Spring is around the corner at Blue Morning Expressions

Volume 9 Issue 3, March, 2012 – from the Blu Print – Blue Morning Expressions’ official newsletter

What's New in March?

Happy Spring thoughts to all my leprechauns!

Sitting here watching the snow fall makes me think that spring is hiding under the winter mantle and the mountain wildflowers are just starting to wake up under the snow. It will not be long before their shoots will start to reach up and seek the warmth of the sun.

Then I will have a whole new palette to play upon.

Until then, here are some of the latest creations that have come from my workbench. I have been on the rose side of life lately, so there are a lot of peaches, pinks and rose shades reflected in the latest canes and beads.

 

 

 

New Canes and Beads—You can find all the new beads and canes on my website www.bluemorningexpressions.com or at Artfire under Blue Morning Expressions. Both places have a full selection of my most current canes, including theses new rose flower canes.

As always, thank you for all your support and emails.

www.bluemorningexpressions.com

Until next month,

Julie & Blu

Things to Look Forward To:

New Products:

Canes —I am enjoying the softer shades of red lately and they are reflected in my latest canes and jewelry. Here are some of my latest canes used in bracelets and buttons. The buttons are shank buttons and the bracelet is on a brass blank. The bracelet will be given away in a blog contest. If you are interested in taking a shot at winning the bracelet, you will need to go here and sign up:

http://christiecottage.blogspot.com/2012/02/win-it-wednesday-new-giveaway_22.html

The web address may have changed by the time she puts up my bracelet, so if you just go to http://christiecottage.blogspot.com and look to the right side, you should see the Win It Wednesday link.

I would LOVE to see you win it!

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The Canes Have Now Become a Bracelet

My canes have tantalized me for a week now as I have gone through the creation process and I was more than ready to create some beads from them. However, I had another project that I wanted to participate in first.

Jacki Christie of Christie’s Cottage does a Wednesday give away on her blog. She does tireless promotion for many of the artists on both Artfire and Etsy and I have been honored by her featuring one of my pieces of jewelry as a give away. I offered up one of my polymer clay bracelets and she also gave away one of my polymer clay penguin Christmas ornaments. This time I told her I wanted to create something specifically for her give away.

Since I have bunny earrings and bracelets running all over my workbench, I was really leaning towards creating a Easter Bunny charm bracelet. The give away is slated for March 7th and I felt this gave me enough time to do something specifically “bunniesh” and the recipient enough to time receive it before Easter, especially if I went with something for the younger crowd. It could be a great basket stuffer.

Well, as inspiration would have it, I kept thinking about my new canes and I kept thinking about this stash of a dozen brass bangle bracelets that I had staring at me. Then a Victorian thought came to mind. I have been surrounded lately by some beautiful Victorian lace valentines and the background of Jacki’s blog is Victorian. The Ashes of Roses of these canes kept whispering lace and fineness and the pinks and peaches of the excess clay staring at me simply demanded that I create that bracelet.

So, I looked at a million lace patterns and  intended to create my translucent and white accent cane by using a lace pattern, and not the normal bullseye lace pattern. I was looking for real lace. But, as my impatience to create overwhelmed my nitpicking, I went with a crosshatch pattern.

The bracelet quickly came into shape and the colors were sweetly romantic, feminine and oh, so, Victorian. I fell in love with the bracelet and it did not take long to determine that this was the give away for Christie Cottage.

Here is my most favorite bracelet EVER! Well, for this week anyway.

This bracelet is set on a brass bangle and it has been hand wet sanded through three grits before a light varnish to give it shine.

If you want to be part of the give away, here is the link to Christie Cottage. It will not be posted until the first of March, but she has other shopping sprees, twitter trees and other promotional events that she routinely schedules.

Enjoy the canes, these are the actual canes that I have for sale on my website.

These canes are limited and they will not be repeated, so if you are inspired to create your own Victorian bangle bracelet, then now would be the time to get the canes.

Enjoy

Julie and Blu

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The Flowers are in Bloom

The canes are reduced and unwrapped and the results are in. The flowers turned out just as I wanted them to and in the case of the turquoise and tangerine, better than anticipated!

I have them all individually wrapped and in my Artfire studio. They will go on Etsy and on my website tomorrow. I have three projects scheduled for my canes and there will be beads, a bracelet and a pair of earrings soon. I will post them as they are finished!

I am currently having a sale in my Artfire studio, so these will be on sale for a limited time. These canes are limited, so if you like them, get them before they sell out. Each flower will take you to the Artfire page where you can find the raw canes.

 

We have come the full circle – from the blends to the finished flowers.

Hope you enjoyed your journey.

If you are interested, the drawings in the photo of my work table will become my next kaleidoscope canes. Watch for those.

Julie and Blu

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Are They Ready?

This is the part that makes me a little anxious. Here are all my flower canes; all packed up with translucent and ready to reduce. But – did I pack them right?

Are the petals separated the way that I envisioned them? Are the petals lined up?

Did I put the right amount of translucent between the petals to keep the lines straight? Did I put too many small noodles in between the petals that will cause them to ruffle where I didn’t want a ruffle?

Did all the little pieces wrap and reduce as one? Argh!

Oh, the suspense!!

 

I think I will let them sit for the evening and tomorrow we will reduce them and slice them to see if they came out the way that I wanted them to.

Oh, the suspense :)

Julie and Blu

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February’s New Blooms! Raw Polymer Clay Cane Flowers Popping Up

I had extra polymer clay laying around and since I do not believe in scrap clay, everything was sorted and prepared for the latest blooms.

After finishing The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough for the second time in 30 plus years, I kept seeing reference to Ashes of Roses, which the heroine, Meghann Cleary wore to compliment her red hair. Ashes of Roses actually was a Pantone color of 2008 and was part of this blog post on a Bill Blass creation.

The image will take you to the post.

I liked the idea of Ashes of Roses and when I was working with my leftover scraps, I came as close to this color as possible. I am thinking spring already and this color is subtle and inviting and not just for redheads!

I created two different flowers from this color, along with several other canes.

Here are my blends that I was working with:

 

There is one other Ashes of Roses blend off to the side on my blue acrylic work surface.

Here are today’s canes ready for their covering of translucent clay and then reduced down for bead making.

There is a nod to Catherine of Shadow Dog Designs with the Miami Dolphins colored flower. She noted that there were a lot of collections on Artfire that were sporting these colors. My original blend was slated for a crimson red dot accent and a crimson red outer wrap until I saw a post from Catherine noting that she was seeing a lot of orange and turquoise in jewelry combinations. That was before I finished working with that slab of clay. As soon as she posted it, I decided to scrap the red and opt for Mandarin orange. I know that Tangerine is the 2012 Pantone choice, but I went straight to Mandarin.

I am very happy that I did and thanks to Catherine of Shadow Dog Designs for putting my on the Miami Dolphins path! Here is a link to her post: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2885211041832&set=a.1311123210620.2041975.1006802531&type=1&theater 

Stop by Catherine’s Facebook page or her Artfire shop and tell her Blu sent you. She has beautiful jewelry and she is looking through her stash to see what she has in turquoise and tangerine.

Watch for the latest canes to become the latest beads!

Julie and Blu