I was very productive today, I made some presents for people and even managed to find time to make myself a pair of earrings.  I will only post two pictures for this blog and save the rest for later.  Some of the people I made presents for read my blog and I don't want them to see their presents early.  After they get them I will post the pictures.  Most won't be till after the holidays...a few will be in the next couple of weeks though. :) 

This first picture is of a present I made for my dentist.  I have a dental appointment tomorrow and I wanted to make something for him to thank him for all his hard work with me.  When I started seeing him about 8 years ago, I was absolutely terrified of dentists.  My teeth were in terrible shape, and it took him a half hour to get me calm enough to just do the shot.  Over the years he has been working with me so carefully that I managed to go to a dental surgery with a different dentist, (he doesn't do root canals), and I didn't even shake before hand.  Since tomorrow is Halloween, I wanted to give him something to celebrate the holiday, but since he is a dentist, I didn't think giving him something sweet was the right choice.  So I made him a Halloween ornament.  This vampire tooth ornament is all in good fun, and I hope he likes it.

I made this using Premo Sculpey.  I started with a ball of tinfoil for the center.  I looped some wire and stuck it in the foil and then I wrapped the tinfoil in masking tape to make clay stick to it more.  It also secured the wire, which was a little loose.  I then covered the whole thing in white Premo sculpey and shaped it, adding balls where I needed them.  I made the eyes, mouth, fangs, necklace, and cloak.  I baked the whole thing for about an hour and then I did a little bit of accent painting.  I also painted the plain white with some sparkly white paint I had.  It helped it to glow a bit and took care of some of the bits of stuff that had gotten into the white when I wasn't looking, (mostly cat hair).   It was fun to make and came out better then I hoped for.  Let me know what you think.

The next picture is of the pair of earrings I made myself.  I wanted something light hearted to celebrate the day with even though I wasn't going to be doing anything special for it.  I really like how these turned out.  I tried something new with them.  I hadn't made stud earrings yet and I also tried a new glue.  I have seen the glue on several polymer clay sites as being safe to use, so hopefully it holds well.  I can't wait to put these on tomorrow.  If these work out, I think I will be making alot more stud earrings for myself.  I don't tend to wear dangly earrings because my hair is so long it gets caught.  So hopefully this opens up alot of new options for me. Hope you like these.

Thats all I am gonna share at the moment.  Hope you all liked these new pieces.  Thanks for visiting my corner of the web!! :)


Sharon Mhyre

Hey everyone,

I was going through some of my pictures of projects and realized that there were a couple that I never posted back in May.  Figured I would post them over the next few days.  Here is the first one.  I made this intending it to be my new business card holder, then discovered that because of the rounded corners, it wouldn't fit business cards.  Oh well, I am sure I can find something to do with it.  This is a covered altoid tin, first time I made one.  The clay I used was Premo black.  I then brushed on pearl ex powder pigments in different colors and got this nice sort of raku effect.  I really love the colors.  Hope you all like it.

Thanks for visiting my corner of the web!!!

Sharon

Hey all,

I made another bowl.  This one is going into my bedroom next to my bed.  I use those hair squiggies, (not sure what other people call em, but like rubber bands with cloth over them), and they keep dropping on the floor.  It's driving me nuts looking for them.  So I decided I needed to make another bowl to hold them all.  My bedroom is done in dark brown, silver, and a moss green.  I didn't want to make the bowl in a color that I couldn't keep if I changed the accent color, so I decided to stick with shades of brown.  Unfortunately, the only brown I had was in Sculpey III.  I didn't even have any colors I could mix to make brown with Premo.  So I threw caution to the winds and started making canes with the Sculpey III.  It was definitely harder to make canes with than Premo.  All of the canes sort of morphed and became abstract designs.  I actually like them, but they totally don't look the way I had originally planned them to.  I tried a slightly different technique this time applying the clay to the bowl.  It actually worked much better and there was alot less fixing that I had to do.  I still need to figure out a way to smooth the inside without destroying the design.  Not sure how to do that yet, but I am working on it.  Anyways, I used five colors, one of which was white.  The other four are various shades of brown.  I used a skinner blend in several places, stacked some sheets for the alternate colors, and just generally messed with things till I was satisfied. I had alot of fun making this one, and I hope you all like it.

Thanks for visiting my corner of the web!!

