New ideas and old ideas

The other day I sat down with a colour palette created by Jeannie K Dukic for the Polymer Clay Collective Color Challenge.  Have you heard of the Polymer Clay Collective?  It’s a Facebook group for those who like to work with polymer and well anyone who enjoys polymer and wants to join in the exchange of ideas.  Jeannie started this group and it’s growing strong, won’t you come join us?


I thought I’d start with the greys. To my eye, or at least on my monitor, I can’t rightly distinguish Black Swan from Tricorn Black.  Take your pick I guess, it was my ground, my start I decided.  Looking at the blue of Distance, along with  Fun Yellow I thought of the polymer canes I had made previously for another challenge.  I was thinking I’d pull in the Jute Brown next, but I needed a bit more contrast so I moved to a lighter, sandier brown. 

But what to make, what to make… at a loss I just started creating colour in sheets and while I was mixing I decided I’d play around with an abstract landscape design.  At one point I ran out of horizontal space and had a thin long sheet of polymer in my hands with no where to put it down. So I stole the vase off my bookshelf! That reminds me, I should go pick up the artificial blue sweet peas I threw aside.



It’s a bud vase, pretending to hold a flower from my curtain here, and let me spin it around a bit for ya.



I was going for a mountain scape and playing with that middle ground and what I could create. I liked where this was going, this was the new idea, but what I had so far was too large for jewelry. I went ahead and cured the ones below before really knowing what I would do with them. But I think I have and idea.



You’re going to have to use your imagination a bit.  I’m thinking the vase will hold a pen and the other polymer sheets I may curve and add to to hold business cards and maybe house a email sign-up or some such for my next show.



Now for the old idea. I love the idea of “best friends” type jewelry but I rarely enjoy the execution. I don’t want to walk around with what looks like half my pendant is missing.  I prefer an idea that is complete but part of a larger whole.  This is my take:



They match up precisely at the edges, but if you weren’t the owner of the other half, or a very observant third party, you likely wouldn’t know it was a “best friend” type of thing.  Friends are pretty great at sharing secrets and I think this one makes for a fun one to keep or share.  Now, here’s where I get into trouble. I have three lifelong friends, so I usually make things in sets of four without even thinking about it. I suppose this could easily be two sets but for now, I like how it looks as four.

I confess, I may not have lived up to the challenge entirely since I didn’t use any actual beads and my pendants don’t even have holes yet.  I did intend to make a necklace but I couldn’t find a thing in my stash to go.  But hey, close enough.  Are you interested in seeing what everyone else made? Please come check it out here.

Oh and please come back tomorrow and see the reveal of the Challenge of Travel!