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Bonnie's Memorial Book

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This past weekend I helped celebrate the life of a dear close friend.  Bonnie was like a mother, a mentor and was filled with the joy of living.  I was her interior designer for 28 years, her ‘foster’ daughter (she had several younger women who held her in high esteem and called her ‘mother’) and her friend. When I was asked to get the memorial signing book, I could only do what I had always done for her when she needed a special item.  I made it.  She loved Hawaii, the color purple and Mickey Mouse!  She also loved teddy bears, parties, sparkle and traveling. After searching in several stores for the right book, I found one in Joann’s.  It was a padded fabric backed scrapbook that I could take apart and personalize.  Never having used polymer clay on fabric or in as large a piece, I began experimenting.  The book was 8” x 8” and just fit in my convection oven.  The base of the piece was blues, purples and teal colors blended together. I textured it and put it on a piece of

Amethyst and Another Day at ‘My Personal Polymer Workshop’

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Lazy River Technique with Amethyst Chips By now, I've lost track of what day I've made what technique in polymer clay.  I do know that I am enjoying trying the various ideas in Julie Picarello’s book, ‘Patterns in Polymer - Imprint & Accent Bead Techniques’.  I have never taken the time to explore a technique book in depth and I find that I like being immersed in polymer with a focus.  Usually I flip through a book, stop and look at something and go, “hmmm – that would be interesting to try!”  Today’s focus is ‘Lazy River’. My Lazy River is definitely different than Julie's but I use the same techniques. My colors are purple, green, teal, translucent, glitter and silver. My theme is nature, leaves with shimmering dew, moonlight through forests and swirling hidden streams.  A friend gave me some amethyst chips and I decided to use them as accents and work them into some of the layers of clay.  Just an experiment! Large chips in circles for earrings, layered

Sharing a Display Solution

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 Finding display pieces and ways to maximize space on a sale table is a problem we all face at some time.  Our homeowners association has an annual Art/Craft Show in September and I needed to find a way to display more of my pieces without getting too cluttered. I saw this idea at a craft show last year and decided to make a multi-layered stand.  Home Depot, here I come!  In the a/c section a gentleman helped me find the right size pipe and told me how to lock it in place as a tube.  It took 3 sets of hands to actually accomplish this part (my neighbors are great about helping) and the pipe stood as a pipe!  Peter, who always helps with the structural part of my wild ideas, made a secure base.  I cut flanges on one end of the pipe and he screwed the flanges on to the wood base.  I had a roll of aluminum left from some 10 year old project and used it as the base for each layer.  The roll of silver electrical tape worked great to attach each layer to the pipe.  Then I