Lessons learned from Janice

Finally completed the ornament that I started using lessons learned from Janice's class.

Seasons greetings to all!

Here are the pictures from our November meeting!
Someone has to teach me how to arrange them.

Correction

Sorry, that last post should read from the September meeting, not August.

Oops!

Barb B.

Faux Wood Recipes from August 2009

Hi All:

Here are the recipes from the August class. Sorry it took so long. Thanks to Janice for posting the other wood recipes from a couple of years ago!

1. I had a bunch of bits of various brown scraps that I mixed together. I mixed 2 scrap blend with 3 gold
2. Burnt Umber - 1, Silver - 2
3. Gold - 1, Pearl - 1
4. Pearl - 1, Gold - a smidge
5. Black - 2, Silver - 1
6. Burnt Umber - 2, Gold - 1
7. Burnt Umber - 2, Gold - 1, Silver -1
8. Copper - 2, Gold - 1
9. Copper - 1, Burnt Umber - 2
10. Raw Sienna - 2, Silver - 2, Gold -1
11. Pearl - 3, White - 1. Blend together and cut out 15 pieces and add 1/4 piece of Gold
12. Pearl - 3, White - 1. Blend together and cut out 15 pieces and add 1/4 piece of Silver
13. Raw Sienna - 1, Gold - 1

November Meeting

The November meeting will be mini shrines. It will be a theme of your choice with a talk of design and construction. Samples with be brought to the October meet so you can get an idea, and you have the month to come up with your own concept.

You can include hinges, boxes, books, dolls, small objects to add on, mixed media, christmas ideas (gifts!) or whatever you fancy! Dig out your imagination!

Here are the notes for Barb's faux wood class!

These techniques have been adapted from Bob Wiley's at www.pcpolyzine.com and www.hgtv.com.

Start with the pearl/mica clay. If you are blending colours, do so now, then run the clay through on the THICKEST setting to thoroughly blend the colours and to align the mica particles in your sheet. TURN YOUR SHEET 90 DEGREES and start to roll a log, making sure that you don't trap any air while your are rolling. Squeeze the ends to force out any air there. Start twisting the log, doing short areas at a time. If the log breaks just push the two pieces back together and hold it while you continue to twist the rest of the log. THE TWISTS SHOULD BE VERY CLOSE TOGETHER.

Lay the log on top or your pasta machine and using the widest setting roll the clay through. Continue to roll the clay through at narrower settings to achieve a sheet of wood that has a grain through it.

Mixing various colours of clay will achieve different 'species' of wood. Sof the types that I have attempted are a very pale 'maple', 'oak', 'Brazilian rosewood', 'cherry', and some that are just 'wood'. Amazingly enough, the red and green pearl mixed together make a nice accent to other clays.

Recipes:

1- pearl with a smidge of gold for a very pale wood
2- 6 parts pearl to 1 part gold
3- 1 prt ecru : 1 prt silver : 2 prts pearl
4- 1 gold : 4 white : 2 pearl
5- 1 gold : 1 translucent : 1 ecru : 1 pearl
6- 6 black : 1 silver makes anthracite
7- straight gold
8- 2 copper : 1 silver make a cherry sort
9- 4 burnt umber : 1 gold
10- mix red pearl and green pearl 1:1 (not entirely mixed) : 8 gold (ie. 1 prt mix : 8 prt gold)
11- #6 anthracite with a smidge of Alizaron Crimson and burnt umber make a Brazilian rosewood
(Cut random sized wedges out of the sheets of anthracite mix and burnt umber. Make up a sheet of the two colours using random pieces next to each other. Burnish the pieces together. Straighten the bottom edge of the sheet and roll up into a log. Proceed as before.)

Maybe someone who took pictures could post them???

Upcoming Workshop

Hello everyone,

It's time for a quick and easy vote. We are hoping to get either Dan Cormier to do the "Relief beyond Belief" workshop or Jeffery Lloyd Dever to do one in the fall of 2010. Below are examples of both these artist's works.

Dan Cormier:

http://www.dancormier.ca/DanCormier/ReliefBeyondBelief.html

Jeffery Lloyd Dever:

http://www.functionart.com/AM/Artists/DeverJ/DeverJinventory.html

Please choose who you would prefer to see at the right of the page and we will try to arrange it.
Thanks, Janice

Cynthia's BOH workshop Aug /09

Cynthia taught an amazing BOH workshop last month. She showed us how to top the bottles with her phenomenal hats and she supplied us all with well written instructions too. She made it look so easy but in reality the hats are quite challenging (at least they were for me) but definately well worth the effort!
Thanks for taking the time to prepare such a great workshop, we know it wasn't easy for you considering that you had just arrived back home shortly before.

 

 

Another great collection of BOH this month. The "monsters" are from Sandy W's great imagination and mozst of the "little people" are from Sandy's mom Janie who never ceases to amaze us with her talent! Thanks foe all of your hard work.

 

 

Fancy Hats

Here are some photos of my fancy hats.









At our next meeting we are going to make Bottles of Hope and I will show you how I make my fancy hats. These have been very popular with patients and the nurses have requested more.
Supplies:
Normal clay kit
For this project you need firm clays, either Kato or well-leached Premo.

