This week, the Shops with Less Than (10) Sales guild’s featured studio is Tali’s Creations.
She has many quality items to chose from: earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and jewelry sets, utilizing Swarovski crystals, semi-precious stones, glass and lampwork beads.
The next ArtFire Crazy Train rider for Superbowl Sunday and the day following is Broken Wing Designs.
Peggy has a wide range of prices for her items, and all are quite beautiful. Most of the items were created by Peggy herself, but she also carries some vintage Native American made items she has collected over the years.
Here are some pretty copper and turquoise cross earrings, affordably priced at $15:
Or for a mid-range price, a wonderful copper cuff set with a giant turquoise cabachon, at $85:
And here are a couple luxury items: a vintage sterling silver and turquoise cuff by Native American silversmith Oscar Betz, at $675:
Or a beautiful vintage concho belt made by Native American silversmith DL Williams, at $1,545:
She has some pretty drool-worthy items there, wouldn’t you say? Go check out the rest of her studio to see what else she has to offer. I love her handmade copper items, she heats the copper and it brings out such wonderful color variations!
Hello everyone. One of the guilds I joined recently, Polymer Clay Smooshers, has challenges each month, and even though I was a little late in the game when I joined, the deadline for it was the 4th of this month. I had maybe about a week I think, to come up with something. Luckily, I already had one item done, it had just been sitting around unphotographed and unloved. The other item, I came up with after making some similar pendants previously, and decided to morph the last one I was working on, to match the challenge theme given by the guild.
My first item, a Steampunk-ish polymer clay heart pendant:
Then, my newest creation, a pink & white polymer clay swirly heart necklace on organza ribbon:
Both are heavily influenced by the work of Christi Friesen, if it isn’t obvious and you’re not familiar with that polymer clay artist & author. 
Anyway, sometime today, if it’s not there already, the guild master will be posting the rest of the items from the other guild members who participated in February’s challenge, to the Polymer Clay Smooshers’ guild blog. Go check them out, and then vote on what you’d like to see guild members take on for the next month’s challenge!
Take care!
The ArtFire Crazy Train rider for Feb 5-6, is Glasstastic Treasures.
Jamie makes some really cute and pretty lampwork beads, and also has some finished jewelry at her Studio.
First, a cute little dragon! I love dragons.
Next, if you’re a dog lover, how about a little bone charm with a paw print on it?
Or how about a fish pendant?
She has many more beads in her studio, from Halloween themed beads such as mummies, Frankenstein, and “evil eyes“, Twilight inspired beads, Christmas themed beads, to flower adorned beads. Go take a look at what she has available!
The ArtFire Crazy Train rider for today and tomorrow, is Hosslass Art.
This is an artist after my own heart – paintings of horses! (There’s a unicorn in there, too!) There are also paintings of wildlife, but horses seem to be the main theme at this artist’s studio.
How about a bookmark?
Or a nifty business card organizer or journal?
Or my favorite, a unicorn:
Please go and look at what else she has to offer!
This week’s “Shops with Less than (10) Sales” guild spotlight is for our esteemed guildmaster, VA Beach Quilter. She has more than ten sales, but that doesn’t matter, she works very hard as our guildmaster, so why shouldn’t she step into the spotlight?
There are SO many things in her studio, from cute little coasters, to rag quilts, to quilted purses, and she even makes market bags! And there are also items for babies and children – bibs, blankets, toddler purses, burp blankets – all so cute!!
Please check out her studio!
Another guild I joined recently, the Polymer Clay Smooshers Guild, is having a scavenger hunt for Valentines!
First, go to our guild blog for more information on how to play, and the links to all of the guild member’s studios. Once you know what you’re looking for, have fun hunting!
There are some prizes to be won!
The game ends at 6pm CST on Saturday, February 6, and winners will be drawn Sunday, February 7.
Will you be able to find all of the hidden icons? 
Good luck!
