A Walking Polymer Advertisement

Text or Letters. There are so many ways to use them to create art. The September Polymer Clay Guild of Etsy challenge theme is just that: Fun with ABCs, basing your art around letters or words. I had so many ideas floating around in my head for this challenge. But, as the month of August marched on, I found myself with limited time to create. Then, the recurrence of a health issue for a family member meant I wouldn't even have time to be in my studio, so I had to come up with something that would be portable, which meant limited supplies. Hmm, this meant no pasta machine or needing to juggle sharp blades... which for my mind, spelled out using paintbrushes and liquid polymer. That thought was when my final inspiration struck!

I had purchased some very inexpensive T-shirts which I wanted to decorate with polymer, you may remember my previous polymer decorated T-shirt which you can find here. But this time, I wanted the design to be more contiguous, which meant that I needed the polymer to be super flexible, as a t-shirt decal would be. I could have tried straight liquid polymer, but I knew that would result in a stiffer (more uncomfortable) product, so I came up with a concoction of liquid polymer plus 2 additives. The cured texture of this mixture is more like a rubbery latex material and it flexes beautifully with the fabric! The only problem is that when too much of one of the ingredients is added it creates a gummy, gooey blob. And when too much of the other ingredient is added it created a smoother product, but one which didn't cure fully. So, it required a lot of patience and trial and error. I am not revealing my concoction yet, because I feel it is not perfected. I do have some ideas of how to make it even better, which I want to explore before I reveal my mad scientist experimentation results.

So, I set to work and created a T-shirt painted with my business logo. The front was bedecked with the chosen font of my business name logo, and on the back of the T-shirt, I tried my best to simplify and capture (in painted polymer) my polymer quilled globe design (which has become my business logo - see the header of the blog above), plus the text of the web address of this blog.

Unfortunately, time was running low and when it was time to paint the inside of the continents (the very last thing I did), I was left with the choice of letting them go unpainted, or painting them with a combination of straight liquid polymer from 2 different brands. As I had predicted, the result of the straight LPC, without my secret additives, was a stiff texture. Luckily, these are such small areas, that it will not detract from the comfort of the T-shirt. Unfortunately too, I was unable to add the scrolled faux quilled design to the interior of the continents, due to lack of time.

All-in-all, I'm happy with the results of my experimentation and my new walking advertisement for my business! As I alluded, I am wanting to experiment further with this idea, and have a stack of T-shirts piled up, waiting to be decorated. When I get the combination adjusted to a well workable, curable and predictable mixture, I'll be ready to share my experimentation and results, possibly in the form of a tutorial. Thanks for stopping by my blog to check out my logo T-shirt project! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this piece, please consider leaving me a comment below! Voting opens for this PCAGOE challenge on September 1st and will run through the 7th at midnight EST. I'll try to post a reminder here, when voting is open.

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!

A Special Thank You

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to vote for the May 2013 PCAGOE challenge!  I was honored to have my Peacock Mosaic Serving Tray (seen here) chosen by both the public and by the guild as the 1st place entry.  As is the case every month, all of the pieces deserved an award, as all were well thought out and executed ideas.

 A special Thanks too, to friend and guild mate Marie Young of Young Creative, who mentioned me on her website... Thanks Marie!  Marie also placed in the challenge, with her innovative Peacock Crazy Quilt Mosaic Light Switch Plate tying for the 3rd place public vote.  Please go check out Marie's website post; and while you're there, stay a while and read through some of her other posts.  She does with her website what I wish I would do with this blog...  she posts regularly (much more often than my typical once-a-month posts), she features artists who inspire her, and she talks about her current projects and her creative process to achieve each piece, including things she's learned along the way from trial and error.  I'm signed up for her email list and I always enjoy getting the email when she creates a new post.

Thanks again to everyone!  I'm planning an unusual blog post for my next posting (hopefully within the next few days, and hopefully I can get it done before the next challenge blog post).  Check back to see what I have planned, especially if you own a Kitchenaid stand mixer...