Hmmm, maybe that isn't a good title, sounds like we're doing Playboy or something.  One of us might fit the bill, but the other three are definitely out of the running, LMAO.

Today was the January date for having people come over and play with me polymer clay with me.  It's so much fun to sometimes have company to do clay work with.  This month it just happens that we can fit in two Clay Play Days, one today and one next Saturday.

It's obvious my sister reads my blog, as she brought me a bunch of Ultramarine Blue Premo.  I did find out though, that if you mix 1 pkg of purple with 2 pkgs of Cobalt Blue, you can come very close to Ultramarine Blue, in a pinch.

We aren't a very big group, although we'd love to have some other polymer clay artists join us.  Right now, it's just me, my sister, Gail,  her bestest friend, Reni (Reni's my friend, too, but I'm 4 years younger than them and they've been friends since they were kids and I was just the "little sister").  Our Mom also joins us, although she isn't really into the claying part.  She usually brings a knitting project along and just sits and knits and chats with us.

As you can see, my Mom also likes Snuffles, just a little bit.  She's getting bigger than we expected her to, I mean Snuffles, not my MOM, but she's still within the size range we wanted.  

Today for lunch, I fixed lasagna, as I mentioned yesterday.  I was pleased to find those "cook in the oven" lasagna noodles really DO work.  It was really good.   We had jello with fruit for dessert.

Our Clay Play Days usually take the form of classes with me as the instructor.  Sometimes we try a technique out of a book or a magazine or off the internet.  Since Valentine's Day will be coming up soon, we did hearts today.  We used Iris Mishly's free tutorial for a  Cookie Cutter Square Heart Cane .  Thanks, Iris, you write a great tutorial.

We then went on to make some pattern sheets with some of my canes and made some puffy hearts in the same way we have always made 'pillow beads'.  The first time we made them we made square pillow beads, but then we challenged each other and ourselves to make other shapes, so we've made butterfly pillow beads, round pillow beads, star shaped pillow beads (which are very hard to close by the way).  The only difference this time was that we borrowed a finishing technique (again from Iris Mishly) to put a striped border around our pillow bead seams.
The top ones are my sister's, the middle ones are mine, and the bottom ones are Reni's.  We had a blast, lots of chatter and trading ideas and colors etc.  I was pleased with my pattern sheet and my hearts, but didn't really like the colors I chose for the seam around my hearts.  I really liked both Gail's and Reni's colors.  Something for me to work on for the future.
As we were cleaning up, Reni was rolling some of her leftover striped seam clay into little rolled up beads, which struck me as a really good idea, but I though of a way to take it one step further.  I used all my scrap from today and extruded tube beads from my Makin's trusty green Extruder and then wrapped my left over striped sheet around it to make beads.  I then cut them into about 8mm tube beads.  Half of them I did the stripes around the bead, and the other half have the stripes going lengthwise along the bead.  It sure beat turning that pretty sheet of stripes into a muted sheet of who knows what color, LOL, and now I have beads to go along with my hearts.
So, here's what I have to show for a day full of  fun . . .
and a close up of my hearts with some of my older canes on them:
I'm almost completely out of that butterfly cane, guess I'd better get busy making some more of them, as I really like butterfly canes.

Tomorrow I have to get some leaf canes done for our eBay listings.  Then I have to get busy reducing those eye canes I started earlier in the week.  My sculpting class starts January 29, and I want to have everything else off my work space by then so I can concentrate all my energy on my Fairy Child (remember, sculpting is VERY difficult for me, wish me good sculpting vibes, please).  So, until next time, I'm off to bed.  Smiles!

Whew, I finished mixing colors and sheeting out the rest of my eye cane sheets.








Then I began rolling them into cylinders that would fit into the extruder barrel.  I'm going to use my super duper Polymer Clay Express Cordless Extruder for the first time.  I got it as a gift when it first came out but then life got in the way and I did very little claying that year, so I never used it.  I hope it works well, because the arthritis in my left thumb/wrist is horrible today.  I don't think I would be as ambitious if I didn't have a motorized Pasta Machine, either, I LOVE my motorized Pasta Machine.  I'd like it even better if I'd get my "new and improved" model D.R.E.A.M. Machine back from PCExpress.  Oops, better not go there, this is supposed to be a positive blog.

