Christmas give away and discount

Shop Etsy from Thanksgiving thru the 15 of Dec and purchase from any of the listed PCAGOE artists and you will be entered into a drawing for one of 3 awesome jam packed stockings. I wish I could win. Everything from ornaments to jewelry to home decor, 1 purchase equals 1 entry. visit my Etsy shop for a complete list of participating artisans.

From now thru and including Black Friday I will be giving a 10% discount-refunded back thru paypal on the purchase of any item in my shop. New lisings weekly.

Remmeber 10% of the purchase price is donated to the monthly EFA charity.
I know I am not the most regular blogger but life is hectic.

my art show

Well I took the plunge and did my first art show this weekend. the 42nd annual Howard Chandler Christie art guild show. You need to look him up on wikipedia woo what illustrations the man did.
Talk about nervous. new display set up , a long way from home and having to decide what to enter my 8 best pieces. So I polled my fellow clayers and low and beold most folks picked the same pieces to enter as I did-all but jeanne rhea. Well I had met her and knew she had been in the community for-well ever- so I put her choices to the top of the list. She picked the same things as everyone else but my tan swirlly frame. So I added that.
Would you believe the judges picked the frame as an award of merit, basically honorable mention.
He even came back and talked to me about my work, that was after almost 20 minutes looking around and talking to me when he came thru for judging. Well he thought I was a professional crafter from the quality of my work and display-well that made me want to float-i thrive on strangers praise.- when they brought the ribbon I think someone pulled me down off the ceiling of my tent i was so thrilled. That was Sunday and now its Tuesday and I still feel all puffed up and proud. The feet are slowing touching the ground.
I put this notice on everywhere that I asked for feedback, but I closed the listing and deleted it on etsy so no one can find it now.
I am going to ry and pull the photo from my flickr stream but who knows if I will succeed.

best laid plans

Well we all have plans. I sure hope somebody else's are being followed thru on cause I sure am not succeeding in doing my dail blog and journal. Life is so hectic. It seems like 10 minutes once or twice a day is too much. I now have this laptop so I can muli task. Torchwod and the internet. I am able to sit in the living room and talk to my husband and watch Tv with him in the evening which is important since tha is when he ends to be awake.
I have a friend that always asks me to help her find something on the net and I need to talk and surf at the same time. My computer is in the bedroom and I sure hate to disturb him when he is sleeping.

creativity. and time

boy you know it sure takes time to be creative, you gotta plan and then prepare and then work on whatever you are creating. In and among all this you gotta work and clean house and cook. Oh yeah and take care of that extra cleaning caused by the flood in the basement.

well I found this new book-well it actually has been out a while to try and jump start my clay block. It's the vein of gold. The big thing it alks about is taking time in your busy day to stop and think and take some time for yourself. Woh what a concept time for me., Anyway I started today with the journal it says to keep. and now I am journaling here as well .lets's see if I can keep it up.

I doubt anyone really reads this I am not a fancy named person just me and wll it seemed like a fun thing to do. be like everyone else in something. As I was eriting the first pages of the journal I could feel my creative juices start to boil, but wait I gotta feed the dogs and work on the house. well If I do it right I will have time this evening for some one on one time with my clay. let's cross our fingers.

Meet my friend Queet

I met this young lady a few months ago during a sneak Attack on Etsy. I bought a pincushion for me and ended up giving it as a gift to a sick friend. It was soooo cut I had to get one for me. Of course it was differnt than the first one. I started looking around and found she made some other wonderful items and wanted to share them. I can't seem to get a link to work but here are her sites Please check her out.

http://www.blackkatkreations.etsy.com

http://caterpillarcottage.blogspot.com/

http://www.caterpillar-cottage.com

http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/moderncherokee

PCCMM retreat Shepherdstown, WV

 The Polymer Clay Collaborative Mixed Media Retreat in Shepherdstown WV.   Talk about an awesome time.  Gotta make plans for next June already. 

We had lots of room to clay and show off our creations. Plenty of good food and room to sleep( HA HA)  It was almost who had time to sleep.

I took every mini workshop that was offered and by Thursday the information and new skills were almost leaking out my ears-Definitely by Friday.

Mini workshops were offered in Mixed media and doll making by the Artist Meta Strick, a full day of polymer claying by Marie Segal-who is one of the people I admire the most in life, Meredith Arnold did book binding and silk beads-who knew you could do this, Dedra Tue Sheib affered Iris folding, Anne Bowers offered paper marbling and PMC.

In addition to all the mini workshops days were crammed with demos from tools to papermaking,

Oh to have been able to be in 2 places at once.

On top of everything new friends and lots of help wherever it was needed.  Thanks to the folks that answered my questions. Everyone freely shared their time and expertise.

Many thanks need to go to the organizers, Syd, Mona, Anne, and Heidi.  They did an awesome job and are already starting on next year.

Keep an eye on the web site and the Yahoo group for upcoming events for next year.

CPSIA

Lots of stuff out there right now.