Clay in colors suitable for hats and ribbon trim:
-for a straw hat, use Premo Ecru or a mix of Kato (4 parts white, 2 parts brown, 1.5 parts yellow)
-black is good if using bright feathers for decoration
Clay in colors of your choice to cover the bottle. Contrasting colors for polka dots.
Bottles , preferably Botox bottles
Set of small Kemper circle cutters. We use several of them.
Set of Circle cutters: 1/2", 3/4", 7/8", 1", 1 and 1/4", 2", 2 and 1/4 (The Ateco cutters have the sizes we need)
Set of Oval cutters in case we want to make cowboy hats
Index cards

Decorations for hats:
-feathers (Michaels sells packages of brightly colored feathers with dots. They are on the "craft supplies" aisle. You can also use natural colored feathers. You want the smallest sizes)
-Tiny little fabric flowers. Michaels has them in the wedding area, I think. My dollar store has "mini craft roses".
I will have some feathers and flowers to share.
-any other hat decorations you would like. Actual ribbon or trim, for example.

Something to texture the hat - I will bring some netting to share

If you have the wooden block with hole in it that I gave out when we did the flower BOHs, bring it. Helpful but not required.

I use a mould to make the base for my hats but it is not required. However, if you have some 2-part moulding material, bring it and you can make a mould from the big marble I used. It's a perfect size. I also have little cowboy hats and you can make a mould of one of them.

Cynthia

Striped Tube Bead Workshop

 

 

 

 

Laurie taught us a wonderful workshop on making striped tube beads. She got the idea from Donna Kato's last book (which, by the way, Laurie contributed an article on colour theory to)
Way to go Laurie!

Laurie taught Donna Kato swirly beads

Hi All,

This last weekend Laurie taught us how to make swirly beads. The technique is from Donna Kato's Millefiore book. It's much easier than it looks.

Here are the photos of the bead that I made in class. I didn't mark mine to chop into equal lengths since I wasn't sure what I was going to do with mine. You don't see the glow in the dark clay that I added as part of the bead.

Karen and Janice weren't able to attend so today I taught them the technique. Laurie strongly suggested not worrying about colour scheme and that the technique is a great way to use up scraps.


So with this one I didn't worry about what I threw together. And yet the three of us oohed and aaahed at the result.


We were making Bottles of Hope today and it occured to me that this technique would make perfect candles. So you can see my first attempt at a cupcake BOH with the candle from the class that Laurie taught.

Wendy will be posting photos of other guild member results.

In the mean time, thanks so much to Laurie for teaching a deceptively simple but versatile technique.

Sandy

Results from May's "I Spy" workshop

 
 
 

Bottles of Hope

 
 
 

Here are a few more BOH. Can you believe that the "little People" were made by a complete newbie to polymer clay! Great work Janie P!
Let's see how many more we can have made for our next meeting on June 28th.

Shower (continued)

This fantastic blanket was handmade by Karen.

Laura's Baby Shower

Hi All,

Last Sunday Barbara C (with helpers Jacey & Barb B) hosted a lovely baby shower for our long standing SOPCG member and much valued BOH Co-ordintor Laura. There were tons of gifts and a great spread of food. Here's a few pictures of the soon-to-be Mom.

Note how happy Laura is to be receiving a pasta maker!

Laura's Mom & Sister helped out with the gift opening.

February 22, 2009

We had a wonderful class today by Sandy W. She taught us how she covers tins and used Pearl Ex and texture sheets. Mine actually turned out not too bad! I still have to bake the bottom part of the tin and then I'll post a picture of the finished tin.

We also had a newbie join us today - welcome to Lee!

As part of the challenge last month to make a real effort to produce Bottles of Hope we really did ourselves proud this month! Jacey and I had a marathon last weekend, producing 36 BOH between the 2 of us. Barbara C. showed up with 34 or so that she produced last week and Wendy did 21! One of our relative newbies, Patti had 3 done for her donation. Well done ladies!!! We are well on our way to reaching the goal of 365 - should we double that number? Yay or nay? The picture posted is all of the BOH that were handed in today.

Barbara B.

Materials list for February Meeting

Hi Everyone,

We'll be learning how to cover dollar store tins with scrap clay and Pearlex powders at the February tutorial. To do this you'll need:

- A tin - I'll be using the Dollarama McKeever and Danlee Mixed Fruit Drops candy tin found in the candy section of the store, but any tin will do
- Scrap clay - a goodly amount, enough to cover a tin
- A small bit (a ball the size of a quarter) of clay that you might like as a background
- Texture sheets, I will have some and Wendy will be bringing in some from Bev's collection
- Pearlex or Perfect Pearls powders (use a 40% off coupon for Michaeals found at http://oshawa.flyerland.ca/ if you don't already have some)
- A makeup brush or sponge (also a dollar store item)
- Any other embellishments you may want
- Circle or other shape cutters if you want to get creative
general clay kit (pasta machine, tile, blade, etc)
- If you'd like to bring old canes I'll show how to do those as well, but the focus will be on scrap clay.

See everyone on Sunday,

Sandy

upcoming "I Spy" workshop

Here are 2 examples of the "I Spy" pendants we will be creating at an upcoming workshop. (there are 2 front views and 2 back views) You will need to go to Dollarama and purchase the magnifing glass pictured here. Other than that you only need a small amount of clay, pearlex powders or pulvers and some little trinkets like charms or beads or decorative brads from the scrapbooking section.