Square bowls

I figured I better get that baby looking poo of my front page before someone out there thinks I've lost my mind, lol! Sorry I haven't been on to play, I still have that 'cold', and I'm miserable....I hate it when I'm too sick to play!!
Although, yesterday I was able to use up some more of that Frankenstein cane. I made 2 Square settings....still need to work on getting those squares to lift up on the edges.....but they're cute! Even made some more bowls! Otis has the right idea........I'm off to join him!

PB and J

I love rainy days......there's nothing like sitting inside, watching it pour outside~ reminds me of Wales!

Today, I decided to try my hand at a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, out of polymer-clay of course. First I did my homework. You Tube has some good tutorial videos on how to make bread out of polymer clay. Then I visited http://www.norajean.com/ and read some of her tutorials. I didn't like how my peanut butter was looking, I just couldn't seem to get the color right...so then I goggled it and found this page: http://tutorials.theclaystore.com/miniature-food/making-peanut-and-jelly-sandwiches-out-of-polymer-clay/ I finally figured got the color right and made this:
Then I needed some bread for a PB&J sandwich. I got a little carried away with the chalk, and chalked the slices of bread, too....it would of worked~ if I had wanted toast, lol! Using some scraps, I made the cutting boards in the next few pictures as well. The jelly worked out pretty well.......I made a sandwich, and a piece of toast with jam.Then I made a piece of peanut butter toast....and took a mini bite out of it! I had a lot of peanut butter left over, so I cooked it on a piece of wax paper, and ended up with what will become peanut brittle. My son said it looks like baby poo, I have to say, I thought the same thing when I was making it, brought back lots of terrific memories, NOT! HahahahaNot to bad for my first time......one day I'll be able to recreate one of those beautiful mini food scenes that the professions make!!

Re-vamping Frankie's place!

I did manage to rearrange Frankie's Place. There's a new pumpkin on top of the hutch, and the ones I made the other day are scattered around the bottom. I painted the book stand black, and put one of Chris's (http://cverstraete.com/printies/medievalbooks.html) books on top of the it. Look in the chair at the table, see my blue witch bunny, cute, huh? I even made a cauldron to hold the books that were sitting on the floor.

Some eye-candy for you...

I know, I know...I'm getting pretty bad about not blogging everyday.....my excuse this week, is that I think I've caught that cold my daughter had last week......at least I hope it's just a cold?! Needless to say, I haven't got much accomplished around here other than napping. So, I thought I'd drop off some pictures to keep you coming back!

First we have 2 of my favorite kinds of beads. The one on the left was made with Sculpy, and the one on the right was made with Fimo. I love both of them! One has a more natural finish and the other looks like I actually sanded it down. I have made lots of bracelets with these beads, and have more tucked away for a rainy day. These 'charms' were made from the scraps from some of those earthy beads......couldn't tell you how I made them, but I like them, lol. I do that a lot...have "Happy Little accidents!".....wasn't that Bob Ross that said that? I sure do miss watching his shows!! Here's 2 more of my favorites....the brown one was made to match one of my favorite shirts. I just took my colors from the shirt and than fed the clay into the clay extruder, and Ta-da! A pretty flower! The clay extruder is a tough little sucker....helps to have someone around with a little bit of arm power! The yellow flower was made with a piece of mokume gane.....did I spell that right?? Oh well....hopefully you understand what I'm saying.

Here's another one of those "Happy Little Accidents"........again, don't ask how I did it, I have no clue...looks like it might of been the end of a cane that got turned into a bead, then flattened out. I sanded it down, and shinned it up.....one day I want to get it wrapped in silver so I can wear it on a necklace. Reminds me of a flower......And here's a leaf cane that turned out pretty good. I cooked a piece of it, so I could go back one day and figure out how I did it! Even added a hole in there......I think it wants to be a dangly earring??I hope you have enjoy this eye-candy......I'm heading back to bed! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Look who went to the miniature pumpkin patch...

With Halloween right around the corner, I feel the need to get all my supplies made early this year. I always wait to the last minute to make something, then I'm so overwhelmed with everything, that I end up not making anything at all! Crazy, huh!

This morning I came across what must of been a really old block of orange, Premo clay. I sat for 20 minutes, trying to mash this block of clay to get it soft enough to work with. I finally gave up, cut it up into little pieces and threw it into the food processor....I added some ( well maybe a lot) of liquid clay, and blended until it looked well coated. Then I started pulling out small chunks of clay and starting blending it all together. It was rather lumpy, but eventually it evened out.

I used just one block to make all these pumpkins! Now, I gotta figure out what to do with them! LOL!!

Halloween donuts! Yum!

After making all those bowls, I figured I better make something to go in them.......... So I made Halloween Donuts! Yum!!

I need to make the regular ones a little darker, they need to be more golden, in this picture...they almost blind ya! But, I'm really excited with how the chocolate donuts turned out! They have chocolate icing with sprinkles!! Now, how much fun is that??
The icing is liquid polymer clay, mixed with Sculpy III. I've tried to use acrylic paint before to color the liquid clay, and although it does work, I find it looks so much better to mix the liquid clay with the regular polymer clay!! Just look at how rich that chocolate icing is! (I did add a little bit of black clay to the icing to make it a little darker than the donut.) I made the sprinkles by first rolling out TINY snakes of clay and baking them. You will need a lot of sprinkles to make it look so yummy! After the 'snakes' have cooled, I cut them into little pieces with my blade and 'sprinkled' them onto the donuts before I cooked it.

