I won again! Second place this time.

Just wanted to quickly let you know that I won 2nd place in the Polymer Clay Central Challenge for April.  The theme was spring flowers and I entered my golden blossom candle.  Thanks if you voted for me!

I'm thinking it would have done better if it had been in spring-ier colors.  Oh, well, you create what you feel...

Enjoy!
Korrina

Polymer Clay Central Challenge: Go Vote!

Just wanted to quickly let you know that the April Polymer Clay Central Challenge is now open for voting and, although I wasn't originally planning on it, I entered again.  The theme was flowers and there are a lot of gorgeous entries!

Enjoy!
Korrina

Polymer Clay Central Challenge for March

My poor blog has been sorely neglected this week... I promise to do better next week.

Thanks to all who voted in the Polymer Clay Challenge for March.  The theme was St. Patrick's Day (anything green) and only three of us entered.  I guess that's not a very popular theme. 



Necklace: 3rd, Lucky and his pot of Gold: 1st, Leprecaun Tree: 2nd Place

 Mine was the tree if you haven't already figured it out!

The trunk has a lot more gold in it than I usually use.  It made the tree very rich-looking.



If you look close, you can see the shamrock shapes in the leaves.



The rainbow was made with translucent clay to give it more depth.

Enjoy!
Korrina

March PCC Challenge- Go Vote!

Just wanted to quickly let you know that the monthly challenge over at Polymer Clay Central is up and I'm in it.  The theme is St. Patrick's Day and there are only three entries this month so we're all guaranteed a prize.  Check it out and choose your favorite!  You only have to provide your name and email to avoid voting more than once. 

Thanks!
Korrina

PCC Challenge

They've got the February challenge up over at Polymer Clay Central and I've entered something again.  There are a ton of great projects! So, head on over there and vote.

My Polymer Clay Studio

So, for some reason, I have this fascination with people's workspaces.  I love to organize stuff but I can't seem to keep it organized.  I also love to see all of the various ways people come up with to organize their stuff.  Someday, I plan on having my garage organized in such a way as to allow me to actually park at least one car in it.  (I have a LOT of stuff.)

Anyway, I decided it was time to show off my studio space- not that there's much to show off.  It's way more functional than attractive.  And, it's constantly evolving.  I'm always rearranging stuff and adding/taking away various decorations.

So here it is from the doorway:

It's not fancy but it's home.  (Well, it's where I spend the bulk of my afternoons anyway.)



 My shipping station.  I got the postal scale at the thrift store for a couple of bucks.  It's all computerized and fancy but I just use it to weigh packages for shipping.  That's part of my food storage holding up the "table."  You can see one of my Christmas decorations waiting to be mended there on the old T.V. stand that is holding up everything else.  And of course, the paper shredder down in front.

Next to all of that is my clay table- or, as it's known to the kids, "the brown craft table."  My clay is organized by color in all of those little white baskets which are organized into an old cardboard shoe holder I got from my grandma.  My work surface is 2 glass panels from an old entertainment center over a fabric cutting mat.

The other half of my clay table.  I mounted some of that foam stuff they use in shipping on the wall to stick anything sharp and/or pointy in for storage.  I keep the computer handy for watching Netflix movies when I'm doing something brainless.  The drawers underneath hold all kinds of stuff related to clay.

A couple of sets of shelves under the window.  On top are various glass and wood things waiting to be covered with clay.  The little drawers are full of canes, and below that are bins with more clay in them.  The right side holds my baking pans, stuff waiting to be baked, more clay, and my box of ribbon (for tying up packages) on the bottom.  The bigger drawers on the right are full of more clay tools and supplies.  That unit just kind of drifts around the room wherever I need it.  I love the big window in my studio.  There's a gorgeous view of the farmland across the street and mountains in the distance.  (Unfortunately, not the Tetons... they're out the other side of the house.)

Here's my bookcase with all of my clay books, surplus school supplies, and other craft stuff I need handy but don't use a whole lot.  (I've got tons more craft stuff in the aforementioned garage.  I've done a bazillion different crafts and I've got a lot of supplies to show for it.  Luckily, we homeschool and much of that stuff is needed at some point or another.)  You can also see the left side of my finishing station.  More on that in the next photo.

So here's where my clay stuff gets "finished."  Sometimes I clear-coat stuff.  Sometimes I sand and buff.  This is also the place where I add the charms to my pens and occasionally assemble jewelry.  The sewing machine stand was my mother-in-law's and eventually will go to one of my girls.  The plaque you can see on the wall above the stand is one I painted when I was working for a ceramic studio after high school.  The lady that owned the shop entered a bunch of my stuff in a state ceramic show (unbeknownst to me) and I won several prizes.  That one recieved a first place and a best of category.  I love it and it doesn't really "fit" anywhere in my house so it's in the studio...

