Winter Jewelry from Winter Canes

You’ve seen the canes, you’ve seen the beads – now see the jewelry.

I sat and looked at these beads for a long time before I decided what I wanted to do with them. I thought about selling them separately as focal beads for wire wrapping, I thought about just putting together the usual eight bead pillow set and letting it go at that. Then, I thought about creating jewelry myself with them.

I rarely get a chance to sit down and just bead, but I decided to take a day and just make necklaces and bracelets from these beads. I had a lot of matching glass and pearl beads in blues and greens and I thought I might just make sets of my own. I might even keep them for myself.

I have them in my Artfire shop and I may still take them for my own; I particularly like the cat’s eye bracelet :)

 

 

 

All photos link to the store items!

I had a lot of fun putting these together and hope you enjoy the pretty colors :)

Happy Holidays

Julie and Blu

A Winter’s Morning Polymer Clay Pillow Beads

 

You have seen the raw clay, you have seen the raw canes and now, see the finished beads.

I did three sets of polymer clay pillow beads – they are approximately one inch in size and have been created from complimentary golden clay as a base and some beads have a baby blue inlay. The entire three sets have been adorned with slices from my Winter Morning flower canes, as well as my geometric clay cane as an accent. Each bead has been hand drilled and then hand sanded when they were done baking. I hand sanded up to 1000 grit wet dry sandpaper.

I put a light glaze on these beads using Minwax Waterbased polyurethane gloss; just enough to give them a shiny surface.

I haven’t decided yet whether I am going to sell them as sets or individually this time. I think they are pretty enough to make a nice focal bead in earthy tones and can be wrapped in warm copper or shiny silver. Even gold would look good on these beads. I might do one in each!

Either way they are wrapped or strung, they will make a great set of beads for someone who wants to make a unique necklace or bracelet. There are enough beads to create a whole set of jewelry, including polymer clay earrings. String them with your favorite spacers or Czech glass beads for a bright holiday piece.

Enjoy the beads:

 

Julie and Blu

Technorati Tags: polymer clay beads for sale,polymer clay beads,pillow beads,polymer clay canes,blue morning expressions,fimo beads,premo beads,flower beads,flower canes

A Big Box of Kaleidoscope Canes - Raw eBay Auction

I have a huge box of my kaleidoscope canes on eBay up for auction - there are almost 3 pounds of canes with a starting bid of $3.99.


A big box of my canes are on ebay for a starting bid of $3.99 Raw Polymer Clay Kaleidoscope Canes Bead Making Premo - Here is the link

Here is the photo

Winter Morning Canes – Now Complete and Ready for Sale

It took me all day to wrap these canes with fimo classic translucent and reduce them. I ended up with over 85 canes at two inches apiece. I kept a few of them for myself and one of the Klimt canes that I did in the same color theme. I want to create a few sets of polymer clay beads and I think I will use all these flower canes.

They are all for sale and have been loaded up in my Artfire store and www.bluemorningexpressions.com – both sites are running a 35% off sale on all my canes.

Here are the new flowers – enjoy them!

 

 

 

Enjoy a winter morning :)

Julie and Blu

Winter’s Morning

Yesterday, big heavy and wet snow fell from the afternoon until evening, blanketing me in almost a foot of soft white snow. Branches bent under the weight and the white made the night bright and crisp.

This morning, I was greeted by a beautiful sunrise on the snow. The blues, greys, browns and pale oranges began to shed light over the fields and because this was a treat for my eyes, I grabbed my camera and tried to capture the colors.

The mountains lit up with the morning sunlight and because it was still a little bit warm, I took a lot of photos.

  

 

The colors were the inspiration for pale pastel palette that I selected for today’s flower canes and geometric blocks.

I have not wrapped them in translucent yet, but I used all custom colors for these polymer clay raw canes.

They are sitting on my messy workbench :)

 

Have a great winter morning.

