Polymer clay face cabs

I've been playing with polymer clay face cabs having been introduced to maureen carlson's face molds made by amaco....the package says you can make as many as you want to use in your own original creations, which is just what I'm going to use them for...

One Christmas present done...

This one is for my mom...
I think she'll like it, especially since the cab is vintage German glass and my mom was born in Germany...

Still Playing

I'm still having fun with these little polymer clay faces...but I see I have a long way to go. Not being a painter, it's going to take me a while to do something interesting to the faces to help the beading along...

Almost Done

I've been working on this piece for months...years really, if you count how long it took me to collect all the vintage pieces in it. The pin/pendant to one side was supposed to hang from the bottom of the necklace, but it doesn't seem to work, so it may turn out to be two pieces instead of a single large one...oh well, that's how it goes...you plan, but the piece does what it wants to in the end...

Harvest Moon

I finished this second moon yesterday...
I'm finding they take about 3 hours from start to finish, not including the making and baking of the moon faces themselves. I'm also going to be making some sun faces from the same artist, Maureen Carlson...the company that puts out the molds is Amaco, if anyone else is interested in playing with them. I owe Bonnie Anderson a big thanks for turning me on to this artists' face molds!

Egyptian Moon

I was so intrigued by Bonnie Anderson's Man in the Moon,
I had to do one too...except I don't usually do just one of anything...so I've got a whole series coming very slowly down the pike...this first one is called, Egyptian Moon...

At My Desk

My desk
is rather neat today...you can see the black support cuff lying next to the monitor...I'm still beading, but just a bit. My surgery for the carpal tunnel is Nov. 29th for the right hand and two months later for the left, so I don't think I'll be doing any christmas presents this year, unless they're strung...
Anyway, my desk is huge...my son gave it to me when he moved into a smaller place. The left side is all beads and fabric (in the drawers under the desk and the right side is mostly business, computer and digital camera supplies along with my 3-in-one printer, scanner, copier. I have a miniature cat collection on top of the bead drawers and a tiny bunny collection on the base of the lamp...this 9x10 room and the walk-in closet is my studio and where I spend the better part of my days. I do love working at home!

Face Swap

These are the two
face pins I received in the swap...the man in the moon by Bonnie Anderson and an unnamed face byMieke Bronckers...

Photo Day

I'm taking today
to photograph all the bead embroidery I have here in the studio...I've been looking for a gallery that specialized in fiber arts, but now I'm going to get serious about it! None of the galleries that carry my jewelry are really knowlegable about beadwork or any of the fiber arts really, so I'd rather not put my bead embroidered work in them.

Class Bust

Two faces..
several months ago I was approached about teaching a couple of classes at a day-long workshop put on by my local bead shop. I was happy to be asked and decided I'd teach how to bead around a face bead...yeah, the face swap came along a month or so later and the synchronicity blew me away...

anyway...I beaded a couple of faces (made by a friend of mine) and put them in the shop as class samples....as it turned out no one signed up for that class which was just as well, since by then the carpal tunnel made beading problematic!

But it got me to thinking about beading and teaching and what a small subgroup of beaders I belong to - people who not only have the patience to spend 50+ hours on one piece but actually love to do it! There isn't really any kind of beading I don't like to do (well, maybe loom work..;), but starting a piece of bead embroidery with some small idea of where it's going and then just following along until it's finished is one of the major joys of my life.

And that's number one on my list of 5 weird things about me....I'm still tying to find the other 4!