Now for the photography station.  Everything I do for my Etsy shop is fairly small so I can do it in a lightbox.  I prefer to do my photography outside in the lightbox on a sunny day but winters in Idaho are pretty long and seldom sunny.  So this is my setup until the weather warms up.  I seldom use my ironing board for ironing but if I do happen to need it for its intended purpose, it's easy enough to clear off.  The basket underneath currently holds things the kids have broken and need their dad to mend.  He doesn't get to that job very often.  The black box to the left of the lightbox is my entry for the Polymer Clay Central Challenge this month and I didn't want to give it away so that's all the hint you get. :)

This is Rock's personal workspace.  Just the left half of the table.  (It's a mess 'cause I refuse to clean up after him.) Okay, so he can use the whole thing if he wants to but he seldom does any work in here.  I set the table up for him to fix computers on but he mostly does that at the desk in the living room.  So here it sits, usually collecting clutter.  Anyway, I store my shipping boxes and stuff under it and he keeps his tools under there as well.  It's also a place for me to get out my sewing machine when I want to do a quick project or some mending.  The floral arrangement is one I did several years ago to match my living room in another house.  There's no where to hang it in the living room here so once again, in the craft room.

Just two more pictures to go.  I took the corner brackets from some storage shelves (that I lost some of the parts for and can no longer put them together) and mounted them on the wall for holding my "thin" work- you know, ACEOs and such.  I hope to get them full enough that I'll be wondering where to store this stuff while I wait for it to sell...

I also have a pegboard to hang all of my beads, pens and pendants on when they are finished (with more brackets underneath).

Anyway, I hope you got through all of that.  (Maybe there IS such thing as too much information...)  If you didn't, that's okay too.  You can probably tell that I've spent very little on my "organizational supplies."  But that's okay.  It's fun to find something and go, "Wow, I could use that to organize my...!" 

Enjoy!
Korrina

January PCC Challenge- 2nd Place!

Once again, I won a prize in the Polymer Clay Central Challenge seen here.  I love doing the challenges because the themes force me to expand my horizons and try something I may not have otherwise done.  I keep saying I'm not a jewelry designer but maybe I'm not as bad as I thought I was.  The idea came from a photo of broken sea ice I saw on Google.  I think I may make another one like it in a different color and make a tutorial for it.  I've actually considered making tutorials to sell in my Etsy shop for some of the more intricate work I do.  (They take too long to do them for free...)  Anyway, here are the photos of my 2nd place-winning entry:



I really enjoyed making this piece but it took a long time and I'm not sure I'd want to repeat the process too many times.  That's why I think a tutorial might be a good idea.

Enjoy!
Korrina

I'm in Another Challenge!

So they've got the next Polymer Clay Central Challenge up and I'm in it again, so go on over and vote.  I'm not telling which one is mine or even giving any clues except this one: it has to do with snow and/or ice. :)  Anyway, next week I will be posting my next Valentine's Day magnet tutorial so stay tuned!

Korrina

The Forbidden Forest- I won!

Okay, thanks to any of you who voted for me on the Polymer Clay Central Challenge!  In case you haven't looked yet, I won 1st place!

Anyway, I loved making that particular piece.  I wasn't going to enter the contest this month 'cause the theme was "Spooks" and I'm not really all that into the whole Halloween thing... :P  Anyway, Rocke talked me into it and so I had to find something I could do with the theme.  Then I realized that Harry Potter has everything to do with Halloween and I set out in search of inspiration.  I found it in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."  It was the illustration for the chapter titled "The Eye of the Snake" (not sure of the chapter # offhand).  And the rest is history.  It was so much fun to make and now I'm ready to try a few of the other pictures in the books as well.

So, here's a few notes about how this piece came to be:

So, I wanted to put a hint of something hiding back there in the trees (for those who don't know, it's a thestral) besides just the eyes (which glow in the dark, by the way) so I put some translucent liquid clay on there and then took my heat gun to it to shine it up a bit.  Well, I overdid the heat a little and browned some of the leaves.  Luckily, it worked out okay.  I really like the results. (Of course, I had to burn some more of the leaves to make it look like it was on purpose, and then I discovered that hitting the tree trunks with the heat brought out the colors in them- smoked up the house real good.  Not a technique I recommend unless you are outside and wearing a mask.)

Here's a closeup of the grass and rocks.  I put several shades of green through the extruder with a really tiny hole, cut short pieces and rolled one end to a point for each blade of grass.  For the rocks, I mixed three bits of translucent clay with pepper, ground oregano, and ground cloves.  Then I made them into the little shapes you see here.  (I burned the rocks with the heat gun a little too, although that wasn't intentional- the trans clay just really burns easily.  Hmmm, I think Rocke needs to take away the heat gun...)

And here you can see the depth of the piece.  I absolutely love it! 

I plan on making some more similar pieces only with joshua trees and cacti.  We used to live in Arizona and I love the shapes the trunks of those trees make.  We'll see how that goes.

I know I promised another tutorial soon but I had a few setbacks and am still working on it.  Bear with me, maybe I'll have two in a row.

Korrina