Exhibition invite!

Creative mess and chaos galore!

It approaching fast....and it always does....the dreaded deadline! Hits you like the hallway wall when you've taken a wrong turn on your way to the loo in the darkness of night, through sleepy eyes!


A most wonderful guy I know, Sunny Drake used to call them LIVESPIRALs...how inspired! Doesn't that  motivate and energise? Where as the DEADLINE...seriously, is full of dread and everything thing that is stuck and non-moving! 


Well its been livespiral all round for more, action central...finishing off all those UFO's (for the non-crafters out there.....Un Finished Objects) and trying to pull some sort of sense and cohesion out of thin air to make this mismatch of work talk to each other...and get some positive relations going on! 

Under the professional hand of Julie Hill..its happened...she has guided and prompted me until it all made sense! Through out this whole project Julie has been there asking me the right questions, so I could find the right answers! Thanks juba! If you want to find out more about what Julie does and how she might be able to work with you...click here!

A heart or seven for Valentines day!

I had someone comment the other day that I don't actually show any of my finished work on the blog.....good point, I say! This has been partly on purpose as what desire would you have to attend an exhibition where you have already seen all the work...I ask you! Not much motivation going on there...so I have kept most of my finished treasures hidden away....but today being the big 'V' day, I thought I'd share a heart or two with you all!

 You make my HEART soar!

I'd go to the moon for you sweetHEART!

A HEART full of Hope!

Handle this HEART with care and together we will mend!

The innocent HEART!

A HEART that knows its self!

The HEART full of faith!

Pewter casting with Christine Atkins!

What a treat this was...to meet the down to earth and creatively well endowed Christine Atkins 

and learn the very cool process of pewter casting! 

we started by carving our designs into some cuttle fish!

Secure the cuttle fish to a tile, melt the pewter and pour it in....

...and out it comes!

Saw, file and sand then, Wohola! 

Christine is an extremely giving and open tutor with a wealth of knowledge 

and she makes the most exquisite sculpture and jewellery pieces to boot....check out her 

website to see her work and workshop schedule! Chick here to see her site!

Colour me patina

Playing with patina and Oeeeeeewwwwww what a lovely range of colours! 

I used to be a plain satin silver gal, now please colour me patina! 

You just gotta love the way you have to let go of all control and enjoy the moment and the surprise it delivers! 

I 'heart' cork clay # 2 !

Well nine little babies are all covered and ready for a firing..and now the fun really begins, Mr Google gets a hard core work out, all my silver clay books litter every surface in the room and still no real answers. Why is it so dam hard for the so called experts to write in a way 'I' understand...or is it this way because your firing program is your trade secret....regardless, from what I gather the kiln needs to ramp to a moderate heat to allow the cork clay to burn out, hold it there for a while to make sure its all burnt out then ramp it up to your desired firing time. 

So I did my sums, took a punt and whoola, my first firing with cork clay! 

I 'heart' cork clay!

I've had this packet of cork clay floating around my desk for months, whispering to me, calling me to pick it up and play with it....which I have partly indulged, unconsciously picking it up, still in its sealed packet I squash it and poke at it, as I daydream, think and get my creative cogs turning!


Today with a ton of work related things that require my attention, calling for a whole different set of cogs going...I decided today is the perfect day to liberate that cork clay from its plastic confine. So I do, and as I play and roll, I realise I have no idea of exactly what I'm going to make with this this pliable ball. So as if trying to occupy myself in a dead boring meeting, my mind wanders into no mans land and my hands are left to create unconscious doodles of the 3D kind.


......and its hearts ... 9 hearts of all shapes, sizes and personalities! Then excited to play, a flash of sensibility hits me and I decide to read the instructions....aaaarrrrrrrr! I have to let it completely dry before I can cover it in silver clay. Its 30 something degrees out side and I figure it wont take long but just like watching paint dry it takes for ever and I figure its best to let it dry over night to be safe.


I set about dressing the cork clay in a variety of soon be shinny silver costumes and again I'm hit by some sort of sense of reason and its back to Mr Google...Do I need a vent hole to accommodate the cork clay burn out? Oh, yes indeed! So, my fully dressed babes need to get a few items of clothing off, we need to see some skin!

Autumn Round up 2012!

I've been getting myself organised for this years Autumn Roundup in Mullewa, for those of you who don't know about Autumn Roundup...its an amazing craft event held in the little regional town of Mullewa in Western Australia. It attracts around 150 - 200 people annually, which is a big effort for an event that receives no funding and is held in a town with a population of just over 900 people. This year is its 20th year and sadly it will be its last! Over two days crafters from all over the state take part in two, one day workshops of their choice, this year the workshops are:

Deb Crothers – Peek-A-Boo brooches & pendants with Polymer Clay

Elizabeth Morley- Paint, Print & Pattern to create your own fabric.

