Today's blog is broght to you by laziness and shameless self-promotion.

I didn't have a picture of what i really wanted to show; it's overcast...so here's an apple (...made by me!) 

Yeah, this' what I do on my own.  My polymer clay 'skills' are laughably bad so I like to make complicated bead work!  And since I am keeping with the food-inspired theme I'll only show food-themed bead work.  I got this design from ... a book I can't quite remember, the title's all in Japanese so I'll have to find it out and update this post later.  I changed around the base beads; the original used bicones but I chose round glass and seed beads,  added a leaf and modified the stem so it has added tension pulling on the bottom of the apple to keep the shape.  I then hung it on a sterling bracelet.  Not a complicated piece, really.  Short and easy.

This 'un was a little trickier.  It's a watch with a beaded 'cage' around it to make it resemble a watermelon.  I got this design from another Japanese bead book, but I didn't have any of the sizes of beads, couldn't find a watch the size the recipe used and had a devil of a time making it fit.  I just rounded up a bunch of substitutions and hoped they worked out. 

And it did but there's a flaw to the basic design that I didn't notice when I saw it in the book: when the watch goes dead you can either tear the bead work up or have a necklace made from a non-functioning watch. Meh, it was a fun exercise at any rate. Everything was made in right-angle weave with #2 nylon filament.    I don't get much chance to do bead stuff now days so I really enjoy it when I do get to.

 Earrings returned!

(and a sale to deal with the huge surplus)

That's right.  Those vipers finally returned my damned earrings.  Now I have 155 pair just hanging about.  So it's time for a sale to make up for the losses incurred...barely. :/

New items!

   New Items up at the shop!

       Finally able to start putting new items up; it was all hampered by obnoxious problems with my image editing program...the one I use for everything: Paint Shop Pro9.  Yes, yes, I know.."you should use Photoshop!"  Well, I don't have the scratch to blow on it and refuse to pirate.  'sides, I really despise working in 256 colors in PS.

          I'm digressing from my point, PSP9 suddenly decides to start, after resizing, adjusting, and adding borders, when I go to save and close it 'acts' like it saves but when I go to close it asks me if I 'want to save before closing'.  I'm  kinda like..."wth?" and I say yes, and go to close and the same dialogue pops up.  I do this a few times, just close without saving and find my unedited picture along with some broken temp-save file newly created in the folder!  It used to do this once in a while but now it started doing it nearly every time and it would take upwards of 6 tries of closing and re-opening and re-editing just for the blasted thing to save!  It turned a job that took an hour into one that took 3 times as long!

       Then I realized it was triggered by resizing and then trying to save, so as long as I re-size first then perform another action it saves just fine!  GAH!  I would re-install but I don't know where my discs are at the moment...so, while it's vexing I found a work-around.  

...

So, yeah...I can easily edit pictures and list stuffs, now!  Now all I need is an application to list stuff and I'll be set~  

Handmade Spark - TheMenu - Polymer clay and miniature food

Handmade Spark - TheMenu - Polymer clay and miniature food

Visit our shop~

Here's one of the new items I've been working on!

Its a little resin cinnamon bear!  Like the honey bears it's completely carved, by hand, from polymer clay then cast in jewelry-grade resin. It's tinted with alcohol ink so it retains it's transparency and it really looks nice in the light.  It's accented with a 4mm Swarovski crystal in Lt. Siam and the chain is accented with size 11 Japanese seed beads in Siam as well.  I think it turned out really nice; I plan on making a complete rainbow of colors!  I love rainbows...it's the early 80's kid in me.

~Catrina

Hm, blogging is hard when you're not a very chatty type. 

       Going to take pictures today; I'd be doing it right now but the sun hasn't shifted low enough and the nice new blinds I had to get? I can't reach the cord. I'm way too short, even standing on the back of the couch...which is entirely foolish for someone as clumsy as I am.

        I have a whole bunch of these on my desk top, about to be finished with them!

 This is a necklace; there's a matching ring which I'm working on, too.
 It's called the Deluxe Breakfast ring and it can be found here!  It might not look like it but it takes a bit of work.  Every single item is either shaded, glazed or both.  The orange slice, for example is completely made by hand; NOT from a cane! It's also textured to resemble real pulp, not just stuck with a needle several times.  It's then glazed with two different glazes!  And that's just the slice.  I have to make the bail on the back out of another type of finding by hammering it with my bench block to boot.

       The other thing on my desk  takes a little less work, but is still heavily shaded, detailed and uses more thane one glaze finish for a little more realism. 
These are a pair of ear studs and can also be found
on my shop.   I have two pair of these being finished up along with toast ear studs with a heart-shaped butter pat on 'em.   I also have a bowl of alphabet soup we're turning into a ring, an unshaded grapefruit we're turning into a ring, a pair of jalapeno and pepperoni earrings... and a teacup filled with "blood".
Today's blog turned out a bit better than the others! Hopefully they didn't go from "boring because they say nothing" to "boring because they are overly verbose". :P

~Catrina

Not much going on today; kinda slacked off last night but I'm trying to come up with all new designs for the jewelry aspect.  More later.

This is what I'm working on; it's a secret...sorta.

Well...this is my first post, nothing but a 'Hello' and 'stay tuned' for tonight.  It's off to do resin, now!

~Catrina