What pure and utter relaxation looks like...

Hi Everyone,

We have two cats. While they're a part of our lives we're not fanatical and I wouldn't normally post photos of them. But my husband took this photo the other day and it makes me smile. It just makes me think "carefree, not a worry in the world".



Cheers,

Sandy

My Easter Island Bottle of Hope

Hi Everyone,

I had a clay day with the girls today and my goal was to complete a Bottle of Hope that was inspired by my visit to Easter Island.

I had purchased a small carving (approximately 5 inches tall) and used him for inspiration. My BOH is about 2.5 inches tall.

Turns out I'm not a sculptor. I didn't enjoy making this guy at all. So he's going to be a one of a kind.

Cheers,

Sandy

I was here...

Hi Everyone,

I haven't been posting lately because I've been otherwise preoccupied on a halfway-round-the-world 17 day trip.

More than 30 years after reading Thor Heyerdahl's Aku Aku book, I finally realized my dream of going to Easter Island. We were there for almost a week.

Amazing. Haunting. Beautiful. Perfect.

We also went to Tahiti and Moorea, and they were great. But Easter Island was the highlight.

The photo is just a taste of what we saw. More to come later. We just got back after 30 hours of travel and are a bit lagged.

Cheers,

Sandy

More from Mom

Hi All,

Mom's been playing some more. My brother brought these down for me to give away at the next Guild meeting. She was inspired to try Gollum from Lord of the Rings and used one of my brother's figurines as inspiration. I find him kinda creepy, but I guess that's the point, isn't it?

Can you imagine what Mom's talent will be like if she were to take some classes from the sculptors? I think she'd be unstoppable.



I haven't had a chance to clay very much lateley and when I do I seem to dance from one idea to another without actually completing anything. And the way the schedule is going it looks like I won't have time to do much in the next few weeks.

I did wear my new dichro earrings to work the other day and people must have wondered what I was doing in the bathroom jiggling my head from side to side. Turns out the dichro works really well with the fishing lure earrings since they automatically have movement in them. I can hardly wait to get the other sheets in to start playing.

That's it for now. Enjoy the photos of Mom's work.


Cheers everyone.

Sandy

My giggle for the day

Hi All,

My very talented claying friend, Laurie, sent me this photo the other day (if you don't get it, look at the sign on the right). I laughed out loud and that's always a good thing.

Cheers,

Sandy

Mom's been at it again...

Hi All,

These photos were in my e-mail this morning. They're photos of Bottles of Hope from my mother. She's done an amazing job and it looks like she's figured out lids (which I hate doing).

Mom's always had a bit of an addictive personality and now her addiction runs to clay. She's been dreaming about the bottles and tries to make the bottles in her dreams.

I think I'm going to try to persuade her to enter some contests or at least send some photos in to some of the publications if she keeps going the way she's been going.
Mom believes in high quality. The crystals on the various figurines are Swarovski crystals. No fake imitations for Mom.

She is having some oven problems and it's a question of buying an oven thermometer.

But the figures are beautiful and you can tell Mom's cake decorating skills really come into play here.

And it's nice having a family member understand why I enjoy the hobby so much.

Way to go, Mom! I'm so very impressed and proud. I'm sure the recipients will be thrilled!

Cheers all,

Sandy

Fishing tackle earrings...

Hi All,

I really enjoyed the April 2009 version of Polymer Cafe. You saw my attempt at the diagonal skinner blend flowers here, which was one of the articles.

One of the other things I wanted to try was using the blank spinner blades for jewelrey which was a technique for a necklace shown by Lee Ann Armstrong in the same issue, whose work you can see here.

While Lee Ann has been showing necklaces, for me it's all about earrings. So I was pleasantly pleased when I was at our Dollarama and they had packages of the spinner blades, three pairs for a dollar, in a perfect teardrop shape. At our store they come in silver and gold.


One other thing that I recently purchased was a slab of Dichro Slide transfer paper in the blue/gold shifts to green. I've had to cut it into small pieces since a bunch of us got together at Morrisburg and have ordered the whole set of colours (which should be in very shortly) so I don't have a lot to play with.

This is one of my attempts at a pair of earrings. They looked really nice until I decided to go fancy. I used a regular hole punch to cut out the dichro slide paper. I had discovered at Morrisburg that the dichro slide paper when placed on clay and stamped will take the stamp and keep the shape. I do have another piece to show of that later.

However, the shape (in this case a nice bit of flower) doesn't keep when you place it on a bed of uncured liquid clay. So all I got was a bit of rippleyness that would have been better if I had left it flat. But if you didn't know you might think that it's supposed to be that way. So these are almost good.

I'll wear them.

I took two different angle shots so you can see the dichro effect.

And once the other sheets come in I'm sure there are a lot of opportunities.

I'll post more as I experiment.

That's it for today.

Thanks so much Lee Ann for giving me an idea I never would have thought of without you!

Cheers,

Sandy