She sells seashells...

...down by the seashore.

Perhaps I've been daydreaming about a trip to the beach far too often this summer. When the time came to construct a fairy house for my (PCAGOE) guild's August challenge, I automatically began thinking about a fairy who lived at the beach. As a child, I was fortunate to have parents who would take us to the beach nearly every summer. As an adult, it hasn't been as easy to get to the beach every summer; in fact, it's been many years since I've felt the sand between my toes and the sea salt in my hair. I guess that's why every project I've done in the last couple months has had a beach/summer color palette. The ocean is calling me, and this is presently my only outlet.

It all began with a shell... at the start of this project, I had decided that my fairy would set up house in a whelk shell she had found on the beach. Well, after I created my little whelk shell, I loved it so much that I didn't have the heart to bury half of it in polymer sand, nor did I want to add a door or cut a hole in it for adding a window. I wasn't completely sold on this idea in the first place, so I gave the theme some more thought.

Above: Shell (before adding orange color and gloss to interior)

Below: finished shell

I considered abandoning the beach theme and doing a woodland fairy house. But I persevered and inspiration struck when I was brainstorming things one might find at a beach. I had wanted to incorporate polymer sea glass, because I adore sea glass. I came up with the idea of a sea worn bottle fully intact, yet partially covered with coral calcification and tiny seashells. This would be a fairy's lighthouse! Can you just imagine her magical light illuminating the inside of the bottle? The cap of the bottle can be removed, so one can insert a glow stick or small battery powered light to illuminate the bottle.

I decided that I would use the faux glass effect tutorial, by Ginger Davis Allman of The Blue Bottle Tree, to create the sea glass pebbles that would be the stepping stones to the door of the light house, and also to cover portions of the bottle that would become the lighthouse. I was so pleased with the effect of the faux sea glass. Ginger's tutorial is so well written and illustrated that it's perfect for all levels of experience, beginner through advanced; so if you love the look of sea glass, I highly recommend buying the tutorial. I wanted to incorporate tiny seashells encrusted in the coral on the bottle, and I wanted all pieces to be made from polymer, so I set to work and created some tiny horn, whelk, olive, scallop, oyster and snail shells. I used a white and translucent Premo mix and hand sculpted each shell, sometimes adding inks before sculpting, sometimes after sculpting. I was fairly pleased with my little handmade shells. You can catch sight of those tiny shells here:

The door was to be made of faux driftwood with the smallest of snail shells as a door knob. To create the door I used Premo Rhino colored clay which I sculpted in layers to give the look of water worn wood. After curing the door was antiqued with burnt umber water based oil paint, to bring out the details:

The faux coral was created with various items to give texture and indentations. I used a blend of Premo white and translucent, with some inclusions (scrap clay left over from a previous project). After curing, I gave a gentle antiquing to the coral parts by sparingly brushing the burnt umber water based oil and immediately rubbing with a wet cloth to give only the faintest color.


For a final touch I decided to create one more beach item (a starfish) and a sandy pedestal for my little fairy lighthouse ensemble. The starfish was created with a blend of Premo white and translucent,  it was hand sculpted, given color with inks of yellow and orange and given a treatment of texture using a firm brush.

The sandy pedestal was created with a blend of Premo white, translucent and rhino, which wasn't completely blended together to create a solid color, some streaks were left behind to give the feel of beach sand's varying colors. I gave a light dusting of the entire sand pedestal with macro pearl Pearl-ex powder (not easy to see in the photos), to mimic the shine of mica in the sand. I textured the faux sand with a crumpled up ball of tin foil, and indented areas for where the lighthouse should be placed, as well as indentations for where the sea glass stepping stones and whelk shell would be placed. All items of this little set are moveable for flexibility in decoration.

