bam bam bangle (follow the link for details of the tutorial and my first attempt at a bam bam bracelet) a little larger than the others and therefore it slips over my wrist without needing to be in 2 parts. I covered the join with a little extruded string. I made another curved tube bead and have strung it on a simple cord. After sanding I buffed them with my home made muslin buffing wheel on the Dremel -they are beautifully shiny now!

Great links from Doreen

Having posted about Doreen's giveaway on her blog she kindly visited my blog and left some really useful comments. I have decided to post them here so you can all benefit from them too. I only discovered Backyard Beads today and I had a good nose around  but clearly didn't go back far enough as I missed these useful posts.

 

Doreen said...

I have tried all the clays. I like Kato the best! Here are a few resources for color mixing. I've posted on my blog about some of the tools I use

 http://www.shadesofclay.com/more/Images/Colour%20Mixing%20Chart.jpg

http://polymerclay.craftgossip.com/kato-recipes

http://www.shadesofclay.com/more/Color%20Recipes.htm

http://doreenwilley.blogspot.com/2009/05/kato-polyclay-color-mixing-guide.html (expensive, but really handy)

http://doreenwilley.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-about-color-mixing-and-matching.html (I love this!)

Hope this helps :)

 I am writing this whilst sat on a bag of crumbly Kato to try and warm it up to make it less crumbly ;)The 3 in 1 color tool Doreen mentions in the last post is available from amazon.com but not the UK amazon - so typical!

Backyard Beads Giveaway

As always I start my day with a little hop around the internet polymer clay world to see what interesting inspiration and tips I can find. Today I happened across some more wonderful blogs (I wonder if there is anyone who has seen every single polymer clay artists blog?)

I came across a post on Backyard Beads announcing the opening of Doreen's Backyard Beads ETSY store. I love these Wild Things beads and am sure she will do well with her store - go check it out! If you look on her blog you will see she is doing has a  giveaway, the prize being these beads pictured. Congratulations on opening your store and I look forward to seeing more of your beads.

 

Doreens Wild Things Beads you could win in her blog giveaway

(I also noticed that Doreen seems to be very good at finding giveaways from other people looking at her blog so I shall keep an eye on it so I don't miss out on entering other giveaways. Thanks Doreen)