Clay-ink-ops

I spent yesterday playing with my good friend, Peg. She is an amazing polymer clay artist and now I'm convinced she's just as willing to experiment as I am! We were supposed to try a technique from the latest issue of Polymer Clay Cafe where you ink up baked hot white clay and watch it turn colors.....but we totally failed our assignment! And I totally love our experiments!

For the most part, we layered 91% rubbing alcohol, and or 70% rubbing alcohol on baked polymer clay with alcohol inks and opals embossing enamels (on some)

And I think we tried every combination of layering that is possible:

and we used both hot and cold - baked and unbaked clay! For this one, I used a base of 91% alcohol, then a variety of colors of AI on hot clay, and let it bake a bit longer - then scrubbed it off and reapplied and rebaked....the combinations are just endless!

the shiny ones like this have a layer of Opals Embossing Enamels on the top:

This is one of my favorite results.....I think Peg needs to create a class for this technique!!! You all will have to come visit the Bead Lounge in Longmont where Peg teaches!

This one is a flop - but I still like it!

Love the raku look of this piece:

Oops! I fogot! This is my favorite one. And Peg used a stamp that she carved. Would you believe this is Stream, Butterscotch and Cranberry alcohol inks? Really fun how they change colors with heat. We used white sculpey clay for most of these pieces.

Til Peg decided to experiment with copper colored clay and colored opals embossing enamels:

I think her cobweb turned out perfect!

Again - this is simply stunning. She only did the enamels on part of the top and it looks like a pottery stone!

and this one is copper clay, colored enamels and alcohol ink to re-color the enamels!

Looks like a scarab tile, huh?

And this is my favorite of all the ones that Peg did!

Just a totally fun day playing with clay, experimenting - and knowing that we are coming up with more fun ways for you to play. Next week - we plan to try all these techniques on Friendly Plastic! Oh gosh! I can hardly wait! Maybe we will just have to set aside every Friday to experiment around here!!! I wonder where that fire extinguisher is! LOL!

After Midnight Pendants

The certification class was last Monday and I finally turned some of what we did into pendants. But I found it interesting that you could actually wrap two pieces together......


You know, it's just so hard to decide which one you like the best!

These were all made using Opals Embossing Enamels on seaglass - this one was done without the fantasy film, and no stamp - we adhered metal flakes, dusted them off, then Franklin Opals over the top and I really like it.

And in this one, I used Opals, Frozen Opals and Midnight Starz.

And no, I'm not done yet - I need to get a couple of tutorials done this week. Today I was in Colorado Springs again doing our final day of demos and tomorrow, I run Kerry out to the airport - he will be gone all week - s0 I hope to get those videos done!!!

Friendly Plastic O(oooh!!!)pals turned into pendants

Dear Ginni - you will have to come back over the mountain (yes, I know - TWO passes!) and spend a whole day and I will happily teach you how to do wire wrapping!

Seems like when Ginni is here there is just never enough time to play! And I actually ran out of 20 guage wire today and will have to order more in before I can finish up!

Not to mention that I totally ran out of matching chains!

But I love how each piece becomes something different - unique - as you start to wrap wire around them.

The process of matching wire, wire guage, colors, chains.....oh! what fun!

and while some pieces might appear to be the same (above and below) they really aren't and you can change them even more by changing the color or wire and the way you wrap it.

While this blog is being posted, I've been at the show in Colorado Springs demoing once again and am off to spend the night with mom. Such a non-stop busy life!!!

Friendly Plastic Opaled Chevrons

And our second "new" idea using Friendly Plastic and Opals Embossing Enamels:

I think these are just wonderful!!!

And then wire-wrapped and turned into pendants....

Who wouldn't want to wear these? Such a conversation starter!!!

Shall I open and etsy store and put some of these up for sale? Or shall I just keep them all and wear a different one every day? Oh! The decisions a girl has to make!!!

Friendly Plastic O(oooh!!!)pals!!!

Today was the best! Linda Hanson from After Midnight Stamps was here for the second time with the Basement Babes. And our goal was to experiment with Opals Embossing Enamels (they come from Australia and Linda is the US distributor for them) and Friendly Plastic.

So, of coure, Linda Peterson skyped in. And I have to say, Kerry is just brilliant! He set it up so Linda appeared on the wide screen TV in my studio - how cool is that???

I mean - it was just like having her right here with us......like she was just sitting there working away!

even making a Friendly Plastic crown! Hmmm....I wonder if she is thinking about going off to London to see the Queen? Hmmmm....I wonder if I can crawl in her suitcase and go with her!!!

We spent the day trying to see what we could do by combining Opals and Friendly Plastic. Our first technique is here and yep, I'll be sharing more tomorrow. This is just beyond fun!!! And I totally love the results:

Pink, then purple.....the color combinations are absolutely endless!!! I know you are going to want a tutorial on how to do this.....but hang on because I need a few days to get that together! Today was all about coming up with the idea, the technique and repeating it at least 3 times so that we knew it would work....

and I think my fav is the turquoise. (OK, OK.....I will learn the colors of the opals! But NOT tonight!!!)

And look at this one - the darkness of midnight I think!

This technique involves layering Friendly plastic between colored and clear Opals embossing enamels

So check back tomorrow night for yet another new idea using these 2 incredible products! Oh! I love it when we get together and experiment! What a great day!!!

Opals Embossing Enamels Certification

OEEC? Hmmm....wonder what the new intials will be? I completed the very first certification class today and you now what.....I guess Linda forgot to tell us if we passed our certification or not! LOLOL! But all I can say it that this is just the most fun class I have ever EVER taken! Held at Maria B's house - what a wonderful hostess! She lives on an airstrip and we got to watch planes take off and land all day long. Absolutely amazing! Maria B - the sizzix lady - many of you know her store: Album Memories!

She grilled hamburgers up for lunch on the back deck and the weather was absolutely perfect.

And yes....that's her airplane hanger in the back yard - how cool is that!

It didn't take long for us to make a total mess on our class table


This is a future pendant made with Franklin opals over metal flakes on Midnight Glass. So cool!

And this is opasl on chipboard - perfect for card or layout embellishments.

I made a ton more today and hope to finish them up tomorrow so I can post them tomorrow night. And yes...I'll be teaching opals here in my studio soon. Can't wait to see how they do on Metal clay! Will be so much fun to experiment!!!

This whole week is a "play" week. Linda will be here Thursday for Basement Babes and we are going to experiment with Opals embossing enamels and Friendly Plastic! I just can't wait! In the meantime, I'm working on new make-n-takes for the show this weekend in Colorado Springs. Two more days of non-stop play! I may just have to sleep all next week!