Unexpected Gifts

I don't consider myself to have more luck than the next person, but I sometimes stumble upon  fortuitous occasions, for which I am always thankful. So today's post is about giving thanks for, and acknowledgment to those generous souls who offered up these recent gifts.

First of all, I must acknowledge the wonderful gifts I received in December from my PCAGOE guild mates, for our holiday swap. (yes, I'm very behind in the thanks for these lovelies, the holidays and start of the new year really ran away from me this year).  These beauties were the work of Jackie Sieben of The Pleasant Pheasant and JAE Jewelry (Gorgeous pens and seam ripper, left), Susan O'Neill of 11BOLDstreet (Funky trinket box and fabulous pendant, center) and Linda Riopel of NKDesigns (beautiful caned pendant necklace, right) Check out their work, by clicking their names to view their respective etsy shops.

(I wanted these images to appear together, so please click on the image to see them up close). Thank you again, Jackie, Susan and Linda!! I absolutely love my swap gifts!

The first of 2 surprise gifts happened last month, when I was notified that I had won a giveaway from the website, BeadingGem Journal by Pearl Blay.  Pearl partnered with one of my favorite polymer artists, Helen Breil, to give away a bunch of Helen's silkscreen designs. I was one of the lucky winners, and I had my pick of Helen's silkscreen designs! I chose the design "Cabaret". It arrived in the mail about a month ago, and I still haven't had the time to play with it, but here's a photo of the silkscreen package that I received:

I have yet to try the silkscreen technique... so I am really looking forward to a day when I can play around with this fantastic design! Helen has many other designs in both silkscreens and textures, if you're not familiar with her work, please do check out her website (which includes links to where you can purchase her designs for your own use!) And don't forget to check out Pearl's site for tons of inspiration, tips and giveaway opportunities!

The second windfall that came my way happened on Valentine's day. I entered Deb Hart's (of Renaissance Gal of San Antonio) Facebook event, where she generously gave away 3 of her polymer pieces. Deb is known for her fabulous millefiori cane work. The other 2 prizes were a bunch of her original canes and one of her caned owl pendants. The prize I was so very lucky to win was one of her sea turtle trinket boxes!! If you know me, or follow this blog, you probably know I have a little adoration for sea turtles and Native American inspired art... so, to say I was thrilled about winning this treasure was an understatement!  Well, my beautiful sea turtle arrived last week. I've taken a couple shots of her to show you how fabulous she is, and for the first time ever, I shot a video to post here on the blog. The idea for the video came about because one of my most favorite features about this treasure is not easily displayed in a still photo, check it out for yourself: (crossing fingers that the video actually works)

And since the video doesn't do justice to viewing all the wonderful details, here are the still shots...

Can you tell I'm absolutely in love with this turtle? ;)  She has found a permanent and prized spot on my nightstand, where I can admire her every day. If you love this as much as I do, and you don't know about Deb Hart's work, you should definitely check her out! You can find Deb here on her blog, etsy (where you can purchase a turtle similar to this one!), and Facebook. And if you want to learn how to make some of Deb's creations, she offers a great variety of classes at CraftArtEdu.

So, again, a big Thank you to (my guild mates) Jackie Sieben, Susan O'Neill and Linda Riopel for my holiday swap items, and huge Thanks to Helen Breil, Pearl Blay and Deb Hart, for their generous hearts and the wonderful prizes that I received! Aren't they all wonderful? Have you had luck in winning online contests or participating in swaps? Leave me a comment below, and tell me your thoughts!

And as an aside; if the video worked in this post, I hope to do some tutorial videos to post on the blog in the future....  and, if you like the Thank you image (first image of this post), you can find that as a printable digital postcard file in my graphics shop YourDigitalWorld.

Voting time!

Voting time is here! ...actually we're already 3 days into voting time!  You have until midnight on April 7th to cast your vote, so please head over to the PCAGOE blog and choose your 3 favorite entries!  This month's participants really pulled out the stops with so many creatively engineered and carefully constructed pieces.  I know it was a tough choice for my top 3 votes... Have a peek at all of the lovely artwork for this month:

Remember, you could win a prize for voting, so head over to the blog and cast your vote!

Which came first...

...the chicken or the egg?  It was this age-old riddle that provided the base inspiration for my newest piece.

For my guild's (PCAGOE - Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy) March 2014 challenge, the theme is eggs.  I had decided to finally make use of a glass egg-shaped container I purchased at one of my local thrift stores some time ago.  This cute little container was a frosted glass egg that was made up of 2 halves separated by a decorative wavy cut.  I had other ideas for this challenge initially; I thought perhaps I might do another cut and layered project; I tossed around ideas pertaining to "traditional" Easter egg themes.  And then one day, while working on my studio and moving a vintage glass hen dish (you know the ones, mine looks exactly like this)...  I thought of the old chicken/egg riddle, added that thought to my guild challenge, and the rest as they say, is history.

The hen is modeled from buff orpington hens (click the link to see a photo of one).  I first sculpted the hen with some yellow premo, knowing I would give her lots of texture and would alter the coloring with an antiquing coat of burnt sienna, white and black paints, to add lots of depth to the feathers.  Her comb, beak, ear lobes, eyes and wattle were all coated with a gloss finish to add a little shine to those parts, her feathers and the bottom basket half have no coating. Next came the sculpting of the grass and then constructing the basket with extruded strips.  I knew again that I would antique the basket with white to make it look like a white-washed Easter basket.  I then decided to add a little surprise to the inside of the box....

...some grass and some brown eggs.  The grass and eggs are not attached to the inside, so they could be removed and the box could be used as a trinket box.  I had originally intended to sell this piece, even after it was finished I had decided to list it to my etsy store.  But after my husband saw it, all that changed... he at first thought it was something I had bought.  When he realized that I had made it, he urged me to keep it, as he thinks it's one of my best pieces.  The dimensions of this piece are 4 1/2 inches tall by 3 inches wide.  The little eggs are about 3/4" tall by 5/8" wide.  Here are a few other views and close-up shots:

 

Top View

 

Tail View

I'm pretty happy with my little sculpture, not as happy as my husband seems to be, but happy enough....  What do you think about her? Leave me a comment below!  Voting for this challenge opens on March 1st and ends midnight March 7th.  I'll post a reminder here with a link to the guild blog when voting begins!