My unproductive week...

Due to a sick kid, I haven't got a thing done this week! Terrible!! But I didn't want my 'fans' to worry, so I thought I better stop by and say hello!

Need some scrapbook paper? Go ahead, you can use it! This is what happens when I get my hands on markers......lots of squiggly things!!

And I haven't forgotten about Cora's house......I'm just taking a break. I could blame it on the carpenter....he still hasn't put in the crown molding~ I'll have to try and sweet talk him again this weekend!

I've never understood how cats can sleep anywhere!! As you can see, Otis fell asleep chewing on a chair leg.......good thing I have to replace those legs, or Otis would add his own aging technique~ bite marks!!

Oh! You noticed the mess?? That the corner of my craft table...can't show you the whole thing~ or I'd be getting sued for giving one of ya'll a heart attack! Yeah! It's that bad!! LOL.....maybe I'll clean today? Maybe?

The Frankenstein Bowls...

Yesterday I decided to make a green and black bowl to go with my Haunted House bowls. I googled Halloween coloring pages, and found this picture of Frankenstein....and thought~ Perfect!! I used Scuply III to make the cane: Moss, Magenta, and Black. It took me a couple of hours to get it built, and was so excited to see what the cane looked look once I rolled it out, I forgot to take pictures!! One day I'll have to do a tutorial on how to break down a coloring book picture to make a cane.

Here's what I got. At first I was not impressed...and was rather irritated that I had 'wasted' all this clay. But, then I realized something~ it's all in how you look at it. Have you ever seen this picture?? Depending on how you look at it, you either see an old lady or a young lady. It reminded me of how my cane is....When I first looked at the cane, I saw the nose as being only the line that goes down the middle of his face, and thought the wide-u shaped line under that was his mouth....BUT, then I looked at the original picture and seen the what I thought was the mouth is actually part of his nose. And the 2 lines at the bottom of his face is his mouth.....have I lost you yet? LOL!! I like him much better when I look at him this way!!!
And yes......I made bowls! Lots of bowls....It's amazing what you can do when you actually turn off the computer!! Hehe! Way too much eye-candy for one person!!
This last picture is of the baked bowls. As you can see they came out a little dark. But, honestly, it just enhances the color in Frankenstein!

Halloween dishes

Thought I better come in and say hello, before someone thinks I've run away! I hope all of you had a creative weekend! I managed to get some Haunted House dishes made. The funny thing is I used the same circle cookie cutter to cut out all of these, and yet only had 2 sets that were the same size in the end??? ( Those 2 sets are on the left) LOL....back to the drawing board I go!!
This next picture is of a Praying Mantis that lives in our yard....poor fella has a drop of water on his head, he got caught under the bushes while we were watering the flowers.....

It worked!!!

Good Morning! Do I have something special for you today....I'm exicited, Are you exicited???

Here's my Haunted House cane.....as you can see I filled in the outside with orange....I even added a picket fence!!

After I got cane put together, it was time to reduce it. This is a very scary process....you never know what you'll end up with!! But as you can see.....it worked!! I was so excited!!And Ta-da!! A haunted house bowl!! Isn't it cute!!LOL, and of course I couldn't just make one.....

The beginning of a cane

I only have one photo today. I decided to do a haunted house cane last night, I thought it would make for a neat bowl. Again I'm using Fimo-Soft: and I still don't like how the colors mix. It takes forever to blend them together!! I ran out of orange, so, today, I had to run to Michael's and pick a block up...I normally only buy clay when it's on sale. I just stock up, and wait for the muse to come around. Hopefully it goes on sale soon, my bucket looking a little empty!
You can see the drawing I started with on the right. I did several sketches before I came up with something I liked. The actual house is a really dark brown, with black outlines. I hope it comes out the way I'm envisioning it!! We shall see.......

Practice, Practice, Practice!!

The first rule to keeping the cat hair out of your polymer clay, is to keep the cat away from the polymer clay. Obviously, my cats could care less.....actually, I'm lucky to have a spot on the table! At least they're not laying in the middle of it! LOL!! Chris (http://www.candidcanine.blogspot.com/) emailed me yesterday, and suggested I make some orange and black bowls.......Halloween is right around the corner, and what witch wouldn't want a Halloween bowl??? I used Fimo-Soft polymer clay for the first time..., I normally use SculpyIII......here's what I think. It is much easier to mush up and work, although I found it a little difficult to mix colors. I do like the look of it after it has been baked, it's shiny!!...and I didn't use any sealer on it, it's just the way it bakes. I do believe I will use this clay again, but I still like my Sculpy!

