June Vote!!

Goodness, I nearly missed out on posting a voting reminder here! I'm up to my eyeballs in strawberries and busy getting my house and gardens ready for summer, so I've been quite distracted from the computer these days. There are only 2 days left for the June PCAGOE challenge vote! The theme this month was "Quilled" Polymer, and we had a great variety of pieces among our participating members, see for yourself:

Voting is only open until the 7th of June, midnight EST... So head over to the PCAGOE blog and cast your vote for your 3 favorite pieces! Remember, one lucky voter is chosen every month, to win a prize... it could be YOU this month, but you have to vote for the chance! Thanks to everyone who takes a moment to vote!

Polymer Art Printing

Texture plates is the theme for the PCAGOE July challenge. The idea is that each participating member would create a texture plate from polymer and then use the handmade texture plate to emboss raw polymer; then, create something with the textured clay impression. As I mulled over ideas for this project, I recalled the many mono prints that I created in a printmaking class that I took in college, and I thought it would be great to have a handmade printing plate to create a run of original polymer printed artwork! I would make wall art using the texture plate as my printing plate, but could make each one look unique by changing which media and colors I applied to the plate. 

Below is a photo of my first 3 polymer art prints with the original texture plate (solid blue at bottom)

My first efforts at my texture plate design were a total failure. I had the "brilliant" idea to combine paper strips with LPC which, in the end, turned into a big mess. I may revisit this idea again when I have more time to play.

 So, the next phase saw me making impressions in a slab of raw polymer using various tools and cured coiled quilled polymer (to create the spirals you see above). I wanted some areas that would create deeper impressions, so I made sure to add a band of small raised circles on top of the plate. My final result of the textured plate is seen below:

Once the texture plate was fully cured. I conditioned a large amount of white Premo polymer. I then set to work on creating a "print". I painted on the plate with various mica powder colors, in reds, oranges, yellow/golds and blue (I'm still in a blue/orange mood, as I was last month). I mounted the texture plate face down on the raw white polymer and gave every area lots of pressure, making sure to flip it over and press on both sides, to get a good impression. The result was this lovely print (my favorite of the 3):

After it was released from the texture plate, I did add a few spritzes of red/orange ink, which I smudged with a paper towel all over the surface, I did this to make the orange coloring more prominent and darker. After curing, this was mounted to a black frame.

For the second print, I decided to use blue Kato liquid polymer to paint the entire texture plate. I impressed into the clay as before and released the plate from the print. I fully cured the print, then I added some areas of orange Kato liquid polymer to accent the blue printed areas, and I fully cured that layer. The final result is this polymer print, also mounted to a black frame:

For the third print, I wanted to use alcohol inks, but before wasting ink tried first with just plain rubbing alcohol. This didn't work as well, the raw polymer was sticking in the fine spaces of the texture plate and did not release as easily as the other 2 methods. So, I decided to paint the entire texture plate with a white mica, to allow for easy release of the print. After the all-white polymer print was released from the texture plate, I then added alcohol inks to the embossed raw clay. (So, this one really isn't a print... I'd call it a painting because the colors were added after the texture was embossed. The previous two pieces, however, are true prints, as the color was added to the plate and transferred onto the raw polymer.) To paint this last one, I first painted everything with varying shades of blue alcohol ink, then I used some spritzers of white and orange to add interest. This one too is mounted on a black frame:

I was having so much fun with this, and wanted to try some other alcohol ink painting ideas, I just didn't want to stop creating... so I made the pendants for this necklace and earring set:

I was really pleased with the effects I achieved! This will be a tough necklace for me to part with, because I love it so much... but I think it might end up in the createmyworld etsy shop because it has matching earrings (I rarely ever wear earrings). Here are a few more shots of the jewelry:

Oh, and here's the backside of the jewelry:

I really had so much fun making this project, and I see my self exploring this idea further by creating more texture plates!

