The 2nd Annual Challenge of Colour Blog Hop!

The wonderful Erin of Treasures Found is hosting this brilliant Blog Hop.

I have never taken part in one before, so decided that it would be fun to have a go and hopefully meet some new people, find some new blogs and generally just feast my eyes on wonderful colourful creations! Not to mention, stretch myself to make something in colours chosen for me!!


I chose Teal, simply because it is always the colour that draws me when I am creating, and this is the palate that Erin chose for me from the fantastic Jessica Colaluca of Design Seeds.


















Well, what beautiful colours!! Right up my street!



So after mixing all my colours to as near as I could get to the palate, I got busy!!

Here is my Necklace. My photos are showing the teal as much more blue than green, but honestly is isn't!!!






I made a Leaf cane, using all the colours and then decorated beads using the cane and some little graphic dots of colour in just three of the colours. Hope you like it!!

Thank you Erin for hosting such a brilliant challenge. I was thrilled to take part.

Pippa

p.s. I have tried so hard to cut and paste all the participants links onto here, but for some reason, it just will not work - so please, to view pop over to Erin's blog, they are all listed there!

Getting Busy for Christmas

I've been busily making stock for all the Christmas Fairs that are coming up. I have 6 between now and Christmas Eve, so you can imagine what my clay table looks like!!

Here are some of the things I have been working on:


Firstly something with no polymer at all! A Bling Ring with 35 Swarovski Crystals - I need to make some more of these, this one sold straight away!














Lots and lots of leafy Bookmarks.













Kaleidoscope Pendant in gorgeous deep purple and white.

















Stud Earrings - at last I have figured out a way to make these that is really strong - I always worry that they might break, being so little.















And lastly some lovely ear wires that I got from Ruth and Andy Harrison of A & R Jewellery on Etsy. They are so beautifully made, I added some Mokume Gane Style beads. Simple, to show off the wires!













Are you really busy? I would love to see what you are making for Christmas - leave me a comment so I can come and see!

Have a great week
Pippa

Crackle Beads Revisited

You may remember from a post back in January that I purchased a wonderful Tutorial by Naftali on how to crackle with polymer clay.

It has been a little while, but I decided to make some more crackle beads on Sunday.

I was somewhat hindered by the fact that I do not have the tutorial any more - we had some trouble with an infected PC a few months ago and unfortunately it wiped all my emails from before April - and guess who had not saved the tutorial and backed it up? Yes that would be me!

So after a couple of false starts, several cups of coffee to try and engage my memory banks and one memorable mess up with using Liquid Polymer Clay instead of what I should have been using (if you want to know then you need to go here to Naftali and buy her wonderful tutorial, I can highly recommend it!), which turned out to be very messy indeed, I finally remembered what I was supposed to do.

Here are the results - I am really pleased with how they turned out! Oh yes - there was also an incident with overenthusiastic sanding and ruining not only one, but two pendants, think I would have learned by now wouldn't you!!

Oh well - as my friend Lisa told me - it is called the "Learning Process" - thanks Lisa!

Well - back to the clay table - hope you are all having a good week!

Pippa

ABS Challenge November

Here is my entry for the Art Bead Scene Challenge for November.

This is only the second time I have entered the challenge and the first time was so long ago that this feels like the first!! The painting Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni by Marie Spartali Stillman is so beautiful. It is not very often that I am inspired to make something immediately like this, but I am so glad I had a go.

The lady is surrounded by leaves in the painting and I decided to surround by beads with leaves in the same gorgeous muted shades.

I have had a lot of fun doing this. If you fancy entering this months challenge then pop over to ABS and have a go! Here is the link : http://artbeadscene.blogspot.com/ Good Luck!

Pumpkin Beads

A brilliant tutorial by Roberta Mohar was featured on Polymer Clay Daily a little while ago to create these lovely pumpkin beads. I had a go this week and was delighted with the results!

These were going to be a necklace first off, but Katie decided they should be a bracelet!! I think she just wanted the bracelet for herself!!!!

These have been fun to do and I will certainly be doing some more in different colours.

It is half term here in the UK - so not a lot of beading is getting done, but we are having fun, walking, baking and generally gathering our strength for the Christmas Term ahead.

Hope you are all having a great week too. Pippa x

A Busy Morning

I made lots of heart pendants today. My stock is so low that I was getting a little embarrassed hanging the few that I had on my display last Saturday. It look very sad!

So today I made some Mica Shift Hearts with a triple layer. They look quite cool I think! I tried the new Peacock Pearl by Premo, but was very disappointed with the chatoyancy effect. Not enough Mica in the mix. I do love the colour though. So I had to add lots of Pearl to get a better effect.



















This chocolate brown mix turned out brilliantly - it was even easy to photograph!



















Next I made a couple of swirls - again I am seriously low on stock, but they are not my favourite thing to made, so I keep putting them off, you can see that I only managed a few before I moved on to making some Bakewell Butterfly Beads - they are the ones that look like feathered icing that you get on Bakewell Tarts (here in the UK) or a little like the patterns on butterfly wings.

So now I need to do loads of sanding with my micro mesh and then buff them up ready to be assembled tomorrow. Hopefully I can gets some photos up then for you to see.

Hope you are having a productive day too.

Pippa

Bead Table Wednesday

I have been looking for a long time at the wonderful array of beads in the Bead Table Wednesday Flickr group and have decided to join in the fun.