I tried to make a pumpkin cane....my only excuse is that it has been awhile since I made a cane, so they will get better! My son picked a bowl up off the table, and asked if I had made another mushroom one, and I replied with "It's suppose to be a pumpkin..." Either it was what I said, or the way I said it, but I haven't seen him laugh that hard in a long time!!! I didn't think they were that bad! LOL.........oh well....back to the drawing board.
See...it kinda looks like a pumpkin?? Right??
At least they're black and orange, right Chris.....

The Mushroom bowls

After I made the rose bowl, I dug a little deeper into my trash box to see what else I had. And I found my purple mushroom cane!! I've always loved this cane, but have never really done anything productive with it. If you look close you will see that each bowl has one mushroom hiding in it....pretty neat, huh. The 2 circles things at the bottom are slices that I took from the cane, and then cooked as is, so I had a record of what I did. Ok, we're not going to discuss the fact, that Otis is not even suppose to be up here...but how in the world is this comfortable?? Well, at least he hasn't pushed the frog, over the edge, to it's death yet.

Not another bowl...

Stop! Don't throw those scraps away! Not even the ugly ones....you know what I'm talking about....all those ends from the canes you have hiding in your collection. Yeah, I do it too.....I'm a hoarder! LOL!! I have a whole container of scraps that I have been holding on to for years. The container is filled with canes that didn't turn out right, left overs from old canes and all all those little pieces that are left over after a project. I can't just throw them away....honestly I've tried....Well, this past week, I have been throwing these dried-up, ugly scraps into my mini food processor. See what happens? From this, I can make these......
These are the 'vessels' (haha) I made on Saturday. Yeah, I know there getting too big for miniatures......unless you want to use them for planters.....now that would be neat!Here's an over shot of the 'collection' I'm working on.....Did I tell you that when I finally find something that I really like to make, I go a little over board with it........Hahahaa.....And these are the ones that I made on Sunday, here I'm starting to mix blends....see the one in the back left, I used 3 different kinds of scraps for this. And do you see the dark one right underneath of that..........that's one that I made using the scraps from the first picture.This next one turning out neat. I decided to try and put a slice of the cane I used in the middle of the bowl. Can you see the rose?
and Poor Otis was so bored watching me make all those bowls, that he fell asleep in my shoe~

These are very addicting!

Ok, I must admit, I am addicted to these little pots and bowls! The ones in these pictures I made yesterday....I will post the ones I made today, later. These were all made with my polymer clay scraps, my favorite is the green one in the back! Do you see the one in the middle. Yeah, this is what happens when your bf thinks he can do it better. Mine weren't symmetrical enough for him, whatever that means......lol........you see what he did to his, right! Well, I baked it anyways and told him that when we build his man's room, he can put it on one of the shelves and we'll pretend it's a great sculpture! I even made a few pink bowls. You know, these might make for some neat sinks in the doll house? Just need to drill a hole in the middle and add a straw for the pipes.......

Meet the rest of the Gang

Thought I'd take a minute and tell you about the other 2 kitties that live here. Yeah.....I know.....Otis tends to steal the show!! We have a kitty named Pocus here, she'll be 9 this Halloween. We (the family and I) got her on my youngest son's first birthday. These little girls that lived in our neighborhood had found 2 kittens....and brought them to us, to see if we might want them. How in the world could I say no.....they were so small they both fit in the palm of my hand. So, they stayed....and we named them Hocus and Pocus. Hocus passed away when she was little, but Pocus is a very big part of our family! You can see both of them in the picture......they loved snuggling with the babies~ don't worry, I never left them alone! (That's Victoria in the picture, a baby I used to babysit...and yes her Momma knew the kitties would try and sneak in there, and that I was keeping a very close eye on them)

Pocus has gotten a little strange over the years......one of her favorite past times....is staring at us through the window. Pretty creepy!!And when she's inside......she's staring at the front door? I know she wants to go out.....but she'll sit and stare at the door ALL DAY LONG!! Otis thought he'd sit and try the whole staring thing one day....but didn't find it very interesting! He'd rather try and eat her, it's so much more fun!! Poor thing is always defending herself! And when Otis is tired.....he'll just lay down on her....and go to sleep. I guess you'd call it one of those love hate realionships!!
And then there's Jr Drew....or JD. I call him DD (short for Dirty D~ he always comes comes covered in dirt and cobwebs!!) I got him when he was a little thing and realized he had a white heart on his belly.
This cat has the key to my heart! He's our protector, better than any watch dog.....he even has been known to smack around the neighbor's dog! He's very timid with people, but will stand his ground to any critter that dares enter the yard. Last weekend he caught a snake...and then not a minute later, he had him a cicada, buzzing under his paw? Crazy kitty!! Oh, and my Man loves some catnip! This picture was taken right before he rolled off the counter! Bah hahahaOk, now I feel a little better........what kind of Mom only talks about 1 child??? Would you believe that I have just as many pictures of these cats as I do my kids?? That's terrible! But, I promise not to do that to you, I know your here for the art! So, please excuse my Motherly instincts, I won't torment you with any more cat pictures!

Well........maybe.....how about some art with cats? I found this and it's too funny not to share. I edited a trading card with pictures of my Fantastic Four! From left to right is Otis, Pocus, JD and Lucifer (Otis's Daddy..........which is another story for another day)