The ArtFire Crazy Train rider for the next two days is Two Belles & a Bead.
She has a lot of items to choose from, but I really like her earrings!
These look like pieces of hard candy, yummy!
How about some Mint Chocolate Chip crystal earrings:
And if you’re not a dangly earring wearer, how about some stud earrings?
I joined a couple of guilds at Artfire recently, and so each week I’ll be promoting some of the guild members.
This week, here are some items from a member of Shops with Less than (10) Sales:
Check out her shop! She lives in Beaverton, Oregon.
Today’s Artfire Crazy Train Rider is Fabric Sew Simple, or “Designs By Barb” which is her Artfire moniker.
If you sew, quilt, or just collect fabric, this gal has loads of different fabrics for you to choose from, and a handful of patterns, too.
Here’s a nice colorful fabric by Robert Kaufman:
And here is a cute pattern for a little girl’s dress!
And for you quilters, here is an example of her pre-cut quilting blocks:
Like I said, she has pages of fabrics to look through and choose from. Go check her out!
While I have my 15% off sale going on until December 10, I also am doing a daily “Item of the day” special, which is free shipping on that particular item for the day, for shipping in the USA. International shipping will be 50% off for that item. I will change the special every day, I’ve been trying to start with items with the lowest views.
Today that item is my hematite heart bracelet (non-magnetic hematite).
If you’re interested, click on the picture above and it should take you to my studio. Remember each of these items has this special for one day only. Given that I have only thirteen items listed currently, it will not be long before the item gets repeated in my special, so if you see something you like and want to wait for it to be on special, be sure to check out my Studio every day to see what’s on special that day. Once it starts a repeat the special may not be the same – I may start doing a percentage off, especially after my 15% off everything sale is over, or a certain dollar amount, or free shipping again, you never know.
Thanks for looking!
I’ve been quite bad about keeping up on these promotions of other studios, so I am going to work on that from here on.
Today’s Artfire Crazy Train Rider is Clara Clips.
She has such CUTE items in her shop! If you have little girls and love to put barrettes in their hair, you might want to check out this studio!
Here is a little snowman:
Or maybe a poinsettia?
Or a cute little butterfly headband?
She is located in Canada, however, so keep this in mind if you’re shopping from the USA, shipping times will be slightly longer coming from the great white North!
So I baked the Santa, Snowmen and Angel beads I made over the past week, yesterday. Here they are all together:
I forgot to put halos on the angels, and I’m debating whether to add them since their flesh color already seems to have darkened just from the 30 minutes they spent in the oven already, compared to the Santas where I used the same type and color of clay.
I’m a little disappointed with the green Pardo that I used to make the holly leaves on the Snowmen’s hats, it turned out very dark. I’m not sure if that is because they were such a very thin amount or if it’s just because they’re laid upon black hats and it’s picking up the color from the hats.
But I am happy with how the Santas turned out!
These are just preliminary “show and tell” pictures of course. I still have to loop the wires on the Santas and the Snowmen and maybe add some glaze to the Snowmen, angel wings and Santa hats to bring out the pretty colors in that mother-of-pearl Pardo, and then I’ll take the pictures that I’ll use when I post these up at my Artfire shop. Hopefully under better lighting the green holly leaves will show a little better but even with the naked eye they’re still pretty dark. Oh well, live and learn.
I purchased this from Amazon about a week and a half ago, as one of the things I am interested in trying out with polymer clay is making mini foods. Not dollhouse style mini foods, but precisely what this book is demonstrating – mini food charms. I am anxious to try my hand at this but I need to finish up some other projects first before I dive into it.