Anyway, a quick aside here as a little Gratitude note:  I just want to publicly express how much I appreciate the fantastic husband I have.  I've seen a lot of posts lately (probably economy driven) about spouses being very negative about their wives craft/hobbies.  Mr. C is truly a wonder.  He's the one who keeps gifting me with the wonderful new PC toys.  He encourages anything I want to do clay wise, even this recent bug for eye canes.  Wait until you see them all laid out.  He walks by the trash by my Pasta Machine and just shakes his head, rolls his eyes and asks, "I suppose you couldn't have used 'left-overs' could you?  How much new clay will you need to replace this?"  When I point out that at least I'm using 'old clay', he just closes his eyes, shakes his head, and walks away.  He's so sweet.  He says, "As long as I'm busy claying, he knows I'm happy, so it's good enough for him."  AND, he does all the eBay work, all I have to do is play clay.   I'm so fortunate.

So, back to the clay:  Here are the colors I have all ready to extrude tomorrow.















Anyway, so this blog post is a post of Gratitude for Mr. C., for my puppy Snuffles, for my Polymer Clay Toys, and for all the friends I have who will read this and chuckle.  I hope you've had as productive and happy a day as I've had.  Smiles

Well, here it is Monday, again, already.  Where does the time go?  Today wasn't much of a thrilling day, but it wasn't a bad day either.  The temps got into the mid 20s, Walletmart and Meijers weren't terribly crowded, so we got in and out quickly.  Mr. C and I had a nice leisurely breakfast together at Bob Evans.  We were home before Noon and I quickly did all my household chores and then started mixing colors and sheeting polymer clay for more eye canes.  I only got 3 sets done today (they each take 4-6 colors and I don't make small canes, LOL), but I only had half a day today, so I feel pretty good about that.  I only have 4 color sets to go, so I should be able to finish them tomorrow and start the extruding part.

We were worried about the mail man (I don't have to say person, as our mail person is actually a man, LOL) getting to our mailbox due to the snow the plows have thrown up in front of it.  Remember, we live in the middle of nowhere and are a very long driveway away from the road and our mailbox.  Mr. C was going to go out and shovel away the snow in front of the mailbox, but decided he didn't want to, it was too cold and he didn't care if we got mail today or not. . . (what's with that???).   Well, bless our mailman's heart, we not only got mail, there were 3 boxes, so he brought it up to the house to us.  Mr. C got an audio book by Michael Crichton he's been wanting, "Pirate".  We also got ink our printers badly needed, and look what I got:

 I got my order for my sculpting class.  A sculpting tree or stand, 4 BIG porcupine quills, and a bunch of sculpting sticks.  Kori, the instructor suggests building small heads on these sticks with small balls on the end of them as they're less likely to poke through the head as you work on them.
I had to lay the sculpting tree on it's side to get it in the photo, so tip your head to the right if you want to imagine how it would look upright.  It's so you can hang your sculpture while you work on it and has lots of different heights depending on how large your sculpture is.

Well, that's my exciting day today . . . not very, exciting, that is, LOL, but it was a nice day all told.  I hope you had a nice day, too.  Smiles, S

Oh, I forgot, in the middle of the night last night, I figured out what do to about my humongous cane.  When we made a similar design in Jana Roberts Benzon's class in Reno, we started with 3" long triangles of about the same size, 5".  So, if I cut this 9" long cane into 3 3" pieces, and put "end caps" on all the exposed ends I should be able to reduce each section separately.  Then I can either put the three reduced sections together, cut in half, and put both halves together for the full cane or do each section as a separate cane to be sure they are the same size and fit together correctly.  I was so pleased to come up with an answer, even if it was in the middle of the night, LOL.  I think it was just because I mentioned it to all of you and it got my mind puzzling on the answer rather than just feeling overwhelmed by the size and giving up.  Thanks for your help.  S

