Apples and a Bride

Wow! I am so excited!
I was contacted a while ago by Lesa Simons who makes the most beautiful wedding bouquets from buttons.
She asked me if I could make some little apple charms for a wedding bouquet she had been commissioned to do. So I set about mixing colours and trying out some designs. 
I finally came up with something Lesa and I were both happy with, here they are drying after being varnished. Aren't they sweet with their little stalks and leaves?

After adding a loop to each one, I packed them up safely for their journey and waited.

Lesa always has a proper professional photo shoot for her designs with models and photographer and I was really excited to see the pictures.

Well the photographs were emailed to me last week and wow they are amazing. To see my little apples on Lesa's gorgeous bouquet was thrilling, I had butterflies in my tummy.

Thank you Lesa for the opportunity to work with you, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and would gladly do it again.

Here are some of the photos taken by Chris Cowley  at the Apple Farm on the Isle of Wight.

Buttons Galore

I am fast becoming a huge button addict since discovering that I can actually make my own from polymer clay. I also did a little test to see if they were safe to wash and pleased to say that as long as they are washed on a cool (30o) wash then they are absolutely fine.

Here are the latest ones from my little crafty room

Here are some more button friends.

The very talented members of the Craft Pimp team have been know to make and use the odd button too.
Faith made these very pretty textured ones, I love the shape too.

Helen makes beautiful buttons out of glass,

Of course I couldn't leave Lesa out, she makes the most amazing wedding bouquets from buttons.

Mel makes wonderful cards and now these unique Christmas decorations using felt buttons.

Doodle Buttons Gone Wrong

The lovely Jill of Kiln Fired Art sent me some of her amazing doodle decals as I had wondered whether they would work on polymer clay.
I decided to make some little star buttons as there was a 'Star' challenge coming up in the craft Pimp forum I belong to.
I rolled the clay and set to cutting out pieces of the decal sheet I thought would look good on the buttons, I was quite excited about how they would turn out.
The pieces took seconds to release from the backing in the warm water and I laid them onto the sheet of clay and dabbed them dry with a piece of kitchen roll.
after covering the clay with a layer of cling film I cut out the star shapes. I didn't have time to bake them right then so I left them over night. when I went back to them in the morning the top of the buttons looked all glossy, I touched one of them, it was all sticky, The decal had reacted with the polymer, I could have cried.

Well I thought, maybe they will be alright after baking, No, they were still sticky.
then i thought maybe if I cover them with 'Klear' that will seal the sticky in.
Yay! It worked. But i am not confident about them and I shall just have to put it down to a failed experiment and a lesson learned.
Here are the buttons baked and covered with Klear.