Tiny Christmas Hat Tutorial

I expect you are starting to think about Christmas! Well if you wanted to make some little creatures with Christmas hats here's a quick tutorial to help you. You can find my free tutorial to make the little sleeping cats like the one shown on my blog here.

Cara Jane's Free Sleeping Cat Tutorial

Of course any animal could become a Christmas animal with a little Santa hat not just cats - the owls love them!

You will need a little creature such as this cat and a small amount of red and white polymer clay

 

Roll a small ball of red clay and then roll it backwards and forwards with your finger on one end only to make a cone

Here's a nice hat cone

I like to chop the other end off so the bottom of the hat will be flat

Test the hat for size, this was a little big so I chopped a bit of clay off and rerolled it into a slightly smaller cone.

Roll a very thin log of white clay - moving your fingers out towards the end as you roll will help the log spread out and get thinner.

Wrap the white around the very bottom edge of the hat to look like a fur trim. Trim of the excess white and join the ends so you have a neat band of white around the bottom of the hat

Roll an even tinier ball of white clay to be a pom pom on the end of the hat. I poke a hole into it so that I can push the red point of the hat into it and then firm it gently in place so that it will stick to the hat but still be round.

Put the hat on your creature and bend it over if you wish - I like them like that myself but you can off course leave it sticking up. Your sleeping cat is now a lovely little Christmasy ornament. A lovely gift for a friend who likes cats!

Or add a hole and something to hang your cat (I used tiger tail and crimped it underneath the cat) and you have a unique and special  tree decoration. The head end of the cat is lighter so I make the hole slightly nearer  to the tail end rather than in the middle.

If you've got any questions please do get in touch. I love to get comments on my blogs - or emails!

If you haven't already found me on facebook I have a page there and I'd love to see you there too.
www.facebook.com/CaraJaneContemporaryJewellery

Hope all your Christmas Preparations go smoothly!

Cara

Bright Flowers - a new set

The weather here in the UK is horrible today so I have tried to cheer things up with these bright flowers

 

These are slightly different from my normal flat flower pendants as they are slightly curved and each petal slightly cupped. They also have a dimension centre which looks like little tubes but is actually just little sticks of clay (adhered with the wonderful Kato polypaste) that I poke a pin into to give the illusion of being hollow. I think the curve looks elegant and adds interest.

The will be for sale this Saturday at:

FishFest's Fabulously Festive Fair, 4-9.30pm,  All Saints Church Hall, Grove Rd Fishponds: arts, crafts, live music, beauty treats, freshly made nibbles and childrens' activities. Buy unique gifts, support local craftspeople and next years' Community Festival!

Will anyone buy them, if so I wonder who? I hope the weather isn't too horrible where you are.

Christmas Fair Dates and NEW CREATURES!

Before I let you know my latest Christmas Fair dates I'd like to introduce you to my new creatures that will be available from the Totterdown Arts Trail onwards. Meet the pigs!

This weekend I will be at  the Totterdown Arts Trail at 13 Hawthorne Street, Totterdown, Bristol with the wonderfully talented Emily Ketteringham and her screen prints of Bristol. I am really looking forward to it as I always meet such interesting people. The trail is open from 6-8pm on Friday and then 12-6pm on both Saturday and Sunday.

The following weekend I will be at FishFest's Fabulously Festive Fair in All Saints Church Hall, Grove  Road, Fishponds from 4-9.30pm. This should be a jolly and sociable fair which is raising funds towards FishFest 2013 (a  community festival for Fishponds where I live!). There will be a wide range of arts and crafts on sale all from local people as well as therapy taster sessions, a cafe serving mulled wine and some live music. I help to organise both the festival and this festive fair.

On Saturday 1st December I will be at the Southville Centre Christmas Fair from 10am-4pm.

I also have some new workshop dates and some exciting news about December I shall share with you very soon!!

First Christmas Owls of 2012

I can't put it off any more - Christmas is coming and it's getting closer. Here's the first Christmas Owls for 2012

Watch this space for my latest sales and workshop dates some exciting news about what I will be doing in December!

Black and Grey Flowers

A good friend of mine was making a new dress to wear to a wedding - so I offered to make her some new jewellery to match. It turned out just beautiful! Here it is

If you are familiar with the polymer clay work of Ayelet you will notice my inspiration! I made the grey beads and textured them with salt, they match the colour of the dress.

I'm busy working on some Christmas gift and ornament designs, I hope to be able to share some soon. I hope you are having fun whatever you are doing.

St Werburghs Arts Trail this weekend (discount for readers!)

I will be exhibiting at the St Werburghs Arts trail this weekend. You will find me in the Jack Brimble Centre on the corner of Lynmouth Road and St Werburghs Road from 11am - 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.

It's a lovely little hall and there are a couple of other artists exhibiting there too but there is still plenty of space so hopefully I will be able to do some demonstrations of how I make some of my polymer clay jewellery.

Do come and say hello and if you mention my 'blog reader discount' you can have a 10% discount on sales over £10 as a thank you for taking the time to read my blog!

Polydays 2012 - can we do it all again?

Wow what a weekend! I had the best time! I learnt some new skills, I bought some new tools, I met some new friends,I had a great time with some of my favourite polymer people. I really didn't want to come home!

I was a bit worried before I went as I have been having pain in my arm and wrist. Amazingly it got better whilst I was away so I need to do more clay at home too! It turns out it's tennis elbow and using the computer makes it worse, as does writing and driving. Thankfully most polymer clay things are ok! So if I am a bit quiet online for a while please excuse me.

Anyway you will want to see what I made I am sure! We had three workshops - each one lasting a day.

One with Bettina Welker where we made her clever hinged bangles. They take a while to make but are worth the effort - giving a snug fit around the wrist. I went for a purple and teal bangle. I was also able to buy a copy of her new bracelet book - oh I can't wait to try some more bracelets and bangles - thank you Bettina!!

Hinged Bangle from Bettina's workshop

Then we had a metallic mokume gane workshop with Carol Simmons. Her work is amazing, it has so much depth to it. I am pleased to say she taught us the secret of that! We also got to use her amazing slicing machine. We made imprinted blocks of mokume gane using Carols handmade texture sheets then sliced lovely even thin layers using the slicing machine. If you want to see the machine go check out Carols blog. The colours of clay and the wonderful patterns turned into some beautiful lentil beads. Carol also had a clever mould for making these.

One side of the metallic mokume gane lentils

The other side of the lentils.

On the last day we did an overlapping lentil workshop with Alison Gallant. She showed us many other techniques including silk screening. The necklaces are reversible which is pretty cool. One side is black with silk screen printed white dots. The other is made by cutting a bullseye cane with a ripple blade (thanks to Irene for the inspiration on that one). Notice I made a co-ordinating little dangle as well.

I also made a new pendant in between doing other bits - to match my new hinged bangle.

It was a truly blissful weekend. Thank you to Alison for organising it, to the wonderful tutors for sharing their amazing skills with us and all the other participants for making it so much fun! Oh and a big thank you to Penny - www.clayaround.com and Valerie and Craig - www.polymerclay.co.uk for bringing all your wonderful supplies for us to buy! Can't wait til the next one!!!