Julie and Blu

Technorati Tags: polymer clay canes,flower canes,polymer clay flowers,fimo flowers,blue morning expressions,raw flower canes,clay flowers,polymer flower

Three Boxes of Raw Polymer Clay Canes Being Auctioned Off on eBay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Raw-Polymer-Clay-Cane-Flower-Leaves-Premo-Fimo-/270853538199?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f10210197

Auction 1 – These are all part of one box of canes – this auction will end November 21. The starting bid is $3.99 with No Reserve

 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Raw-Polymer-Clay-Cane-Flower-Leaves-Premo-Fimo-/270853538444?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f1021028c

Auction 2 – This is an auction of all these canes. The auction ends on November 21 and has a starting bid of $3.99. There is no reserve on this auction.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Raw-Polymer-Clay-Cane-Flower-Leaves-Premo-Fimo-/270853538754?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f102103c2

 

Auction 3 – These are all in this auction with no reserve. The starting bid is $3.99 and the auction will end on November 21.

These boxes are the last of hundreds of flower canes that I created and now I need room for more canes. I have new designs that will take the places of these canes and I need to move these out to make room. This is an opportunity to get a box of great flowers for a great price.

Happy bidding!

Technorati Tags: ebay auction,raw canes,polymer clay canes,cane auction,raw cane auctions,flower cane auction,flower canes for sale,flower canes for auction,flower canes cheap,cheap flower canes,polymer canes for sale,polymer clay auctions

New Polymer Clay Flower Canes for November 2011

New canes!

I have been so busy doing so many silly things that I have gotten zero clay work done, so, I made it a point to take a lot of my extra clay pieces that I have had sitting here and make flowers. I ran into some problems with sticky clay when I started working on my kaleidoscope canes, so I went with flowers, they were not annoying me. :)

I have a half a dozen kaleidoscope cane designs created and I am determined to get them done, but I have to leach my clay and that requires me to know what the heck colors I am going to work with first. This is more trouble than I want to get into right now, so they are sitting in my design book and not on my work bench.

Here are the raw polymer clay flower canes that I just finished. I really like the pinwheel flower cane that was a very happy accident.

In addition to these canes, I created another 50 flower canes using my standard patterns of orange and yellow flowers, as well as blue and purple. I wanted to do some different flowers, so I am working on creating new patterns and experimenting with different cane shapes.

Look for new canes soon!

These canes are available in all of my stores now.

www.bluemorningexpressions.com 

http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/bluemorningexpressions

http://www.etsy.com/shop/polymerclaybeads

Most of these canes are extremely limited and I will not be repeating them as they were custom colors, but I did like the styles, so those will be repeated in the future.

Have fun with flowers!

Julie and Blu

2011 Handmade Christmas List

I posted this on the bluprint.
http://bmebluprint.blogspot.com/2011/11/handmade-christmas-gifts-for-2011.html
Get all of your shopping done with Handmade Artists from both Artfire and Etsy.

New Posts - BluPrint Blue Morning Expressions Blog

Hi all, I just wanted to let you know that I have updated my other blog with polymer clay goodies and other posts.

I found that I have been updating that more lately than here, but only because I have not had the time to do the canes that I was doing. I will get more done soon, but until then, go to Blue Morning Expressions http://bmebluprint.blogspot.com/ for the latest clay updates. Like my facebook and favorite my blog :)

Winner of a Personlized Penguin Polymer clay Christmas Ornament

http://www.pacountrycrafts.blogspot.com/

Here is the winner of the polymer clay Penguin ornament.

Enter to Win a Polymer Clay Bracelet

Win a Polymer Clay Bracelet

Yummy Chocolate

I am a bit off my polymer clay track but I saw these yummies and had to post them!

Go and Get Some!

These cute, cute, cute chocolate flip flops are just begging to be enjoyed with a cup of tea. I want someone to buy me these adorable chocolate suckers in the pretty summer colors.

Borrowed description from ButterflyBlooms
Nothing says "Summers Here!" like flip flops do!

So why not get in the summer spirit with these awesomely adorable Flip Flop Chocolate Suckers?

As the Flip Flop trend continues strong, these suckers will be a hit for any summertime event. Whether its a BBQ, beach party, tweens /teens birthday or even a bachlorette party you can simply not go wrong with these Flip Flop Chocolate Suckers.

