Lots of Canes

 I started out trying to make new borders for my canes and ended up making a variety of canes to use in more complicated canes.

This is the first border cane I made.

I used it to make this pin

and I used it on the larger hearts and then used the scraps for the smaller heart beads. 

 Small canes from the border cane and end pieces

Corkscrew with border cane

More corkscrew canes and a Skinner blend bullseye cane

Border cane in green and black. This is my favorite, I like green and black together especially this olive green.

                                         Complimentary canes to use with the border cane

                                        Close up of flower cane and corkscrew canes.

                                         Pendants I made with end pieces and scraps.

I have beads in the oven, maybe I'll take photos tomorrow. I am suppose to be baking Christmas cookies and my muse wants to make canes... guess who won!

That's it for today.

Thanks for stopping by.

Polymer Clay Art Nouveau Canes & Hearts

I have always been a fan of Art Deco and Art Nouveau designs so I decided to try my hand at Art Nouveau canes

I haven't worked with Kato clay for awhile... I had forgotten how time consuming it is to condition, especially the older formula... lots of hammering and swearing was involved.  I tucked one hunk of particularly hard blue clay inside my bra to warm it up while I conditioned the other colors.  I then spent 20 minutes trying to find where I put the blue clay.....

Here are the canes.  Click on the photos for a closer look.

                                                  Not crazy about this one... it's okay

This is one of my favorites. 

This one is pretty cool too. 

I like this one. 

Another set of Art Nouveau Cane

                                                          Least favorite of this set

I love this one!

Another favorite

This one will make fun beads. 

If you are wondering where the blue is, I mixed it with green and black to get the dark green... of course I didn't record the formula, I always forget to write things down.... I just mix colors together until I come up with a color I like.


I used the cane ends and scrap pieces to make hearts. These haven't been sanded or buffed yet.... my dremel died. I'm hoping Santa will bring me a new one.

I'm making more canes but I have to spend the next few days "wrapping" my gift for this years gift wrap challenge.  I want to get it out of the way so I can stop fretting about it. I'm thinking this challenge is going to a good one... several folks claim to have the winning gift.

Thats it for now.

Thanks for stopping by.

Please feel free to ask questions or leave a comment, I love hearing from you.

More Mixed Media "Circles"

Staying with the "Circles" theme I made a few more pieces.

Click on the photos for a closer look.

The first one is a work-in-progress, I haven't decided which end is up or how I want to use it....

which do you like best.... this way?

or this way?

This pendant/pin is very similar to the  first one I showed you a couple weeks ago.  I made this one for a friend.

I used a different method for this one.   When I made the first "circles" pendant I stamped the design on the raw clay.  This time I cured the tile first then stamped the design, re-cured, added a thin layer of Kato liquid clay, cured  for an additional 30 minutes and then hit  it with a heat gun to clear the liquid clay. The stamped design is brighter on this one.  This method is more time consuming but I like the end result.

I gave this one a layered look and stamped it with silver ink. I used 18 gauge amber wire woven with 28 gauge silver tone wire and adorned with carnelian beads.

a different angle

My family is getting ready for our annual gift wrapping challenge.  The excitement is building... soon to be grandson-in-law Cory is boasting he will be the winner this year.  We shall see!!  I never imagined when we started the challenge that it would become such a hit...

Thanks for stopping by.