Basically every Wednesday, we share a photo of what is on our bead table. Fun right? Lots of lovely beads to admire, covet and generally drool over!! So here is my first offering:

A mass of leaves all ready to be made into my signature bookmarks, some little raspberry coloured berry beads and some Drum Beads, inspired by the Wonderful Klew (aka Karen Lewis). I have been having some fun this week! Need to finish buffing some of them and then get them made up into items of gorgeousness!!

Hope you are having fun with your bead table today - do tell, leave me a comment and I would love to pop by and have a look at what you are up to today!

Pippa x

Quick Update!

Just a quick post to show you a couple of things I made with the Stroppel Cane of last week.
Am busy today making lots of leafy bookmarks. Hoping to make some Drum Beads inspired by Karen Lewis's amazing work. Will post again later in the week and let you see what happens!

Had a lovely weekend, working Saturday as always, but good friends coming for Lunch on Sunday, we had a great time.

Back to the grindstone now!

Everyone Is Doing It!!!

Doing The Stroppel Cane!!

Alice Stroppel's wonderful and innovative cane made from all your pieces of scrap cane, was featured on Polymer Clay Daily this week to huge acclaim!! Everyone is doing it and having the "Funnest" time doing it!! You have to give it a go - here is the link http://polymerclayetc.com/be warned though - it is highly addictive! Thank you so much Alice for sharing this wonderful technique with us all.



I have one small complaint about it though. Remember my new studio? (scroll down if you haven't been following).

My Beautiful, Clean, TIDY, Wonderful, Studio? Well, just look at it now!! Scrap Canes EVERYWHERE.



....................EVEN in my "clean zone" for jewellery assembly!!!!!! Alice....you have a lot to answer for LOL!!!








Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Pippa

A Lot Has Been Happening.... (Picture Heavy!)

....but not much of it to do with Polymer!

We have been very busy with family visiting from Canada, a Wedding and a Birthday. Lots of time spent catching up, organising and celebrating, which of course has impeded my time spent with the clay.

I had a huge order to fulfil. The largest single order I have ever received. It was slightly stressful, getting it all ready in time, but the customer was very happy with it, which was brilliant!

I am slowly getting back on track with making stock and starting to think about the dreaded "C" word (Christmas nooooo!) and how much work I need to start putting in.

We are having a bit of a heatwave here in the UK - the past couple of days have been beautiful, with temperatures up in the high 20's and it is set to last the rest of the week - not to good for my resolve to settle down in my wonderful studio and do some serious work. The sunshine beckons and my heart keeps telling me to go out and enjoy the sun before it disappears for the winter, so not a lot is getting done! But I reckon that next week when the sun has gone will be a better time to hunker down - what do you think?

It was Logan's 9th Birthday earlier this week and my little man is going through some tough times at the moment, so it was great to have a happy day and see his face light up first thing in the morning when he saw his presents!

Here are some pictures of what we have been up to and next week I will be back to regular posts about Polymer and Jewellery and Work - as long as the sunshine doesn't continue - if it does then I can't be held responsible for being irresponsible and enjoying it!!!


At Lacock Abbey - where they filmed some of the scenes from Harry Potter! This is just down the road from us and my Cousins from Canada are huge HP fans - they could not believe that they were actually inside Hogwarts Castle!!









Me!














Ok - so some work got done! Just a few of the many leaf canes I made for my big order!

























I got "Steampunkery" by the wonderful Christi Friesen and Katie made this incredible turtle - my daughter has so much talent - much more than me!










Logan's Birthday - Happy Birthday my Wonderful Boy - I am so proud of you each and every day. You have come so far and we love you so very much!


6.30 a.m. half asleep still, but loving his new bike!!







Logan is a massive Dr Who fan so I made this chocolate Dalek Cake for him!













Way too many candles!!! Birthday Party with school friends!













Birthday Tea (on his actual birthday - the Party was early in the week), with my lovely Mum and Katie and one of Logan's friends.












Make a Wish! (Dalek cake has been demolished by this time - so 2nd cake for the actual day! How lucky is he!)












Action Shots on the Bike!



Hope you all have a wonderful week whatever the weather is with you!

Finished At Last!!!

It seems to have taken for ever but finally my new Studio Room is complete and so is the rest of the decorating.

I haven't done a huge amount of work in it yet, as we have been away for a couple of weeks down to Cornwall for some well earned rest and relaxation. Bodyboarding, beach combing, eating well and walking lots - a glorious time in our favourite part of the world.

Now we are back to reality, however the children are still on holiday for 3 weeks before starting the new school year and so my work time is somewhat curtailed.

What work I have managed to do has taken place in what I keep feeling is someone else's studio - surely this wonderful space cannot be mine? It is all a little dream like - and I feel like I am playing at being a polymer clay artist rather than actually being one! The work space will need tweeking to get things exactly as I need them, but that will be something that happens over time as I work and get to grips with having so much space.

The HUGE desk is divided into 2 spaces, one for claying and one for assembly and this for me is the biggest and best change. No more having to clear away the clay in order to make up the jewellery. Utter bliss.

The photos show everything, including our newly decorated sitting room and dining area, which lead into my studio room. Everything is looking clean and fresh and new and I love it.

Hope you enjoy the photos and hopefully my muse will want to stay for extended periods of time in this lovely space. I know I do!

We are off to a wedding at the weekend and to see close family over from Canada that we haven't seen for years - I can hardly wait!

Hope your weekend is full of fun too.

Pippa