Positively Charming Things

So I made some flower beads, not for the Smoosher’s challenge as they were a couple days late, but intended to be included on some handmade Mother’s Day gifts.  I created them late on Friday night, and baked them on Saturday morning after getting back from the car dealership (oil change, tire balance and coolant flush). I use a toaster oven to bake small stuff like beads, and so far it has been a pretty good little machine.  It only runs 30 minutes at a time, the first 30…

I have an old painting that I started in my senior year of high school, which my then-teacher effectively ruined by painting upon it with her firm idea of what she thought I should be doing with it. Here is a picture:     I used a photograph from some book for the fuschia flowers in the background; the butterfly in the foreground was something I added to fill in the picture.  My intent was for the butterfly to be sort of transparent.  My teacher was not fond of this idea and…

So I’ve finished thirty-two more pumpkin pie slice charms like these: (some with and some without whipped topping).  I haven’t photographed them yet, the whipped topping on some is a little different and I used copper for the wrapped loops on some of them as well, but they’ll be available for the asking when I increase the quantities on my listings. Currently I have some ice cream cone charms in the oven, we’ll see how those turn out.  I have to admit, I…

http://www.positivelycharming.com/eeblog/ I am toying with another blog platform. It is actually called a "CMS" - "content management system", but in a nutshell, that is what all blog platforms are. Some are just more robust and can do more than others. Anyway, I used this one, called Expression Engine, as my main blogging platform for several years at another domain, but stopped shortly after that domain got hacked (via another even older and neglected blog platform - Movable Type), because I…

Ok, not so much "exploring" as jumping right in.  In July I talked about receiving a new book by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, which sparked my interest in picking up the watercolor brushes again.  I noted that this time, I wanted to use artist quality paper and paints. And so I went out and bought some. Artist papers and paints are not cheap, so I got two full sheets of Arches 140lb cold-press paper, a plastic board to staple it to after I wet it down, and a handful of Daniel Smith watercolors. …

So I baked the Santa, Snowmen and Angel beads I made over the past week, yesterday. Here they are all together: I forgot to put halos on the angels, and I'm debating whether to add them since their flesh color already seems to have darkened just from the 30 minutes they spent in the oven already, compared to the Santas where I used the same type and color of clay. I'm a little disappointed with the green Pardo that I used to make the holly leaves on the Snowmen's hats, it turned out very dark.…

I tend to flit back and forth between projects.  So I started painting the picture of my daughter, got as far as getting a little of the undertones of her skin in place, and then set it aside in favor of working with my polymer clays again. Hobby Lobby is opening stores in town, and I came across one very near my day job, so I went to check them out one day at lunch, 40% off coupon in hand.  I walked out with a few packages of this new polymer clay made with beeswax, Pardo - in red (ruby),…