...can I go back to bed now??

You ever have one of those days where you just don't want to get out of bed? And when you do finally get up, nothing amuses you. Yes, I'm so bored I can't find anything to do. Mind you I have a long list of to-dos, I just don't want to...lol! So I thought I'd take you on a picture journey.......

These are 'rocks' I made out of polymer clay. I just can't tell you how much I love my rocks! ~and They're sooooo pretty! And such a pain in the butt to make~ maybe that's why I love them so....because I knew how much sweat went into them. Fix you gotta mix up a lot of different colors of clay, then you have to chop them down into small chunks, then paint the chunks with acrylic paint. Once the paint drys, you have to form the chunks into small rocks. Then, you bake them~ don't be scared, they're suppose to look like a black blob of mess! And here's where the pain in the butt part comes. You have to sand it (with wet/dry sandpaper) starting at the lowest number and working your way up to the highest number. It takes a lot of sanding for one rock! You can find the sandpaper at the auto parts store. I'd like to make some beads this way, but I'm so overwhelmed with all that sanding that I haven't done it. maybe one day! The beads on the bracelet are pretty much made the same way. But no chunks! This time I painted slabs of polymer clay, and after they dried, I stacked the slabs on top of each other, and used my small circle cutter to cut out a cylinder.
These next 2 pictures are from reading Donna Kato's website. There was a tutorial on there on how to make the canes for these, and this is what I made. Once you end up with a neat cane, the possibilities are endless! See what I made using the same cane. (A cane is a block of uncooked clay that has a design in it) Those S things have a hole in the middle so you can use it as a bead.
Here's another cane I made, and what I did with it. These are the S shapes again, but this time you can see where the hole is. I love the colors I used~ so bright!
I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend; I'm going to go curl up with Otis and take a nap!

hahaha...I was trying to find a picture of Otis sleeping, and instead came across this.....He was so bad when he was little! I can not remember a day where we didn't find toilet paper some where...he just couldn't help himself. We finally had a buy a plastic container to store it in, cause he'd climb right into the cabinets and take out what he wanted. Here, he's a couple of months old, and has come across a roll sitting on top of the dresser. He was taking bites out of it, and spitting the tp on to the floor......he's lucky he's cute!!!

With a little help from my friends...

Do you remember the TP roll challenge I gave you? Well, Chris from http://www.candidcanine.blogspot.com/

put up this picture on Myspace of some lamps she found, and we've been chatting about how to make one for the doll house.

I choose to make the one in the back, to the right. I used one tp roll to make all three discs. Also, you will need to cut some of the sides to get smaller circles....and glue them back together before you begin. You can see in the picture below what I mean.....see there are 3 different sizes. I've also cut some scrap book paper up to cover them with.Once covered, I went around the edges with a gold marker Now, it's time to attach them to each other. It took me all day staring at it to figure it out, and then the idea came to me. I could glue beads in between the 2 rolls to make them look suspended.

...and.......Ta-da!

I added some gold trim around the top and bottom. Then I added some around the middle. You see how it is hanging from what looks like a straw? That's another piece of paper, rolled up and glued. Eventually, it will get attached to a medallion, and hung above the dining room table.

And thanks to Casey from http://www.caseymini.blogspot.com/ this chandelier now has a tassel! She put up a tutorial on her page yesterday on how to make them! Thanks Casey!!!!

OK, I'm off to think about how to make a medallion! Maybe I'll drag the clay back out?

I'm so exicited...I just couldn't wait

~Yeppers! It is so much easier to blog when you can see your pictures as you type!~


I just couldn't wait till tomorrow to show you this...........are you ready?! I went to the fabric store today and got some gold trim, brown suede like fabric (to be used for curtains), and some fabric with gold paisley print. I'll save what I did with the trim for later....lets discuss the gold paisley material! Oh, and BTW ...I only spent $4, on everything!! Remember that couch I showed you? The pink one that had been painted black? Well, today I went ahead and ripped off all the pillows, and started to attach the gold paisley material. I'm not writing a tutorial for this~ I'll be honest~ It was a pain in the butt! I'll just say I folded, glued and tucked as I went.
Pretty impressive, huh! Haha, well, I'm impressed.
One of my bears came out to give it a try. This is what lived in my dollhouse as a kid~ Maple Town Families! I still have them....all one hundred and something.....Don't believe me? I'll have to drag the rest of them out and take a group picture. Oh, I sure hope they all cooperate! I also printed out the rug under the couch. I think it ties in the wall color pretty well. Wait till I have throw pillows, and some side tables....this is going to look great!