Add a personalized custom gift tag to create a unique and unforgetable party favor.

CANDY DETAILS
Measurements: 2.0" W x 3.25" L
Weight: 1.7 ounces
Flavors: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, White Chocolate, Vanilla Flavored Candy
Sets: Sold in sets of 4 (or multiples of 4)

**Gift tags are not included in the sucker purchase price. If you would like to include custom gift tags to your purchase, please add your customized request (i.e. color scheme, wording) in the "Notes to Seller" section of your order. Please do not exceed 40 characters in message. Gift tags are 5 / US $1.00.
A visual proof of gift tag will be sent to you for approval prior to a custom listing for your purchase.

**Don't forget to include your custom requests in your order, you can use the section titled "Notes to Seller". If no custom requests are received your order will include a variety of chocolate flavors and a variety of color schemes similar to those pictured.

Custom for this order: include sucker flavor (i.e. milk choco, dark choco, white choco, vanilla); flip flop strap color; flower color


Product Materials
Materials Used:

Chocolate

Heartsy Deal on Artfire

If you are interested in getting a great deal on my clay canes and beads, then click over to heartsy, which is the artists' equivalent to groupon.

This is for my artfire shop, which has over 1000 different items in it, from jewelry and beads, to xstitch and beaded loom patterns.

I only have a few hours to get all the needed votes before this goes to a final approval stage.
The discount is $14 for $30 voucher, which DOES include shipping.

http://heartsy.me/deals/4164/like

Backgroundless Canes

 

As I previously posted about the backgroundless canes, I told you I would post some photos of them as I finished them.

I was surprised at the size of the purple flowers when I finished them. They were smaller than I had anticipated, although ALMOST the size I needed for the project. The thing that keeps throwing me, and I mean throwing me, is the bulk of the play-doh in addition to the outer wrap of scrap clay.

When I cane now, I use a thinner wrap of translucent or color that I can not only see, but can visualize as my project. I know how much clay it takes to get a 20mm face or a 10mm face.  And I know when I am done reducing it.

With the backgroundless, you lose sight of your core and it is easy to over reduce. I was shooting for a 15mm five petal daisy and ended up with a 5mm five petal daisy. Yikes!

Since I don’t do nail canes or nail art, I am not sure what I will use these for. I will find a home for them though, no cane is unloved here. Maybe there is a thimble that needs some pretty daisies on it.

So I went back and started over.

The finished daisies are 20mm petal to petal – the cane was much larger than that before I started peeling away the outer layers of it.

I have had some ups and downs and with the soaking and the removal of the play-doh, but I have been able to get it all off.

If you are baking them for rods and beads right away, it isn’t as much of an issue as if you are selling the finished canes. The play-doh can be flicked out with a toothpick after the rod is baked.

On a raw cane, the play-doh can become dried if it sits on your workbench overnight and I talked with another clay artist and she had trouble with the play-doh leaving dried bits in her raw cane which made it unusable for selling.

Don’t use a toothbrush to clean the raw cane in the water.  <--- voice of experience here! 

Do use a soft bristled clean paintbrush to gently brush the clay away as it dissolves. It’s kinder on the clay. Unless texture is your thing.

I sliced my cane for beads and because I didn’t want to distort it – because I can’t remember which of my blades is the newest one – I stuck the cane in the freezer for about 10 minutes before I started slicing.

I don’t know if it is me or if anyone else has noticed this, but the clay – I used premo! – is tacky feeling after all the mangling that I did to it. I don’t know if this is a result of the play-doh against it, the soaking in the water that I did, or just the usual premo! consistency that I haven’t been paying attention to.  Their black is odd at times for some reason. It’s definitely tacky.

I will keep working on this project, I have a lot of reasons to have backgroundless canes and I know that there is a way to do it.

Here is my first real attempt at doing the canes.

Technorati Tags: polymer clay canes,blue morning expressions,daisy beads,millefiori canes,raw canes,polymer clay beads for sale,how to make a cane,backgroundless canes

 

See this post for instructions on how to create canes with play-doh - Backgroundless Canes by Idit Zoota.