Fiona Parker – A day of paper craft

Rachel Mc Kenzie – Silver clay for beaders and Silver Clay trinkets and charms.

Anne and Tammy  Ringrose – “Ribbon Cottage” & embroidered woollen bassinette blanket.

Erika Monique – a figurative clay sculpture

Kaye Street – “Many Trips Around the World” in a day

Carol Brady – Links Quilt using strips and point to point Diamond Quilt.

Judith Lubieniecki – Quick Cathedral Windows & Make a Bag Day

I'm using some of the skills the fabulous Kate Mckinnon taught me for the Silver clay for Beaders workshop! These are the results of a play date/test run with my mum and her friend!  I love, love, love mums golden patinaed(is that even a word) bead caps!

Here's all the components all put together into a finished piece!

The trinket and charm workshop is a little bit fiddly but I love the sense of fun 

and play when making these little babies!

For more info on Autumn Roundup please contact Janine Crudeli at cruauto@westnet.com.au 

Rings and things that could have been!

Oh my, how I'd loved this shinny ring...and maybe I have just loved it to death! Possibly a little too keen to get it finished that I didn't think things through properly! I fired him carefully in the kiln in a little terracotta pot filled with vermiculite...oh he looked so dam cute sitting proud in on his vermiculite throne!


After firing the ring post had come away from the base of the ring so I packed it with some fresh clay, let it dry and refired it...but here I do have to admit that I was so keen to get his lovely stone set, that I did the refiring with a torch...I figured that this little patch up wouldn't need a kiln firing! All looked good, so I polished him and set the stone...happy, happy, joy, joy! I was in love, what a stunner! A little bit more work hardening and woopsie, whats that I feel? a lose shank?? Me being me, I can't leave it alone and I pull, push and tug to test its strength...and hello, out it comes?

So what went wrong?? Firstly I think that maybe the clay base I inserted it into was not thick enough, and maybe the fact that I had cut the centre of the bezel out as I would normally do for a pendant, didn't work when attaching a slab of clay to its base to insert the ring shank into...........and then finally that I didn't kiln fire my patch up! 

'

...and as the love affair fades and disappointment sets in I can't even stand to show you the front of the ring....and the question is now how do I get the lovely stone out of that tightly fitted bezel, so I can fix this piece or at the very least reuse the stone?

A little pot of LOVE!

Waking with a headache and a killer neck ache to boot, figured a recipe of

 panadol and a little play with clay would be the cure! 

....and it delivered! 

A little bit of TLC!

Ok so those bent, buckled and broken pieces....I'm going to see what I can do 

to to end these little babies!

A busted backside where the bezel was obviously pushed too far into the clay, 

is patched with some fresh clay packed into the fired piece.

Once dried, re-fired and polished, its backside is looking much better, 

although there is still a small crack.

I'm trying to figure how to do this more successfully, the new section of clay is of course 

going to shrink(causing the crack), while the already fired section has already done all its shrinking...aside from refilling this smaller crack and firing it again, i'm all out of ideas of 

how to over come this! 

I'll do some research and see what I can dig up...and of course I welcome all and

 any suggestions and hints!

Once the stone is set she's not looking too bad!

Nameless virgins and hot box's!

I've had my lovely little, itsey, bitsey blue kiln for a few months now and besides being totally busy with other things, I have not found the 'braves' to fire it. I've been wishing desperately for someone who knows what the hell they are doing to help with its virgin firing!


As I write this I am very aware of the fact that my little blue baby doesn't have a name, OMG how could I have overlooked such an important step in bringing this little baby into the family! So, guys a name is needed. Will happily take any name suggestions under consideration.


After a week of subtle and not so subtle hints, my brother helped me, in his typical Aussie male, 'she'll be right', 'just give it a go' style, he poked the control panel, while half heartedly reading the instruction manual and whoola...she was firing!

The first fired pieces...just simple little test pieces that it seems have been fired successfully!

Smokin hot, smokey!

Thought I'd share this little blog post from our 'A thousand Midwest flowers' of this lovely silver clay piece I started 
making while hanging out with Kate Mckinnon!

After wrecking my brand spanking new electric bead reamer, I hand drilled this lovely smokey quartz bead to fit the wide shaft of my silver clay ring to finally complete this lovely flower ring that Kate showed us, what seems a life time ago now! I particularly love the contrast of the patina and non-patina pieces together!

