I'm Back!

Oh man! So sorry. Here I planned to be a blogger & I have no time to blog. I need to do get some time management skills! I have been working (at my regular job) training 2 new employees and trying to keep up with my own work.

On the clay front... I have been getting TONS of orders & custom orders & spending evenings & weekends working on them.. Plus trying to pay attention to the kids & hubby, parents & friends.. clean house, buy groceries, cook, etc. SO I am getting worn thin! (Wish the body was!)

So here are a few new buttons & beads as of late!

Camping & Clay

I'm back! Yes, I almost forgot that I have a blog!
I have a follower! Yeah.. Thanks JH for looking after me!!

So I went camping with the girls at work..Well only 2 actually showed. It was so fun!

Unfortunately I forgot the camera! But I will have pictures of campfire pizza to post soon.

We brought Papa Murphys pizza (They fold nicely in the ice chest!) & made our fire, then let it burn down to coals. We wrapped the bottom of the pizza baking tray in foil, then made a foil tent over the top. We set it right on top of the campfire grate. We used various boards, wooden slats & a ziploc box to cover the front of the fire to help direct the heat up. In 26 minutes the double bacon bbq pizza was done! Oh yeah, it was THE BEST! The crust was crunchy & airy & great! So great that we had cheese pizza with sliced tomatoes the next night instead of the shrimp & chicken veggie kabobs we had planned.

LOVED IT! Got picks on my friends iphone she is going to email to me & I will post them.

So I started making some shaped buttons out of clay. They are turning out really cute. The hamburgers were featured in an etsy members treasury already.

Y'all check out my website soon: www.michellesclaybeads.com as I should have it updated by next week!

TahTah for now

Polymer Clay Lampwork Style!

I love glass lampwork beads! A couple of years ago I planned to teach myself how to make them so I bought a torch & some glass & a few tools. I went to work making rounds, only mine turned out to be oblongs! I thought I could fire up the torch & make my clay bead designs into little glass sculptured treasures. Boy was I wrong!! How do they do it?! Good Lord, its hard!

So my glass stuff is in a box, stored under my bed! Someday I will get it out again & try some again, but for now, polymer clay it is! Last night I got the hankering to make a new set of beads & I decided I wanted to make them with a "lampwork look". The pic above is what I came up with. They look really nice with the 2 coats of shine I put on them. Sort of gives them a glossy glass feel & I love pinks & black together. This set is a new endeavor for me as most of my beads are larger & sculpted/shaped animals & various characters.

Pin Toppers

My friend & co-worker had taken a trip up to Portland & she came back with a few little pin toppers she had got for her friend. One was polymer clay & the others made with shrinky dink plastic. They were really cute & so little!

I did a search for pin toppers & I found a couple of sites that offer these! I didn't even know they existed. So that got me thinking that I could take my bead designs & shrink them down & put them on top of a pin! Woo Hoo.. So my pin toppers were born!

This little frog is about 1/2 tall. He had to be "built" on top of a straight pin. The pin itself does have a ball on the end. Because of how the frog is made around it, it won't pull off. They take more time to make because of their smaller stature & then I shined him up with two coats of acrylic glaze.

I found some new pins at Joann's Fabrics this weekend. They have tiny glass ball tops & are about 1 3/4" long. I can't wait to try them out. I think they may be a little easier to work with.

My boss owns a scrapbook store & says that the scrappers like these for card making. Hmmm, I never thought about that! Of course don't use these for actual pinning of your sewing projects! They are for decoration of your pin cushion or wherever one might choose to stick one! I was thinking headpins for jewelry making also. But, the pin is so strong your couldnt bend it properly. So I might see if I can make these little guys on an actual headpin. We shall see!

TahTah for now. My vacation starts Friday at 5pm & I have camping gear to get ready & stuff to squirell proof. Hopefully I will be back with some photo's for y'all.

Kaci's Ever Changing Hair & ShopHandmade

Here is my daughter Kaci who is constantly changing her hair! This is the hair from 2 weeks past. Notice the blonde underneath with pink "chunks". You can see a bit of pink in her bangs as well. Yesterday it was all put back to dark brown. Well Clairol calls it "dark reddish brown" actually. So my mothering motto of the month (actually the last 6 months): "It's only hair"!

Shop Handmade

So I found this new place on the internet. It's very much like Etsy, or at least it's trying to be! I like how easy it is to use & I have already had a set of my buttons featured. I guess I am looking for instant gratification. When I opened my Etsy shop I had sales within just a few days. I have had stuff on ShopHandmade for over a week & nothing! I guess I am not a very patient person! So we will see how it goes! You should really check it out & how it works over there. You can list for free!! Yes.. I said free!

I Don't Know How To Blog

So here I am trying to blog. I don't know how! I am not sure why I want to blog to be honest. It seems to be the thing to do & I do have quite a few bead buyers & buddies who may want to read this. I guess we will see what happens! Plus I get bored at work (on my lunch hour of course!..) so I will have something to do now!

So all I have to say is "go with it" and if I break blogging rules (are there any?!)..Sorry!

So to help introduce you to my life I will add some pictures of family stuff. An important thing that just happened..My son Levi just graduated from high school this June. It was a long & hard road and we are sooo proud of him. The above photo is of Levi & his G/F Katie after the ceremony. The top one is exiting the gym. Yeah class of 2010! Hopefully I will get to take pictures of him graduating nursing school some day!