Saturday, November 14, 2009

Homemade Christmas Tree

With the help of my son's youngest children my tree is up for this year. I decided to use a 4 foot tree instead of my huge one I usually use. Every ornament on the tree is handmade and has a story. There are knitted and crocheted ornaments. My oldest daughter, Mandy, has a ceramic ball ornament that she made in girl scouts and a plastic canvas penguin she made a few years ago. My youngest daughter has a teddy bear she made in kindergarten and a bear spoon ornament that was made for her by my Mother when Cyndy was small. Mariah, my oldest granddaughter has a tiny moccasin to represent her heritage and a marshmallow snowman she made in Headstart. My son's tree holds his ornament he made in cub scouts and his children's ornaments.




Here in this close up you can see the polymer clay ornaments I made this year and a few of my mini hats, bells and winter wear I knitted and crocheted.



The angel at the top is always the crowning glory. My youngest daughter was killed in an automobile accident on November 17, 2001. This angel looks just like her and is always at the top of my tree. I made her out of porcelain and lace. You can see Cyndy's photo peaking out of the left side of the angel.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Christmas Ornaments

I was blog surfing today and saw pictures of the cutest Christmas Ornaments made out of ceramic clay. http://jenniferjangles.blogspot.com/ . I decided to give it a try with polymer clay and my tinted TLS from an earlier post. Here are the step (tutorial I guess) to make these.

I used about 4 ounces of translucent premo, a piece of green, cadmium red ad zinc yellow to tint the translucent clay along with my tinted TLS and numerous small cookie cutters. I rolled out the translucent clay on the thickest setting in my pasta machine to get it conditioned. I divided it into 3 sections and then added the red, green and yellow.


Here is the translucent clay mixed and rolled out on the largest setting in the pasta machine to prepare for the small cookie cutters I will be using.

Here are the shapes I cut from the clay with the cookie cutters. You can't tell in the photo but they look and feel like jello jigglers.



I decided to swirl a bit of each color to make the bells. I then used a toothpick to paint on the dots and decorations onto the ornaments. You can't see it here but I used the point on the toothpick to start a hole to drill out after they are baked. Here is a photo of the ornaments with the clay and TLS unbaked. You can see the colors on the clay.


I decided to use some gold premo rolled out on the thickest setting and cut out some gingerbread men. I poked a hole in the top with the toothpick and then painted the decorations on with the toothpick and tinted TLS. This is also before baking.

I then baked them in a 250 degree toaster oven (thermometer tested) for 20 minutes and then dunked them in an ice water bath, partially for the translucent clay and partially for my impatience. I then cave them a coating on future polish for a shine.


When the future was dry I used my wire jug and wound some black and violet wire to make cute individual hangers.


Here is a close up all finished and ready to go on a tree. The translucent premo and the tinted TLS look like jello int eh lights and the gold have a mica shimmer. As you can see, the tinted TLS turned out great.




Sunday, November 8, 2009

Beads and Charms Finished

I spent today baking, sanding, buffing and polishing my beads and charms. Here is what I finished.

Cherry Chocolate, Candy Corn, Sucker and 2 Cupcakes


Apple, Carrot and Peas
Popsicles, Orange and Chocolate Creamsicle



Donuts


Pumpkin Pie with whippy and Cinnamon Roll with Icing




White Cake with Chocolate icing and Pink icing. The pink is so pale you can't see it in the photo. I used my tiny purple flower cane from the play dough experiment for decoration.



Cupcake with pink icing and orange slices, juicy cheese burger




All the charms from today in one pile ready to go.



Natasha chop beads using cane ends from my bone/translucent leaf cane ends and the tiger skin cane ends. The ice water bath straight out of the oven gave the translucent a lot of depth.

These lentil swirl beads are made using the cane ends from a breast cancer ribbon cane I made. I think I am finally getting the hang of the swirl.