I am really so pleased with how these turned out! And when my hubby saw the prints, he said "Those are the coolest things you've ever made! Wanna hang them up in the living room?" That is a HUGE compliment! ;) I was going to put them in my createmyworld etsy shop, but I do believe the hubby will claim them for our house. I hope to make more to put on etsy.

Voting for this challenge will open on July 1st and will close at midnight on the 7th. I'll try to remember to post a reminder about the voting... I've not been good about that in the past couple months, but I do hope to be more organized this month!

Carving up more than the Thanksgiving turkey!

The theme for the December 2014 challenge for the PCAGOE (Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy) is "Carved". I had been wanting to try my hand at carving for a while, so even though I'm quite busy right now with various other projects, I couldn't let this challenge slip by without giving it a try.

I've been having a lot of fun doing larger scale items, moving away from jewelry design. I will eventually go back to Jewelry (I think), but I'm having so much fun working larger with home decor and sculptural items. So, when my thoughts turned to this challenge I immediately was thinking on the larger scale. Then one night when I was in my creative brainstorming time (just before falling asleep) I struck upon the idea of using up all the cured polymer scraps that I had sitting around. These are pieces that were made and after curing either weren't strong enough (pieces that broke during finishing or jewelry assembly), pieces that burned during curing or were experiments that didn't turn out well. I have a lot of these scraps, to give you an idea, here's my box 'o scraps:

I got the idea to make a kind-of polymer soup, mixing these cured scraps with some liquid bonding agent (Bake 'n Bond). But, "what to cure it in?", was the big question. I needed something that the polymer wouldn't adhere to or be tough to remove. So I thought of silicon bakeware. Luckily, my local thrift stores usually have a piece or two of silicon bakeware, so off to the thrift I went. I found what I can only describe as what looks like a gravy boat, all in silicon, and it was only $1! Perfect!! I brought it home and set it in my studio. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that its original owner was a heavy smoker, the next day, as I began working on my other project (with the silicon mold sitting next to my workspace) it literally began making me sick! My sinuses dried up and my nose became stuffy. Whenever I left the room for a decent chunk of time, the stuffiness subsided. I kept getting the hint of stale smoke, but couldn't figure out from where it was coming! I finally realized it was the silicon piece, so I soaked it in a bath of bleach water for 24 hours. The smell still wasn't removed, but it did lessen it. 

In the meantime, I decided to try a practice carve, using the tools I use for wood-cut printing to carve my polymer. I had a business card case which I had decorated with a polymer slab, but then decided I didn't like it. When I tried to remove the polymer, the superglue had other ideas, and the polymer came off in tiny bits leaving big bits behind. I decided this would be my trial piece. I carved into the polymer pieces left behind and then coated it with black LPC before curing. A coating of resin, some sprinkles of glitter and another coating of resin, and here's my practice piece: 

Kind of funky and interesting, so I kept it and added some black liquid pc leaving areas of the bare metal uncovered, added a touch of glitter and two coats of resin. I intentionally added scratches all over the metal case to add to the primitive feel of this piece. I'm not quite sure if it's finished yet, I'll have to give it more consideration.

So, trial carving out of the way, it was time to get down to the business of my challenge project. I made a thick soup of some of the broken bits of cured polymer and the Bake 'n Bond. The uncured raw "soup" looked like this:

I made sure that all bits of cured clay were covered and I kept some bits of the cured clay peeking out of the top. In it went, to be cured for almost an hour. When it came out, it looked like this:

I decided to cut it in half, so that the sculpture could stand on its own. I was going to use a saw for this, but decided to just use an old tissue blade to saw through the cured clay. That worked surprisingly well. Then, time to sand! I needed to sand the two newly formed bases, as the cut wasn't as even as it might have been had I used a saw. Plus, I wanted the rounded, moulded sides to be finished to shiny perfection. So I sanded through many grades of micro mesh and then buffed with my buffer/grinder.