I am really pleased with my little fairy light house, and still in love with the idea of a beach fairy! But, this little piece is not something I need to keep for myself. The large whelk shell does beg me to keep it because it sculpted so easily and (I think) turned out so well), but I don't really want to break up the set. So, I believe this entire little set will find itself available for adoption in my createmyworld etsy shop within the next week or so... 

What do you think of my little fairy house? Please leave me a comment and tell me your thoughts! Voting for this challenge opens on August 1st (how can it be almost August already?!?). I will try to post a reminder here when the challenge is open for voting! Thanks for stopping by to check out my little fairy light house, and please consider leaving me a comment! :)

A Polymer Cover-up

I'm posting about a project that was completely independent, i.e. not driven by a guild challenge! ;) Don't get me wrong, I love my guild challenges, but I never seem to post about other projects here. This one happened because I have this coral/salmon colored t-shirt that acquired some bleach spots at the bottom. I love the cut and fit of this t-shirt and really didn't want to retire it to the household chore wardrobe. So, I decided to cover up the spots, with polymer!

I sketched out a basic radial design in washable fabric pen, then I set to work attaching small circle and oval cut outs of polymer in shades of blue and white (yep, still in that orange/blue phase that I've been in for the last 2 months...) ;) The blue and white clays were rolled out to a thin gauge (#4 on my Imperia pasta machine, which has a range of 6 different thicknesses, #1 being thickest and #6 being thinnest). I used a tiny round kemper cutter to cut the round circles, and I used the empty ferrule of an old paintbrush that lost it's bristles to make the tiny oval slivers. I kept the cut pieces small to eliminate cumbersome feeling within the shirt and keep the fabric movable. I attached each cut shape by applying bake n bond to the backside of the polymer pieces. I worked in segments of about 6" by 8", curing in between segments to keep the areas for curing totally flat in the oven. 

Here's a shot of the shirt before the applied polymer, you can see the bleach spots (lower center and right) that I was trying to mask:

So, next time (and I do plan to do more of these), I will use a thinner setting on the pasta machine for my polymer sheeting, probably #5. While the #4 guage worked okay here, it did add a bit of weight to the shirt. I also think that a thinner setting will make for a sturdier design. You might ask, is it machine washable? I tested that, this shirt has gone through the wash on a normal cycle and survived, only one of the polymer pieces came off (as you can see in the front view below). This I consider a success, and I will be replacing the piece that came off. If you decide to try this for yourself, please consider washing your finished garment (in cold water only) with small loads of laundry or, choose delicate cycle or hand wash to avoid causing any missing pieces... and always air dry (heat from the dryer could effect the polymer).

The design wraps around the side and also spreads across the back. Here's the flat back view:

And the flattened side view:

I had so much fun making this, I love that I saved a favorite shirt, and I love how it turned out! I can hardly wait to jazz up another piece of clothing! I can also see this idea put into use to cover up unwanted holes in clothing.... lots of ideas running around in my head! So, until my next project posting, leave me a comment and tell me what you think about my polymer bedecked T-shirt... Thanks!

UPDATE 7/19/15: I just reattached the one piece that went missing after machine washing, and I removed and replaced the one circle that (for whatever reason) got a little darker than the rest.  It must have been touching the side of the oven at one point and got a bit scorched. Let me tell you, removing that little circle was tough! I couldn't believe how fast it was attached... and it ended up tearing into the blue clay and leaving a bit of the blue behind... I was thinking it would just pop off with a little pressure, but it did not! So, now I'm even more certain about the strength of these little pieces attached to the shirt. 

I'm so happy to report that this project was shared on Polymer Clay Daily!! Here's the link:

http://polymerclaydaily.com/2015/07/20/polymer-cover-up/comment-page-1/#comment-341701

Last Minute Reminder!

I nearly forgot to post a reminder about voting for the July Texture Plate Challenge! If you missed my post about my entry, you can find it here. Just look at all the wonderful pieces created by my guild mates for this event:

As usual, I had a tough time choosing my 3 favorites because of the many wonderful interpretations on the theme. Please take a moment and choose your 3 favorite entries, then cast your vote at our website. Don't delay, voting ends tonight (7-7-2015) at midnight EST! Remember, you could win a prize, just for voting!!

