Pictures From My Garden

It is the time for irises. I love these flowers as much as I like orchids. Irises have one definite advantage over orchids in my eyes – I can grow them!

Polymer Clay Vase with Sculpted Orchids

I just finished the vase that I had been working on for the last two weeks. It is 10” tall and 2.5” in diameter at the top and the bottom. I like its form – it is very gracious yet sturdy. I have it covered with polymer clay in copper and bronze colors, with lots of fresh-water pearls and textured details at the bottom and hand-sculpted milefiori leaves and orchids at the top.

I like this combination of a rough textured base with leaves and orchids. I am already working on a step-by-step tutorial for a pendant/focal bead in a similar style.

Publication Update

Exciting news! Shirley Rufener, who wrote a new book on polymer clay "Polymer Clay Mixed Media Jewelry: Fresh Techniques, Projects and Inspiration", sent me a link to the book's cover on amazon.com.

Shirley accepted pictures of two of my faux cloisonne necklaces to be published in this book, so I am officially a contributor.

She says that release date is in the Fall although Amazon lists December 16. The book is set up with a short gallery of projects at the end of each chapter that will enhance and supply inspiration for that chapter (based on the media or material added to the clay) such as pastel chalks, transfers, metal clay, inks/powders, etc...

Faux Cloisonne Class in Kansas City

This Saturday I did my faux cloisonne class in Kansas City. There were nineteen people in the room and lots of enthusiasm. As always, I offered a dozen of different heart design sketches to get people started but encouraged them to experiment with their own designs. My goal for this class is to teach the technique, and not just one or two projects. I was very excited to see people coming up with all these different ideas. Too bad I did not have enough time to take more pictures. The few I took are below:

If you want to see more pictures from this class, follow this link to the page that Lynette Fisk, the Kansas City Polymer Clay Guild Volunteer Webmaster, have already put together after the class.

Special thanks to Debbie Updegraff, Vice President of the Guild, and Teri Stettnisch, the President, for organizing this class.

The Polymer Clay Guild in Kansas City is only two-years old, but they already have a very admirable group atmosphere, a really nice place for the meetings, and a good number of talented and generous people. I hope this guild will continue growing and proving a wonderful creativity outlet for all polymer clay enthusiasts in the area.

New Tutorial Is Ready

The faux lampwork tutorial is now available from my site.

Here is the link: http://www.eugenascreations.com/t-tutorial-lampwork.html

Faux Lampwork Beads

I have some cool beads to show. They are a result of my recent experiments. For a long time I wanted to re-create the look of lampwork glass beads in clay. I tried it a couple of times in the past, but never liked the results. This time I am finally happy about the design.

There will be a new tutorial for this technique. I am almost done writing it and shall have it on my site in a couple of days.

Added on May 2, 2008:

I now have these beads listed in two separate auctions at Just Beads. Please take a look. (And yes, I know I messed up the thumbnail photos for those listings, but they cannot be fixed unfortunately...)