Now I was ready to begin the carving. I started first by hand drilling circles with the flat v shaped carving tool. Next I mapped out where I wanted spiral shapes to be added, by drawing them with a sharpie marker. Tip: If you've never worked with carving tools, when you are trying to carve a continuous line, it helps to first draw outlines with a straight carving tool, then go back and carve out the inside with either the v-shaped carver or the c-shaped carvers. This rule holds true for wood cuts as well as carving polymer. Even when one takes the time to cut an outline the gauging blades still can slip if given too much force, and that will either scratch the piece or skid across and slice one's hand (ask me how I know this). Three V shaped cuts in my left thumb plus a bandaid later, I had both pieces carved to my satisfaction.

I decided to paint the carved out areas with black acrylic, to make them stand out against the background. I really like how these two pieces can be arranged in different ways, according to one's preference, which could change daily! ;)

Finally, here's a shot from the side, so you can see how deep the clay is, and how the carved side has edges of the scraps that pop out of it:

I had a lot of fun with this challenge. While I like carving a lot, the part I had the most fun with was using up old failures and upcycling them into a new piece! My inner enviro-girl was quite happy about that! ;) I still have lots of scraps in my box 'o scraps, so I plan to do more of this scrap soup making in the future!

Voting for this challenge will open on December 1st, and will run through midnight December 7th. Remember 3 randomly chosen lucky voters win a prize every month! I'll try to remember to post a voting reminder here!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this project, and on my carved primitive card case too, please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!

Meditative Repetition

My guild's challenge theme for November is Mandalas. The word mandala comes from Sanskrit; translated it means circle. Mandalas are spiritual symbols which represent the universe. It's no wonder that working on creating my own mandala would become a meditative task. I simply got lost in the repetitive details as I was creating this piece. I found myself not wanting the session to end as I kept adding more to it.

The basic concept I wanted for this design was based on layering. As for color scheme and motifs, I decided to celebrate my favorite season of the year, autumn. I chose the fall color palette of red, orange, gold, green and brown, incorporating motifs of leaves.

To begin, there is a base layer of golden red and orange on the outer perimeter of the main circle. Over this I strung 8 pieces of string that had been dipped in polymer and dyed with alcohol ink, all spaced at equal distances (these would become the center veins of one round of leaves). The yellow gold color was next as I cut out shapes of leaves around the center and small four lobed flowers near the edges of the circle. The next layer proved most difficult, to cut away enough to see the under layer of cut out shaped leaves in the gold layer, plus, adding the maple leaf cut outs, the fancy border and a slightly larger four lobed flower motif to reveal the smaller flower motif on the gold layer. In the next steps details were added with tiny bits of clay and the use of small tools to make indentations.

I suddenly decided that I didn't want this to be just a plain edged circle, mostly because I was having so much fun adding things to it... and that's when I chose to add leaf shapes surrounding the existing circular canvas. Sticking with the same color palette and motifs, I added larger green leaves and smaller golden red leaves, detailed with bits of golden yellow and orange flowers. The entire outer band of design is wrapped with a thin gauge strip of the brown.

I seriously think I could have worked on this for much longer, but wanted to wrap things up in time for the weekend, so it didn't cut into my precious time with my dear hubby. ;) This color scheme was a bit of a step-out for me, though I love the colors of fall, I tend to shy away from using green and yellow, especially together, and especially both with brown!

I could definitely get lost in doing a series of these, and might have to revisit this idea at a later date. I had originally thought that this little piece (it's just shy of 8" in diameter so, not as large as the wall hangings I've done before) wasn't one that really fit into any of the already existing decor in my home. I had resigned myself to selling it... but, I took a chance and hung it next to the other 2 round wall hangings I made in the past year, which live on my studio wall. I think he looks happy there... I envision an entire wall filled with these circular creations... someday. For now, this is a start:

I would love to hear any comments you might have to share on mandalas. Have you experienced the meditative zone of working with repetition? Tell me about it in the comments and be sure to let me know what you think of my little mandala!