Ok, good night! I'll be back tomorrow with an explanation as to what that tube thing is with the gold trim on it, in the top picture. Can you guess???

I fixed the problem!!!

~Wish you could see me 'dancing' over here! I knew I must of hit something to get my page to switch like it did....and I finally figured it out. When you write a post, you can either do it on the edit html page or the compose page. Mine was stuck on the edit html page.....it's so much nicer to see my pictures as I write about them!

What to do with the scraps?

I just don't understand what I did to this computer to make it change like it did. I want to be able to upload pictures and look at them as I type this blog. Instead, I get the html code for it. I don't think I'm going to like blogging like this!!
Any ideas as to what I did, or how I can get it back, I'd be very grateful!

Ok, so I drug out the clay yesterday, and played.
Nothing serious....just wanted to see what I had. I did use some scrap clay to make some bowls, vases, and planters. Not very pretty, I know I can do better than this, but like I said I wasn't making anything serious. I more or less just wanted to 'play', and I also got some of those scrap piles I had taken care of.
Here's how I did one of the vases..to make the scrap ball more interesting, I put a bunch of scraps together, then sliced through the middle of it to get this:..Now that you have a neat piece of clay to work with, roll a small ball of it out.Then form it around the end of a pencil.Next, roll the pencil on a flat surface until all the sides are about even.Then you can use a blade to cut the top off so that it is even all the way around. This is just a basic idea of how to make 'vessels' with polymer clay.

Another of my favorite things to do is to put my scraps in my mini food processor. Now, these scraps must be dried and old for this to work. If you need to use fresh clay, lay it out on some paper the night before, and the paper will help suck some of that moisture out. I do believe this may be called leaching...? Ok, so cut it up into smaller pieces and throw it into the food processor. It should look like this after a minute or so.... I love this stuff.....wouldn't a 'cork' floor be neat using this stuff? Or a table top...oh my, there's lots to do with it.....I made a mini bowl with it. Just wrapped up a big marble with Saran wrap, and molded some of the clay around it. I was a little more happy with this one! Here's another bowl I made using some scraps and the pencil trick.
There's a lot you can do with scrap clay. I save all of it, and evenually it all gets used!

**Warning: You can NOT use the mini food processor for food once you've used it for clay. Polymer clay and food DO NOT mix!!!

A little clay to soothe my soul

&*(@$*&#@$&@(.....can you hear me yelling over here! I don't understand why the computer is eating my pictures when I try to upload...This is my 3rd day of this, It's really getting annoying!

I pulled out one of my boxes of 1/2 half finished polymer clay 'junk'. Man, oh man, do I have a lot of crap. You see, there are days when I'm grounded to the couch, and I need something to keep my hands busy. Well, me being a crafter, I craft! I have a lot of hobbies, I just have doll house fever right now. But, my clay has been calling my name for Days now, so don't be surprised if I switch gears......

OK, while digging through all the stuff I did run across these tiles I made out of Sculpy clay. It was all scrap clay, slightly mixed up, that I rolled out flat and cut tiles out of. I think it would be a great floor/fireplace for some kind of Moroccan theme.

I even came across these pink ones. Looks like I used some left over Mokume Gane slices....oh goodness, It's been so long since I played with my clay that I've forgotten how to spell the techniques, LOL! Don't you think the pink ones would make a great back-splash in a bathroom?

Just some ideas on how to combine several hobbies into one. Sometimes I just like playing with the clay, these turn out to be some pretty productive days. When you let yourself go, you can come up with some pretty neat combinations!

I'm as slow as a snail!

Well, gees....I totally missed my 100 blog anniversary! I wanted to do a give away and everything. Oops! Maybe I'll just do a random one here in a few weeks! You'll have to wait and see! So, I haven't got much of anything done, instead I've been blog hopping. OMG, there are so GREAT Blogs out there! And so much eye-candy, I may have to go on a diet here soon! LOL!!

I have worked a little in Cora's House. I finally got the floor done in the kitchen! Her couch is sitting in the middle of it, so you could see what it looks like. Did I mention that it was once pink? I painted it black with acrylic paint a few years ago. Now, I'm going to redo it with some kind of fabric....maybe some leather? (Casey made a tiny couch recently that I'd like to blow-up to my size! You can check it out on her blog) Oh, and before I forget: I used Modpodge to seal the floor in the kitchen, but I can't get rid of the tackiness....any ideas as to what I can put on top of that to seal it???