My first guild meeting

I finally got to go to my first guild meeting here in Atlanta, GA. What a fun group of women, so friend and sharing. Carolyn showed us her technique for makeing kaleidoscope canes and the results were stunning. I can't wait to use mine. Carolyn makes and sells the most beautiful canes she even had a tutorial on her site for how to make kaleidoscope canes. She brought some for all of use to see and I came home with a whole collection to play with. Thanks Carolyn, I could never make them like yours.

If there is a local guild in your area be sure and make time to go, it's really true what they say about PC artists they are so wiling to share everything they know with you.

My first flower cane, now I can say "been there done that"

I found at wonderful flower tutorial done by Cindy that I thought I could manage. So today bright and early I started it. Amazingly it only took three hours start to finish. I had the laptop in there with me each step of the way. I now have enough of this cane to last for the rest of my life. I now know why folks sell canes on E-bay, ya can't take it with you! The smaller canes are the size of a dime and the larger ones are the size of a quarter. Not a great photo but I wanted you to see the container I have them in. I found it at Walmart this morning for $2.88, it is

5 1/2" tall and will hold canes at least that tall. I was in the sporting goods department looking for an ammo case and they pointed me to these as they didn't carry ammo cases. I think these are better because you can see through them. And check out those cutouts in the two dividers. I figured I could use them as a holding area for beads when I have some baking on the bead rack.

Glorious color trip

Just played with bright colors today. I love the big twisted beads. I call them "bongo beads". And the Kato clay, it's wonderful. Comes out of the oven with a wonderful shine to it with no sanding necessary. I do see some things that need a bit of sanding. This makes me realized that if I can learn to do a better job prebake I would not even need to sand and polish Kato clay beads. They just come out so great. But, that brings up another issue. They are hard to sand, it takes a very low grit sandpaper to sand them. Best to not make mistakes prior to baking. Guess that's the lesson learned today. (I think I already knew that, just forgot.)

Cormier revisited

Wow! Dan was right, when these veneers were sanded and polished they really did look great. Just had to share them with you. Can't wait to use them for something.

I also discovered that by using the Kato clay the veneers needed very little sanding.

Black and White colorless trip

I tried a fractured cane out of Judy Belcher's book "Polymer Clay - Creative Traditions" today. All black and white clay. I tend to be drawn to the all black and white beads and wanted a new cane to use on them. This was fun to make, you have to create numerous black and white canes that are then cut and mashed (southern technical term I just learned) together to make he right triangle. The cane uses a right angle triangles, which is always hard for me. I had my husband make me a wooden frame to put the cane it to ensure the correct angle. It worked! I want to use these for pendants and bracelet tiles. Just waiting for the extruder disc to show up and I am in business. (I ordered the one that creates bracelet tiles with two holes in the center.) When I was putting the new cane away I realized that I have way too many canes so this weekend I am going to get a bunch of them out and mash them together...LOL