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!

Relaxed Simple Boho Hippie Style (& a little polymer jewelry tip)

Life has simply been hectic in the last couple months. It's generally no surprise for me to feel scattered this time of year... when the earth is awakening to it's fruitful seasons, life finds me  busy with garden chores and prepping the house for summer. But this spring, one of my dearest family members has been struggling with a combination of health issues. So with a few hospital stays, many doctors' visits and devoting more time to my beloved one, my crafting time is miniscule.

This month my guild's theme is Retro. This could be any design, color, pattern, etc. representing trends of by-gone decades. At first I had intended to do something 1950s, I've always love the 50s style and I have this cool pair of candlesticks that have a retro feel. But, as the clock ticked  and calendar pages fell away, I was left with just 2 days to complete a project. I knew I'd never have enough time to experiment with the candlesticks, so I decided to do something simple and quick.

For inspiration, I pulled from the 1960's Hippie style. Perhaps something Boho and definitely relaxed. Boy, do I need relaxed! ;)

I decided to do a macrame bracelet with polymer focal and accents. I hadn't made a macrame bracelet since my high school days, and I'd never tried one that had a wavy edge or pattern, so the non-polymer part of my project was the most challenging part of this project for me. I basically followed a tutorial that I found online which I altered a tiny bit to come up with the results above. I knew I wanted a natural bracelet and really wanted the polymer to be shades of white, blue and orange. This image (that I found via google) is the feel I was going for, both with the boho look of the bracelet and with the subtle orange and blue hues paired with natural beige:

I really wanted to play with the polymer to make a faux tie-dye pattern, but had to limit my time to an hour for the polymer part, and so didn't get the look I had originally intended. It's more of a faux lamp work/swirled feel, but I liked it enough and really didn't have time to experiment for anything else. I sandwiched the bracelet between the focal top and added a bottom to the underside of the bracelet, so the focal bead is baked right onto the macrame.

You can see the back side of the focal here in the distance of this image of the button closure:

For the button closure, I simply used a regular acrylic button and attached it to the bracelet, then I coated the button top with bonding agent and covered it with a slice of the polymer left over from my focal... that's my little polymer jewelry tip! I did the same thing with the 2 smaller accent beads, they are simple little acrylic buttons that were sewn onto the bracelet, coated with bonding agent and then covered with a sheet of the polymer. This little trick is great for applications such as this bracelet, but I've also used it to make these rings:

The blue base on the ring with the swirl is actually an acrylic button. The other ring has a clear button under the black polymer circle. This allows me to make a ring base from wire, feed the ends through the button holes and simply cover the wire ends with a decorative polymer piece. Simple, Easy ring base!

Because the macrame on this piece is sub-par, since it's my first one in a great long while and the first in this style, this bracelet won't be for sale, but I do hope to make similar pieces in the future for selling and gifting. I think it looks pretty happy (hippie) on my wrist! ;)

Let me know what you think in the comments! I'll try to remember to post a reminder when voting is open, as I'm sure you'll not want to miss all the great entries by my fellow guild mates! Voting is open on June 1st and will run through to June 7th at midnight!

Punny Phish

I have been wanting to make a fish for a long time. Ever since I saw the wonderfully inspiring fishes of Jon Anderson. Since then other polymer artists' fishes have further fueled the fire... Arty Becca's turtlenecked fishes, and recent examples I've seen on Facebook from various artists. PCAGOE decided to do a fish theme for May 2015. So, I have been thinking about this theme for my guild's challenge for quite a while.