Hi, again, what a busy day I've had today and how glad I was to have that left over soup and bread for meals.  Mr. C was off work today (it's his Saturday).  You see, he works at a Nuclear Power Plant and normally works a rotating shift; with a week of days, a week of training, a week of swings, a week of mids, and a week of whatever they need him for and then starts over.  His weekends are also varied within those weeks and aren't always Saturday and Sunday.  However, right now they are in a 'refueling outage' so he's working 12 hour days 5-6 days a week (every other week he gets a 2 day weekend, on Sunday and Monday).  That's a lot better than in previous years when they had to work 12 hour days 7 days a week during the 'outage'.

Anyway, we decided to wait and go to town. . . just another aside here, we live 3 miles from a town of 2700 people with one IGA--and we're BIG TIME NOW, we've even got A (that's one) stoplight.  Therefore, where we shop most often is either 25 miles in one direction or 30 miles in the other direction, so we try to only 'go to town' to do shopping and errands once a week, usually on my Chiropractor day--which SHOULD be Tuesday this week.  Since we're basically snowed in (as far as MY car is concerned) and tomorrow is Mr. C's 'Sunday' this week, I'll change my appt and we'll take the Big Blue Truck to town.  It is BIG and has 4 wheel drive and 4 back tires, so it doesn't mind the snow.  Sheesh, I'm tired just trying to explain all that.  That's part of why I don't work outside the home, it just doesn't work schedule wise (the other part is just that I like to be home and play clay, LOL).  Anyway, here's a picture of our Big Blue Truck, so you can see I'll be safe tomorrow.
Yeah, that's our "Condo on Wheels" behind it, but I'll tell you more about that later this summer.

Anyway, how did I get so off track, I'm s'posed to be telling you about my busy day today, not about tomorrow.  So, since it was so cold we decided to wait and go to town tomorrow, yeah, that's where I was when this all started, which left me free to play clay all day today.  That's a good thing, as I have this bug 'somewhere' that I need to make some more eye canes.

Do you ever wonder what makes you do the things you do?  I don't usually give it much thought, I just know I'm weird and live with it, LOL, but writing this blog and taking pictures for it really makes me take a look at myself and YEP, I'm weird.  For example, it turns out my Sculpting a Fairy Child class doesn't start until January 29, so that gives me 19 days, I think. . . yep, that's right, 19 days to make eye canes.  Since I'm weird, and have a slew of color ideas, I may need that 19 days.  Here's why I'm weird though.  I have a new idea, so I have to COMPLETELY clean off my clay desk before I can start.  Why, you may ask, and I'd reply, "Not a clue!"  LMAO.  But since I did, I thought, gee, maybe somebody would like to see my work/play space so stopped to take a picture or two or well, just look below:
I have a great workspace, with room for 2 people to come play clay with me any time we want.



Here's the space on the left:

But that's for another day!
I still don't know why I seem to have to always do things 'assembly line' style, but that's just me, guess I'll just have to live with it.  See Ya!

Hooray, today I get back on track.  It's a mixed hooray, for technology (20 years ago I wouldn't have been able to write this blog or share anything with people all around the world in the blink of an eye) and a not so happy effort at learning all technology has to offer (20 years ago it might have been lots easier for my younger and more agile mind to understand and figure out all this new technology).

Hooray, though, because today I have my computer back at about 80% usage.  I still have things (mainly games) to load as well as a couple upgraded print programs ordered but not here yet.  I have email, and I have internet, and best of all PICTURES, again.

It's a sunshiney 21 degrees of pure white wonderland outside my window and I'm glad to not have to go anywhere today.

 Snuffles and I are just hanging out and doing whatever comes into our heads to do (and fortunately it has come into her little pea brain to use her potty box every time today, so far, cross my fingers).  Here is a picture of Snuffles, named for the BIG BLACK DOG/GRIM in Harry Potter: