News of the year :)

A week and a half ago (on Dec 2) I became a mom, now we have a beautiful baby son, whom we called Ross :)
I don't think I'll get back to polymer clay for a while yet :)

Polymer Play Days 2010 (and more)

Hi everyone!

It has been a while since I wrote anything in my blog. It seems that the less you write, the more difficult it becomes to just sit down and write something :))

And I do have something to write about! Not about my creations (I am not very creative lately), but about a fantastic polymer clay festival called Polymer Play Days, which took part here in England a couple of weeks ago. Jist like the last year the festival was a lot of fun. We had 6 workshops, half a day each, with 6 fantastic teachers. To my delight I also had an opportunity to speak Russian again, as there were 3 more Russian-speaking wonderful ladies apart from me this year :)) And I was happy to sit again at the same table with Diane and Jo.

So these are the things I made during three days of workshops:
Alison Gallant taught us to make a chrysanthemum cane, which we used to make different kinds of beads


Sylvie Peraud taught us to make mosaics. This is a technique where you have to sand your pieces for a very long time, but the results are fabulous.
These are my unfinished yet items

And this is what mosaics should look like when sanded and buffed, these are pieces made by Sylvie herself.

On a second day we had workshops with a lovely couple from Spain, Natalia and Dani.
Natalia has shown us how to make these felt broach style beads

Dani has shown us a very interesting and complicated technique of making hollow beads. I did not like my beads, which is why I will show you Dani's examples (Photo from Olga's blog):

I liked the ideas of these hollow beads, I will have to try making them at home some time.
On a third day we had workshops with two fabulous American artists, Donna Kato and Lindly Haunani.
On a Donna Kato's class we were making funky rings with rotating discs. My ring:


Lindly's class was about colours and Skinner blends.
I only had time to make these two plates at the workshop:

Then I made a few more items out of leftovers of Skinner blends at home.

I think I am almost inspired now to get back to clay :))

And that wasn't all yet! :))
After all the classes on a last day we had a charity auction for Macmillan cancer support. I won a gorgeous seed bead necklace! I think making such a jewellery of seed beads is extremely complicated, and I am very happy to own this masterpiece.





And that is not all yet! :))) We had a raffle! I was lucky again, and I won a beautiful ring made by Sylvie!

I bought myself a lovely pendant by one of my favorite Spanish polymer clay artists, Noelia. I love how accurate and neat her works are.


Not to make two posts in one day I also want to show you the beautiful beads I bought from a polymer clay artist Elena (shim-shoni)

And that is it for now! I hope you enjoyed the photos! :)))

The end of holidays

Nice and long Easter holidays have finished, and it is time to go back to work (sigh). Last week I have been working on a large wholesale order for my flowers, they are to be sold in a bead shop in Hawaii! How exciting! :) I have sent this collection, I hope they go well there.
My favorite flowers of the new ones are these

Also I had a time to make a new tutorial, which I posted in my Etsy

The book has arrived!

And the first thing I did, was find my page, of course :))) After writing this post I will sit down, and enjoy looking through all the photos, and reading what people wrote about themselves.

You can see the cover and contents of the book here
I want to say Thank You to Martina and Anke for the great idea and a wonderful job they have done with the book!

Spring, fish bracelet and more :)

Warm and sunny spring has finally arrived to the north of England:

Although the forecast suggests us not to relax, because as much as a snow is expected tomorrow. So not to waste a sunny Sunday,today we went to the seaside. To catch some fish :)))
I caught enough fish to make a bracelet! :))




I caught some other kinds of fish, the stripey ones, they will be used in some accessories. Here is all the fish I "caught" today :))

And a few new flower bracelets, which were also made using commercial metallic frames.

Pips jewellery

I love buying other artist's polymer clay creations! This time I bought a gorgeous aquarium bead from Pippa, whose shop you can find here. Her new line of focal beads is incredible!!! I fell in love with those with fish, and could not resist to buy one :))

The colours of the bead are beautiful, and it is sanded to such a high shine, which I never managed to reach :) Have a look at Pippa's other focals, they all are gorgeous!

Featured

Marylee has featured my tulip bracelet in her blog.



Thank you Marylee!

More cupcakes

I was busy baking cupcakes last night :))



Detailed photos of every cupcake are in my shop

"European polymer clay art" book

The "European polymer clay art" book will be out soon, in the end of March. And my poppy bracelet is on the cover, hoorray!!! :))))

You can pre-order the book here, and I already did :)
45 polymer clay artists, 16 European contries and more than 200 photos

A fruit pie and cupcakes

Is it a lunch time yet? :)) These polymer clay treats make me hungry :)))

A little fruit cake:


And two cupcakes. Cupcakes are very popular in all kinds of crafts. In our Newcastle craft mafia quite a few girls are doing something with cupcakes. Cassandra prints them on t-shirts (tea shirts, as she calls them :))), Amanda makes them of felt, girls from Pet Lamb Patisserie bake real ones. Now I will add my polymer clay ones :)
White cream:


Pink cream:

My new craft room

We moved to a new house, and the first thing I did was setting up my new room for claying! :)) I love my new room! It is very sunny and warm, just gorgeous! :))) I wish I never had to leave this room :)))
A view from the door:

I keep all my claying stuff on shelves and in drawer chest from IKEA (my favorite series of theirs - Leksvik). There I have instruments, epoxy resin, paints, pastels, seed beads, and so on. The table in the middle is very light by weight, so it is easy to take it and put it by the window. It is my table for taking pictures of jewellery.In those plastic boxes on a table I keep all my Etsy stuff :)

Books and magazines about polymer clay

Here I keep commercial beads and findings for making jewellery

My joy - my new oven! :) I bought it cheap from eBay and it is wonderful. Unlike my old oven, this one hold the temperature nicely, so now I can just put my beads in it for a certain time, and go away. With my old oven I had to sit next to it, and to manually control the temperature by turning oven on and off :)))

Working table. Using moving house as an excuse I took this table into my room :)) It is a computer table, but it very heavy, which is ideal for attaching a pasta machine to it. The handy lamp is from IKEA.

I keep clay inside the table, easy to reach.

At the moment I am trying out molds for miniature bakery I bought from this shop). I like seeing other people's miniature food, so I decided to give it a go and try making some :)

My little bonsai, I wanted to keep it in my room, but I am afraid it is too hot for it on this window, so we had to move it into a different room.

And finally one of my trial cakes.

Laura's cupcakes

Cute, cute, cute! :)) Lovely Laura has sent my these two cupcake beads!

I think I will use them in future in some themed bracelet :) Thank you, Laura!!!