When considering this challenge I knew that I wanted to use Ginger Davis Allman's Holo effect to create iridescent scales for my fish (you can find where to get her tutorial in the link above). Well, about a month or so ago, I found an inspiration at one of my local thrift stores. It was one of those whirly-gig wind decorations, this one was just straws that graduated from small to large then back to small.... they were all woven together down the center, so that when twisted, it would create a helix. When I saw it, I knew I had to recreate something like it using polymer sticks.. and of course, I decided that if I had graduating sticks, they'd have to form a rainbow...


From that idea came the rainbow trout association. But how to combine the holo effect idea with the whirly-gig idea? Well, scales are still present on both head and tail of the fish, and the tail fins are also iridescent... so that's how I decided to pair the two ideas together.

But my realistic nature really wanted to create a realistic head and tail resembling a real rainbow trout... so that's where I headed. Looking back, seeing the parts together here, I think it may have been better if I had made the head and tail as whimsical as the rainbow body... but I'm not completely sure about that. I really love how he looks laid out in a curve, as above. I'm now wondering if I should make one that stays in this curved position... hmmm. ;)

The part that took the longest, actually was the rainbow! I never realized how long that would take... but when one makes a gradation of color, it requires lots of mixing. Almost every stick was it's own special blend of color, and originally there were 82 sticks! .. a couple of them broke during sanding, and a couple of them were pulled because they got a little bigger or smaller than they should have been for their spot on the fish. The sticks were all formed by covering lolly pop sticks with a thin layer of polymer and then adding pointy tips to the ends. After they were all cured, they were all treated to a sanding and a little buffing. I wanted them to be smooth, but not overly shiny, so that meant just sanding from 400 to 600 grit and then buffing.

The initial translucent fish head was formed over a base of aluminum foil that I formed into the shape I needed, and the details of the eyes, gills and mouth were sculpted with more Premo translucent over the initial base. Little polymer circles, which were treated to Ginger Davis Allman's holo effect in iridescent green, gold and white, were then adhered with bonding agent. After a curing of the entire head to ensure a strong bond of all the scales, I then added some alcohol inks and some polymer based paints that I have to add depth and coloring to the translucent part of the head. Some spots of black acrylic paint finished him off and I finally coated the entire head with a gloss sealer. Here you can see both sides of the head:

The tail was formed (with a hole in the center which was held open by a dowel rod) also using translucent polymer in the area where the scales cover, wire and polymer form the supports for the thin, translucent area of the tail which was also created using Ginger Davis Allman's Holo effect technique. After curing the tail without scales, the holo effect scales were then added to the top of the tail, again using bonding agent. Another full cure to ensure a strong bond of the scales and The entire tail was treated to some alcohol inks for adding depth. The translucent clay areas that were still visible were painted and the black dots were added to make it look like a rainbow trout tail. The entire tail was also coated with a gloss sealer

Next came the woven part. I decided to use red carpet warp thread to warp my loom, to signify the red stripe of a rainbow trout. I started with enough length of woven strap to span the distance of the head interior, then I added each stick in the proper order to create my gradation of both color and size... I finished off the weave with just a couple rows of woven strap. Once I cut the weave from the loom, I was able to secure the head by attaching a heavy gauge wire piece looped at both ends, which became the hanger as well. The tail was a bit trickier to add and secure to the end of the weave. I had to slit the thin area of the tail up one side, so that the thread could be tied and secured tight against the last of the rainbow sticks. You can see below how the threads come out of the bottom of the tail and wrap up the one side, they are then secured around between the last rainbow stick and the tail.

I am quite happy with this piece, really pleased with how easily it came together, even if it did take much longer than I had estimated. From nose to tail, he measures 27" in length. His widest rainbow stick is about 7 or 8 inches wide... so he's a big boy! In hindsight I think he'd be best if his head and tail were more whimsical to match the rainbow, but as I said above, I'm still not certain about that though.... What do you think about my Punny phish? Leave me a comment and tell me what you think! Voting for this challenges opens on May 1st! I'll post a reminder here on the blog when voting is open.