Round 2

(Cross posted on Art Jewellery - Polymer Clay)

Heh, I don't actually feel like I'm fighting. More dealing with a new dog. Not quite sure how its going to behave but absolutely certain that I should be in charge, not him.

Either way, its the weekend and I am gratuitiously playing (I feel incredibly guilty just 'playing' - I'm self employed and work from home and it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you should be doing money-making things all the time. But I'm persevering with discovering hedonism!)

I haven't touched clay all week having been flat out busy, so the last stuff I posted was the last I did. The good news is that I can see improvement as I get more of a feel for it. The bad news is that I'm having severe issues with managing regular, consistent beads of any shape. And I have an annoying tendancy to oversand - I can't manage smooth curves, they end up with small, flat planes in. But I think I'm getting better.

Below is last night's creations (well I started the flower last weekend - I got it to its current stage last night). Leaves were moulded, butterfly a cutter then embellished, everything else by hand.

Still far from perfect but hopefully improving! And yes, I have a serious addiction to metallics and shimmers :p

Today... I need to get the hang of canes so thats on my to-do list :o) And I want to learn how to make lentil beads having spend large parts of yesterday drooling at Emma Ralph's polymer gallery (she does a lot of lentils). I love her beads and every time I stumble across her work I am completely awed. The service on the site is awesome as well - I bought a bead roller (in the hope of fixing my bead problem!) and some foil yesterday morning and its arrived today. Next day arrival only going to happen if you live in the UK of course :o)

Anyway... lentil beads. This tutorial by Barbara Fajardo over at polymerclaycentral looks to be just what I need. And its a fingers-free method for the most part so I might actually manage to produce something without fingerprints!