Dear Santa

All I want for Christmas is a brand new.......stunningly beautiful craft space.  Sigh, one of these days :-)

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See you...In December!

Already...I know!

We're slowly winding down the classes - but certainly not the store, as this is of course one of our most busiest times with everyone picking up supplies to make the gifts they should have started a month or two ago. (Guilty as charged!)

We do have a few awesome classes lined up to tide you through to the new year.

Thursday we're busy with both an open beading night with Stephanie, and of course our weekly torchworking happy hour. We'd love to see you there!

On Friday, come and learn how to make these fabulous netted snowflakes with Pamela:

These Rings with Bling would make an awesome gift for a special someone on your list - Monday the 5th with Robert

And on Wednesday the 7th, Rae will be teaching our most frequently requested technique....pearl knotting!

We also have a brand spanking new class with Lyndsey coming Friday November the 9th!

These leather wrapped cuffs are just gorgeous! I can see these being quite addictive to make. Wear a bunch!

Lampwork Studio Clean Up

We're planning on doing some studio clean up and redesign in the near future. (Yet again!)

For those of you who don't use the lampworking part of our store, the folks who do use it frequently like to store their supplies with us, to save lugging it back and forth.

In light of the work that we plan to do - we request that those of you who have stuff stashed here, please come and pick it up by the end of December. That includes beads made too.

Some of you have actually left phone numbers on your stash - we will be calling you - but if you haven't left a number on it - well - please come and get it. You're welcome to bring it back after the work has been completed.

Thanks!

The Joy of Metal Clay: Inspirations from Helen Breil

I have mentioned Helen Breil before in my blog posts. She is an Ontario based polymer clay artist. She has designed awesome texture sheets that many of my students (and myself of course) love. These textures can be bought through Shades of Clay.



She has developed many tutorials that she offers for sale on her blog. Although these tutorials are made for polymer clay they can sometimes be adapted for metal clay. The things to keep in mind when adapting polymer clay techniques are:

1. Generally metal clay dries fast



2. Generally metal clay needs to to shaped quickly and will crack if forced once it starts drying
   


3. Generally metal clay won't stretch

In the above list I say "generally" as each type of metal clay has its one special properties. For example, I was just working with Art Clay Copper today and it was not very cooperative, cracking constantly. I have found in the past that CopprClay brand copper is stretchier, won't dry and fast and can be shaped easily with support.

Helen is working on new polymer clay tutorials. She sent me a sample and they are quitecreative and fun. I just created a version with Art Clay Copper. As I mentioned above the clay was not very cooperative and probably not the best medium to adapt a polymer clay technique. I persevered and here is the result.

This is not as awesome as Helen's actual polymer clay samples. I also think with different metal clays and textures the results would be even better.

A new version of Inspiration Friday

Shhh - just forget that today is Saturday.


Thanks to Lyndsey, who had an awesome idea for a new version of our Inspiration Friday posts.  We think that one week just might be a wee bit too short of a time frame. Also, we want you to choose the inspiration from one of the many colour inspiration sites out there. On Thursday, I posted about design seeds. There are of course many others out there. We think this will be easier for you to challenge yourself, as you're given a palette to work with, rather than just a picture.

Here's how it works. Once a month, I'll post a new challenge start time. You've got about 30 days to choose your palette, and work on your project. Before the cutoff date, send your pictures to us, and we'll blog your inspiration source, and your finished project.  Feel free at that time to send us along any other info you want to include. We'll publicize your blog or etsy/artfire/etc site as well.

For example, I think I'll make mine from this one:

You can make your jewelry/beadwork out of any materials you wish. This can be stringing, wirework, lampwork, polymer clay - whatever you wish!

Let's start now!
Since we're getting close to Christmas, and I don't really want to be blogging on Christmas eve, I'm setting the deadline to get your submissions in by December 22nd.

Here's how to submit:

 * Send an email to jennifer@beadfx.com with a picture of your inspiration source (or a link to the source)
* include an image of your creation
* include any contact information you want us to include in the blog posting

Happy Creating, and Lyndsey - I can't wait to see what you make. You're commited now ;-)