Thanks Kate, I love it, it hasn't left my hand since I finished it!

A Thousand Midwest Flowers: Kate Mckinnon and Silver Metal Clay. YAH!

For those of you who didn't know....A fellow clayer and all round awesome chick, 

Debbie Crothers and I had an amazing journey planned to America to up skill 

ourselves for an upcoming Community Development Project happening next year 

in the Midwest. I unfortunately had to come home after 4 days due my father getting critically ill but.....but... I did get to have 3 amazing days with the lovely Kate Mckinnon. Here is the post from our first day with Kate....and you can check out the blog to see the rest of our time with Kate and Debbie's Polymer clay adventures with some 'shit hot' American artists!

A Thousand Midwest Flowers: Kate Mckinnon and Silver Metal Clay. YAH!: 

I'm sitting here trying to think of what to tell you about today...and seriously 

I'm struggling to find the words!
Meeting Kate was like meeting up with an old friend! Kate is an amazing,funny,intelligent and clear woman who lives very admirably within her own integrity! 

She has such an incredible understanding of the Silver Clay medium and within 

the first few hours I learnt of lot of really simple and effective techniques. Kate 

has such a great way of bringing everything back to basics and I'm finding things 

that previously seemed challenging are now logical and totally accessible. Thank 

you Kate!

Kate with some of her divine pieces!

We started the day by going over the basics and creating a basic 

palate of silver clay/fine silver components that we will use to 

create our pieces, such as bead caps and head pins. Alot of this 

info is in Kate's book, Structural Metal Clay which I would highly 

recommend!

Click here to see the rest of the blog :A thousand midwest flowers

bent, buckeled and basicly f@*ked, woohoo, I cant believe my luck!

Can I be a princess, for one brief moment, Please??


Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I dont wanna play anymore...three days of work, placed carefully in the kiln with the expectations of all sorts of happiness when the kiln door is finally opened!


The song lyrics come marching into my head...'A waist of days and waist nights'...which I find myself signing with gusto to releave me from my own self imposed hell of disapointment and failure!

So as I ignoring the pile of bent and busted up silver and consoling myself with crumpets and lemon butter! seriously have you ever tried it..I am totally i love with this new discovery and the only thing I want to be making right now is a big old pot of lemon butter! Bring it on!


I found the post above, sitting in the draft section from some time ago and it has inspired me to now attempt to fix some of these busted arss pieces! So watch this space to see if we can celebrate a revival of some kind!

Rings and Bling

Sifting through the half finished pieces from my workshops with Pam 

and I found this little ring base that just needed a polish and a stone set....so here it is! 

Recycle & reconstitute!

What a very satisfying little exercise this was......!

left overs, buggered up bits, wanna be 's, got no chance of being jewellry, 

dry crsusty clay!

Cut up any big bits, then grind them up in a morter and pessel or a coffee grinder.

Pam sift the clay particals to ensure no big bits have snuck through without 

getting a good grinding.

Slowly add distilled water and mix...I had it explained to me as the same as making a white sauce, a little at a time...unless of course your like me who just goes the whole hog, pour a bucket load of milk in and hope that after some serious simmering it will all bind itself into a lovely lump-less sauce!

You want the clay to come away form the bowl in one lovely lump...if its too wet you will need to leave it for a bit to lose a bit of moisture.

oil up two sheets of plastic...(Pam uses a plastic A4 folder) and roll out the clay and then fold it back up on itself and do this several times to get a good consistancy.

Roll the clay up in some glad wrap and let sit for several hours or overnight before you use your newly reconsitutied clay!

I've been collecting my little jar of discarded clay and sanding's for months...and in the last few days contributed several ugly attempts at hollow beads...all of this ground up and reconsituted weighed a wopping 89 grams...and for those clayers out there..you' know that is a wooping lot of clay...worth around $200. OMG!

Can I just say again how satisfying this exerscie was....Awesome...it almost like grinding up all those wasted hours and disapointing failures into somethings usable and valuable! Love it

Bend me, bake me anyway you wanna shape me!

So today Pam and I are using Bend and bake polymer clay to make our own texture 

mats. We foraged around in the garden to find some shapes and textures that could 

push into our clay to create the mats.

After rolling the polymer flat through the pasta machine, we push and rolled our 

textures in the clay, and then baked is as directed on the clay packet....and yeah

our own unique texture plates!

We also used tools we had handy to create basic texture mats.

..and obviously its called bake and bend for a reason, once baked its extra 

flexible, which means its awesome for texture plates and mould making!