I call thee Gay Zebra...

I made a polymer clay cane that looks like a gay zebra. Not what I was going for but whatever, I think it's pretty friggin' sweet. It's super colourful and each bead looks completely different. I soooo wanted to take pictures of every single bead just because I found something interesting with each one. The pictures are sort of a "start to finish" look at the process.

The start of the rainbow skinner blend. I loooooove making rainbow blends. So much colour!!!



After being run through the pasta machine a good 50 million times.



The gay zebra cane. Told ya it looked like a gay zebra. I don't lie.



A completed bead!



A bouquet of beads!



Completed necklace!

So about two years ago, I broke my tooth around a filing while eating soup. Soup. Seriously. It never really gave me a problem so I didn't worry about it. Well it starting give me trouble. Like nearly unbearable pain. I couldn't sleep and when I did, I had to sleep with my hand in a fist under my cheek to put pressure around the tooth. It hurt. Bad. So yesterday I hit my breaking point and went to the dentist. I guessed I was going to need a root canal and I was correct! Gold star for me! It was my fourth root canal so I knew the drill. Heh, drill. Get it? Anyway, the procedure itself went fine. It was long. The dentist showed me some of my own nerves that he pulled out of my tooth. Awesome. And gross. And awesome. Jaw and tooth and hurting pretty badly today. Can't close my mouth properly*. Hopefully it will feel better soon since I need to have a post put in before the end of the year. Yikes!

*that's what she said. Heh.

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I've been a busy girl, I promise!

One step forward, three steps back....

< / 3

Soooo easy. Kinda like your mom.

Hello 25 minute project. You make me happy.

Monday Night Special.

Made of glass and magnet beads

The round glass ones are handmade beads from a necklace that my brother bought me in Murano, Italy. As per usual, I took it apart and made a new one.

Okay, I'm back. You can all calm down.

It's been a crazy week and a half. I quit one job, moved into a new apartment and started a new job. Everything has changed.

Good news - I heart my new apartment. It's twice the size of my old place. So far the new job seems alright. I love walking to work.

Bad news - I've done very little crafting over the past week and a half. It's been itching to get out but with everything in boxes, it required more effort than I was willing to give. Except for today. And today I sorta cheated. Really, all I did was cut apart two previous necklaces that I made and never got around to wearing, and made something new with them. It happens frequently. I figure if I don't get around wearing it 6 months after I made it, I probably never will. So I just end up cutting them apart and reworking them. For this project I just used the felt beads I made previously and mixed them with some polymer clay beads that I made from a rainbow skinner blend.

Now my itch has been scratched. And that's how I roll.

So I changed my mind once again....

I remade the necklace shortly after last night's post. I just didn't like the focal bead and I knew I wasn't going to wear it if I kept it the way it was. Soooooo....I took it apart and restrung it without the focal bead. Much better.

Must go put a zipper on an armoured jacket. Goddamn those things are heavy!

Screw you Victoria Day. I didn't like you anyway!

Crappy thing about working for an American company in Canada? I have to work Canadian holidays. Bleh. Nothing downtown is open for lunch, the buses run on Sunday schedule and I can't buy yarn! I've been working on a new crocheted amigurumi project based on this little guy (some of you will who he is!) and I think I have most of the pattern worked out. I started a prototype to see if my pattern was going to make sense and so far it's looking great! Now I just need to find the right colours.

In other craftinista news, I've made a new necklace with the polymer clay beads I made a couple of weeks ago and some *upcycled beads from a necklace that my brother bought me in Turkey (I think it was Turkey??) that I tore apart. I'm still unsure if I like it. It's a little on the chunkier side than I am used to. But it's shiny and sparkly so maybe it'll grow on me!


*Family members have started buying me inexpensive bead necklaces when they go overseas. Awesome! And they all know I don't plan on wearing it as is but rather to break it apart and use it for my own stuff.

The birds and the bees they are wise to the lies...

Two bad things I learned today; 20 hour migraines are quite unpleasant and the smell of burnt popcorn lingers. Forever. Two awesome things I learned today; Xbox Live 1 vs. 100 and that Swiss Chalet delivers in just over 20 minutes.

Finished up the necklace with the beads that I mentioned in the last post. C-h-h-h-h-h-eck it out.

Another one in the bag....

I love doing 8-bit designs when I work with polymer clay for one simple reason - it's bloody easy. You simply lay the clay out according to the colour chart and reduce. Not difficult, not even a little bit.

I actually based the skull design on a t-shirt that I saw my cousin wear last week. There were only two colours in the design so it was a snap. I custom blended the darker purple colour as I did not have enough of one any one shade of purple for the whole project. I've learned to pre-blend all the colours and cut all the pieces needed for the project before I actually put it together. When I first started making clay canes, I didn't do this step and it always caused a lot of headaches when I would be half way through a project to only then realise that I did not have enough of a certain colour - and it always tended to be a colour that was custom blended so there was no way to recreate it. I would end up having to scrap the whole project. A waste of time and an even bigger waste of clay (and money).

The project turned out well and was a good way to waste an evening. I've already made a pair of earrings and have the beads completed for a necklace but that will have to wait for another night!

PS. Click here to buy a pair of the earrings!

Blue (felted) balls...oh and purple and magenta and orange and....

Finished up the felted beads project late last night. They may a nice quick project when you're looking for a little instant gratification of finishing a project.

Once the beads were felted and dry, I simply strung them on some bead thread with some seed beads and shell beads that I had from an upcycled necklace that wasn't really my style. In the end I think it turned out pretty cute. And I gotta say, I love the new roving that I got. The colours are super vibrant and it's super soft. Such better quality than the roving that I've found locally. Next I'm going to try needle felting.

Today Lamb and I went on a shopping and lunch date. We stopped by Michael's in hopes of finding a wooden bag handle for the bag that I'm making for my sister. Unfortunately the few they had, weren't going to work. They had a few wood ones but they looked like bamboo and it just wouldn't have matched the style of the bag. And there were a few plastic ones that I could have worked with but they weren't as wide as what I needed. Back to square one. I'm going to try and make a trip downtown tomorrow afternoon to check out the yarn store and see if they have anything that might work. If not I'm going to have to reconsider my design. Args.

Although the search for a handle failed, I did some across a few good books that I was interested in. I got Not Your Mamma's Felting and Beautiful Knitting. Beautiful Knitting looked helpful in improving my sub par knitting skills.Right now they only thing I can knit is scarves and scarf shaped items. Not terribly useful.

I love Geeks.

My hands have never hurt as much as they did after this project. Honestly. Using my clay gun once makes my hands go red and raw. Using it about a hundred times within a few hours, made it impossible for me to touch anything for awhile without squirming in pain. I've been making polymer clay canes for a few years now but I've never really tried making any pictures within them (except for a once failed skull, so bad). I decided on an 8-bit Nintendo character as it would be pretty easy to work with. I printed off a pretty basic picture of one, broke it down into a grid pattern and got to work! Originally I was going to do with the more typical mushroom colours but I was lacking in orange and red so I decided to go with cute (and would match most of my clothing) instead.