The projects in this book are extremely cute. I have my eye on the cupcake, cinnamon roll and pumpkin pie projects specifically, so when I have the chance to start working on these, one of those will be the first on my list. The authors take the reader through the general basics of what tools you’ll need for the projects, and what colors of clay they work with, even down to how much of each color to use. They also show you a couple of basic jewelry making techniques that you’ll need to know to make these items into charms – a wire wrapped loop, a double sided loop, and a figure eight loop – which in this case is actually a little longer than a typical figure eight loop, so one can push this loop into the clay charm before baking. There’s a quick blurb on bead stringing, crimping a crimp bead, stringing beads on nylon, and making stud earrings, among other things.
For the actual projects, they’re set up exactly like food recipes: a list of ingredients, with the colors and the amounts of clay you’ll need for each component, including a handy little actual-size graphic illustration – basically a colored circle that you can hold up a ball of clay in front of to gauge how much clay to use, and any tools you’ll need for that particular project. It also notes how many charms it will yield for the ingredients listed, which for most of these is one or two charms. Then there are several color pictures demonstrating from start to finish, how to create these cute little charms. And at the end of each project they offer a suggestion of how to incorporate your newly created items into a jewelry piece.
The authors have also included a few real food recipes for you to try out if you’re inclined: Old-fashioned lemonade, cinnamon rolls, and a cheddar omelet, to name a few. I think I may try out their recipe for sugar cookies for the holidays.
If you’ve ever been interested in creating little mini food charms, this would be the book to get. I’ll be sure to post the results of my attempts when I’ve had the opportunity to give it a whirl.
I tend to flit back and forth between projects. So I started painting the picture of my daughter, got as far as getting a little of the undertones of her skin in place, and then set it aside in favor of working with my polymer clays again.
Hobby Lobby is opening stores in town, and I came across one very near my day job, so I went to check them out one day at lunch, 40% off coupon in hand. I walked out with a few packages of this new polymer clay made with beeswax, Pardo – in red (ruby), green (amazonite), white (mother of pearl), and black (onyx). Read the rest of this entry »
I worked on my initial sketch of my daughter tonight, and after two tries and then some clean up to lighten the pencil marks for painting, here it is:
Final sketch of my daughter
I can hardly wait to start painting it, though I may not get to that until tomorrow night after a family outing, due to the late time tonight. Then again I may try starting with some skin tone mixing on scrap paper to get an idea of what I need to mix…
Based on one of my previous posts where I said I was going to start back into drawing and watercolors.. well, here is my first project:
my daughter
On an artists’ forum I recently joined, it was suggested in a class that was done back in 2006, to try overlaying a the reference photograph and the sketch to get an idea of where any tweaks or fixes may be needed. I did that and there are a few spots that I will need to fix before I will put paint on the paper, minor stuff – like her eyes are just a little too high (especially the right one on the page), her nose needs to be just a touch wider and her mouth needs some adjusting. Then her body – arm/shoulder position and her dress need some adjustments, too. But compared against the picture, it’s a rather good likeness of her. I think someone somewhere (on Plurk I think) said getting back into drawing/painting is a little like riding a bike, you don’t really forget… they were right. Once I got over that fear that what I put on paper would look like absolute crap, it wasn’t as hard as I thought to get back into it.
Of course, this is just the sketching part so far… goodness knows what kind of chaos will reign once I start putting the paints on the paper! 
Sorry folks, I hadn’t realized that my comments were set to close after 14 days. I opened it up so there is not currently a limit. I may set it again later though but for something like maybe 90 days instead.
I was at the craft store the other day during my lunch break, just looking around mostly to see if there was anything I could use my 40% off coupon on. I came across a book from my favorite watercolor artist, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. (Also, see her blog at this address).
I haven’t done watercolor in a very long time, probably not in earnest since high school. There’s a story behind that, but for another day. Anyway, occassionally I’ll check out her site, and something deep down will stir and I’ll idly think to myself, “self, you need to get back into painting with watercolors.” A couple of years ago when this vague desire cropped up, I bought myself some new watercolor paints and paper, and some brushes. But I never ended up doing anything with them, and so they sat in a corner for a while. Read the rest of this entry »