Voting for this challenge will begin on November 1st and will go through the 7th at midnight EST. As always, I'll try to post a voting reminder here on the blog with the link!

Book luck

If I were to believe in messages found in cookies, "You will have an auspicious week of books" would have been my fortune last week. Big, big news arrived two Fridays ago when I received a congratulations email stating that I was to be a contributor to a book for which I had submitted some of my recycled artwork. I submitted images of my work about a year ago and had forgotten about it, so the news was a great surprise. And, last week I received my advanced copies from the publisher! The book is called Art Without Waste 500 Upcycled and Earth Friendly Designs and can be purchased here at Amazon.

The book is packed full of great ideas and beautiful work; from personal items and accessories, home and garden, to art installation and design.

I really had no idea what piece the author chose, so I was quite happy to find 2 of my images in the book! Plates 107 and 109 - OneMoreUse (that's my recycled etsy store) by Create My World Designs
Here are close-ups of my two images in the book.

Oh and I'm in the book too! ..that's my neck! ;) LOL! All of these pieces were made with plastic from discarded snack food bags, which I fused, cut and formed.

The other book luck also happened last week when I was declared a lucky winner in a drawing for a jewelry design book! The drawing happened on the Pretty Things Blog, where blog mistress Lori Anderson generously gave away 6 different books. (you might remember Lori's name as she was the host for the Bead Soup Blog Party that I joined this spring - find my post about that here) I commented on the blog, telling Lori the book I would love to receive; and was lucky enough to be a winner, plus I got the book I wanted! The book I won is called Simple Soldered Jewelry and Accessories by Lisa Bluhm. I can't wait to dig into this and start incorporating what I learn into some of my work! Thanks so much to Lori for the generous giveaway! If you don't already follow her blog, head over there and follow! She did another book give-away this week too! Lori even gift wrapped the book, it was such a fun package to receive, here are photos of my prize book:

Yes indeed it was a great week for me and books! I am a lover of books, so I am extremely grateful for this lucky book week!

Belated Thanks

I have been remiss in mentioning here, the blogs in which I have been recently featured over the past 5 months.  This negligence on my part has simply been due to the fact that: 1. I'm not the greatest blogger... and 2. during the past couple months I've been consumed with garden chores and food preservation.  I was thrilled to be mentioned in every one of these features, 2 blogs in the polymer world, a fellow guild mate's website, a fellow polymer artist's facebook page, and a upcycled/recycled art world blog. 

The Polymer Clay Planet blog, which is curated and authored by polymer artist Anya Artesania, has featured me 3 times since June!  My Tiffany inspired lampshade, Peacock Mosaic serving tray and Paleo necklace were all featured at PCP over the summer.  Find all 3 features here.

The Polymer Clay Diaries, which is curated and authored by polymer artist Maria Petkova, featured my turtle island wall art.  Find that feature here.   You can use the Google translator drop down menu on the right side of the screen to translate the page.  

Back in May, fellow guild mate Marie Young featured my Peacock Mosaic serving tray on her creatively inspired website.  Find that post here.

And as recent as last week (Oct. 13), fellow polymer artist Ginger Davis-Allman of The Blue Bottle Tree kindly mentioned my blog and my Acorn Light on her wonderful Facebook page.  You can find her facebook page here.

And for those of you who know my work as Create My World Designs; I also have an upcycled line of art which I sell under the name OneMoreUse.  Just today I was thrilled to see a feature for my OneMoreUse upcycled art on the Sustainable Style blog, in an article written by a fellow upcycle artist, Amelia Musselman. You can find this feature here.

I think I may have posted some of these features (and thanks) on facebook, but I know I missed some of them there too.  So, I'm listing all of which I am aware here, with sincere thanks for the notice of my work!