Sharon

Hey all,

I made a birthday present for my sister - in - law and thought I would post a picture of it.  This is one of a series of altoid tins that I am doing.  When I am done with the rest I will post pictures of them too.  This is made with Premo Rhino Gray, a stamp for the background, and then I extruded the vines and messed with them a bit.  I used balls of clay and shaped them by hand to make the leaves, and the letter is a cookie cutter.  I used different tools for some of the effects.  Then I brushed powder pigments over it in different spots to make the colors.  Having fun with altoid tins.  I made one a few months ago too, just never posted the picture.  I will have to see about doing that in the next day or two.  Anyways, hope you all like it.  I am happy my sister-in-law did. :)

Thanks for visiting my corner of the web,

Sharon

Well, it's been a really long time since I posted anything.  I am still recovering from my shoulder injury, but I just couldn't take it anymore and had to play with some clay.  I found that although it hurt, it was worth the pain because I felt better then I had in awhile.  Art is definitely theraputic and not being able to create was really bringing me down.  I decided to make something fun, with no real plan involved other then that it was to be a bowl.  I fooled around with making some canes, and tried a few different things till I got it to look the way I wanted.  I think that next time I want to make canes I will try fimo.  Premo is just too soft to hold the cane shape well.  Maybe it's just that I am not good at reducing things, but you can definitely see the distortion in the canes.  Still, it came out pretty good for my first time making a bowl, (if I do say so myself :P). 

I made this using a pyrex bowl as the form to put the clay on.  I decided to use the inside of the bowl rather then the outside because I didn't like the foot of the pyrex bowl.  The part that was in contact with the glass came out really shiny and smooth.  The side I actually touched, even with alot of sanding and polishing, really didn't come out smooth and shiny.  I ended up putting gloss on it.  I think next time I will do a couple of things differently and see if that helps.  First, I think I may work on the pattern on a flat surface before I put it in the bowl, that should help with the uneven surface.  Second, I think I may press it with a glass paper weight before I bake it.  Anyways, let me know what you all think.  I am going to be making a couple more because I need some decorative bowls to put some things into in my bedroom.  I will post those when I am done. 

Thanks for visiting my corner of the web!!

Sharon

Well, it's been awhile since I posted.  For those who are still looking once in awhile, I apologize that it's been so long.  I injured my shoulder in the middle of June and have been trying to recover ever since.  Unfortunately I have no idea how much longer it will be since I still haven't seen the specialist. I suspect it will be awhile.  I don't know if I will be doing any more crafting till it is feeling better then right now, but you never know.  It's pretty painful and I am having trouble moving the arm and losing some feeling in my fingers.  This makes it hard to make anything, but as time goes by I am finding myself going a little stir crazy at not being able to do anything.  I may just have to practice working with my left hand. Anyways, I just wanted to update people on what's going on.  When I have a better idea of how long I will be injured I will post it.  I will also try to post a little more often some basic updates, and maybe other bits and pieces.  I have a few pictures of projects I did before I got injured that I didn't have time to post then, so I will see if I can get a few of them up soon.  Thanks again for being patient, and thanks for visiting my corner of the web. :)

Sharon

(September 12, 2013 - I am having problems with some of the photos all of a sudden, they were fine, and now they are turned sideways and squished.  I have asked for help from Blogger, but not sure when it will be fixed.  Till I can figure out how to fix them, I left just the one that actually stays the right way up)

Hey all,

Well, it's been longer then I wanted since my last post.  I apologize for the delay.  Lots of health issues occupied me for a bit, (nothing serious), and then I had some guests.  Today is the first day I have had to take pictures of the projects I have been working on.  I am going to post them gradually over the next few days because it takes some time to edit the photos for being on the net.  Anyways, here is a project that I had been meaning to do for a long time.  I started it a few weeks ago, but I only finished it a couple of days ago.  I had ordered the fence part and it took quite awhile longer to get here then I thought it would.  This is the project that contains the insects I posted awhile ago as a teaser. :)

This is a pincushion. All of the insects, flowers, grass, mushrooms, and cattails are made with polymer clay, specifically sculpey iii.  They are mounted on a small terra cotta flower pot and a miniature white picket fence.  The actual pincushion part is made with a styrofoam ball covered in green felt and then covered again with a white and green checkerboard cotton material.  It is glued into place with elmer's glue.  The pins are pearl colored pins available anywhere you can buy sewing materials.  The polymer clay pieces were glued on using a gel super glue.  The flowers are mounted on jewelry wire for the stem.  Which made it easy to poke into the pincushion.  This piece stands 8 inches tall and 5 inches wide.  I have included pictures from different sides so you can see all the little things on it.

This is also the first piece I am taking pictures of with my new close up lens, tripod, and lightbox.  Looking at the pictures I think I am going to have to starch the material and iron it, you can see wrinkles in the pictures that are hard to see with the naked eye.  I am still learning about photographing, so hopefully my pictures will get better with time. 

I hope you like my whimsical pincushion.  Thanks for visiting my corner of the web. :)

Sharon Mhyre