Found this petition. To ammend change the rule to protect the small crafter. If this is you, you might want to consider signing it.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/rethinkthecpsia/

CPSIA and crafters

I have seen a lot of talk on the net about the CPSIa nd who is a manufacturer and how does it pertain to us and all kinds of questions.

Well hee is the link to the CPSIA site and the downloadable guide which is basically a FAQ.

http://www.cpsc.gov/about/cpsia/smbus/cpsiasbguide.pdf

Basically we as crafters fall under manufacturers. go figure here we thought we were making something we like.

Well the little history I know is when all those big business brought those toys in from China a couple of years ago they were tainted with high lead content. So guess what we get penalized cause they wanted to make a bunch of stuff cheap.

This guide is for us but this law also affects anyone who makes anything that can be targeted at the 12 and under market. If you don't I don't think you have to worry, If you do you need to put your head up and find out how to testify and how to take action to help keep your livlihood afloat.

This law even affects things like packaging and pricing. I make school spirit jewelry targeted at the high school age but it is priced so it can be used as a fundraiser which means that the littler ones can afford them. Guess what I have to stop making them because of the price point-It is attractive to the younger set. and don't prepackage anything to cutesy or it might be thought you are targeting the little ones to.

OH well my 2 cents.

also check out www.change.org

and http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/ these guys are on the fore front.

Oh yeah I have also seen the question how does it affect me in Canada. Well you are required to meet the guidelines too.

Thought for polymer clay

Well today is truely the day I move into the 21st century. Figured out how to get into this blog and get it going.

I put up my banners both here and etsy thanks to thequeenofBanners great job.

Well some words of enlightenment for today don't expect them often the brain can only handle so much when you get older :)

Polymer clay has long been thought of as a material for beads, cane work, and sculpture. I am trying with the lhelp of some fellow clayers, trying to turn it into something that is functional-key word here-and beautiful.  I have learned a series of techniques and use a clay that allow you to get almost tissue paper thin edges on the clay. With the use of Bake and bond and some loc tite superglue you can add it to just about anything.  If you make the design right you don't even have to use the superglue.

You use bake and bond any time you want to cover an object that is paper mache or wood with a polymer clay design. I blogged about this on my other blog www.creativeclaycottage.blogspot.com

With the use of shape makers and texture makers and paint you can make the most amazing designs. I have really jus started to experiment with this. The results are at my etsy site www.summergirl38.etsy.com

I must be doing something right my green man-see avatar-one first prize at www.polymerclaycentral.com in November and one of my designs was taken to the CHA show in Anaheim and will published in Crafts and Things magazine-when I don't know but if I find out I will let you know.

I really love the cane work and appreciate the talent of those artists but I am a sculter at heart. I do some cane work but my designs always get lost when I reduce so I got frustrated and have never really explored it much more.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings. 

Saturday blues

Well started out late. Did a jewelry class or should I say 3 classes with kids from k-4 what a blast. This is the second year for us. Hopefully we'll be back next.
We did memory wire bracelets and pony bead snakes. The K had less trouble with the snakes than the older ones. I guess they just do what they are told and don't think to much about it.
Even the little ones tried the memory wire bracelets. All the kids were really well behaved but then I would expect that from doctors kids.

Seemed like I ran a little late all day. Tomorrow I gotta work all day and at one point be 2 places at once. go figure- Anyway hopefully I will be back to claying in the next couple of days. The ideas are running rampant and the hands hurt to play.

merits of Bake and Bond

To me Studio by Sculpey Bake and Bond has been a godspend. I use it to permanently joinmy polymer clay designs to peper mache, wood, and metal objects. The best way to do this is: Do your design on the object. Flip the clay piece( the base if you are adding layers) then generously smear the bake and bond on the object. Let the smeared item rest for about 15 minutes or so. The bake and bond will self level. the flip the base back onto the object. Give is a little squiggle to set it and help remove any trapped air.

Once the base clay is set you can build up from there adding cane slices, dimensional pieces, transfers etc.

I haven't had any luck with recuring but it could have been the substrait I used(wood made in china) I have joined the polymer clay to the these objects with bake and bond.

Glad to answer any questions.

Bear with me

I gotta do this a little at a time so bear with me as I get this together, and believe me eventually I will

Well I finally have taken the plunge

I keep ending up and reading about other folks post on their blogs so I finally decided to start one of my own. don't know how this will work but I'll give it a try. First of all I am a huge Polymer clay nut. Took the plunge almost 30 years ago and keep coming back to the clay. Have tried all of them(or they are in the mail). My current fav is Studio by Sculpey.

I like to do sculptures and flowers so this clay lends itself really well to what I want to do. I do prefer to work small teenytiny little things not really to any scale. But the cutters and whatnot for Studio are all big.

I decided to take the Studio Home Dimensions certification, simply because I wanted it. Besides since I was one of the first 500 I would get everything-tool wise-that was made so it was actually very cost effective. Even if I hadn't got everything since all supplies and tools needed for those projects were included with the fee it was more cost effective than any other workshop I had ever been to.

Claying is my true love. I have been a nurse for over 30 years and the clay has always been an outlet for me.