Yo Ho Ho

Look who turned up at the Flower Parade. Well you could have knocked me down with a feather but he was more interested in watching Colette lampworking.

 

This was our table set up, we had a double table on a corner with my demo table aka workbench, at one end and Colette's torch set up at the other end. It worked really well and we had a good couple of days.

 

I made a few beads and a cane during my demo's.

A lovely couple of days.

Spalding Flower Parade

It's that time of year again, the Spalding Flower Parade starts tomorrow, 30th April.
Colette and I are having a table at the craft fair again, we keep saying we wont do it again because of the poor turn out, not to the parade, just the craft fair. It never seems to be advertised enough, the bane of crafters lives. Organisers must get the organising right or the fair will flop.
So why are we doing it again?
We joined, no, we founded with some other like minded crafters, The Fenland Guild, a group of local crafts people, who were all sick and tired of poor organisers.
We are doing the Spalding Flower Parade Craft Fair under our Fenland Guild banner, we put up our own posters and banners all around the area and done our promoting to friends and colleagues.
Keeping our fingers crossed that this year things will be much better.

Pictures of the flower floats and general merriment to follow.

Oh and here's a better picture of those pink beads including the tube bead , I am so happy with it I might keep it, but it's pink and I know I'll never wear it.

Gorgeous Green

Ahh Green, my favourite colour. An online friend told of this recipe for a lush, muted, olive green.
Equal parts of silver and yellow. I used Fimo silver and Fimo sunshine yellow.

These beads are going on the website soon :)

I'm in the pink!

Considering it's a colour I don't get on with, I surprised myself this week.
Pink! I was actually going for lilac.
I made a cane from a great tutorial by Ayeletbeads

I was really pleased by the way it turned out.
I made a mixture of bead shapes and my first tube bead.

Absolute rubbish pictures though. Ooops!

New Craft Forum

I joined a new forum, It's called Craft Pimp and is specifically for crafty people, any sort of craft.
It's a place where you can show your work within galleries, you can chat to like minded crafters and enjoy seeing other peoples work.
There some amazing talents on there and I recommend joining.
The link is here

First beads in ages

After a long Hiatus I have made some beads, and it feels good, sigh!
I started off with the old favourite random planets and stuck to my favourite colour, green. I made a faux agate pendant and small tiles for earrings. In the mix was some lovely bronze clay which really shines now that they are varnished. However the before picture is shows the true colours better.

Then I found a cane I liked and made some flattened round beads, two round pendants and some more of those earring tiles

I'd forgotten how long it takes to finish polymer beads off, Phew!
I am back in the zone. :)

Planet Bead Tutorial

I made this tutorial in order give something back to the polymer clay community which has given me so much, It's not a unique method, there are lots of similar tutorials out there, but here is my version. I hope you like it.

1. First make a base bead from 'mud' colour. The finished bead will be quite a bit bigger than this bead so take this into account.

2. Make a 'log' from your chosen colours, I chose orange, grey and white here. Put the 'log' into your extruder with a small round die in the end, and begin to extruder the clay.

3. Put the base bead onto a mandrel (this is optional, I just prefer to do it this way) and begin to wind the long thin piece of clay around the base bead.

4. Break off the clay once the bead is fully wrapped and remove it from the mandrel if used.

5. At this stage there is a choice, to leave the bead bumpy or roll it smooth in your hands. If you decide to make it smooth, you will need to pierce the hole again.

6. Bake the beads according to the manufacturers instructions. Once cool they need sanding and buffing.

Here are some more I have made using this method