@aims: To answer your question about piercing a hole in a bead that you have remade by covering a baked bead with new clay you can do it two different ways.

1)You can drill it by hand with a drill bit after it is baked. Click the link by my name to see a neat way to make your own drilling tool.

2) Put your bead wire through the baked bead before covering it. You may need to slide the pin back from one hole to smooth it, then push it through and do the other end the same way.

Other then that it can be tricky to guess where the hole is. Hope that makes sense and helps!

It's mostly because Michael's parents do, and when he moved in with me I figured, why not carry on?

When I lived with my parents we always had the traditional Sunday roast lunch (except we call it "dinner") – some kind of roast joint or chicken (or very occasionally sausages), potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, Yorkshire pudding and gravy, followed by something like apple crumble and custard. The kind of hearty stodgy English meal that means you have to sit in front of the TV all afternoon to recover! Since it's just two of us here I tend not to bother now, it's too much trouble unless you're cooking for four or more.

The one tradition we've kept up even after I moved out is hot turkey sandwiches on Christmas Eve. Mum got tired of getting up really early on Christmas Day and missing all the present-opening to deal with the turkey, so one year when I was a kid she decided to cook the turkey on Christmas Eve instead, and we'd eat it cold the next day.

When the turkey came out of the oven my dad couldn't resist making himself a sandwich with the leg meat, and once my mum stopped shouting at him for ruining the turkey she decided it was a great idea and a Christmas tradition was born. ;) Except for my brother who's vegetarian, he has hot quorn roast sandwiches!

My grandma is very artistic and for my brother's birthday one year she made a cookie that looked like a pizza. My grandparents didn't eat pizza so she had to guess how a pizza was made. It looked great and I'll always remember it.

Cindy, you beat me to it! I love to make clay miniatures and I wanted to make a pizza. Yours looks delicious!!

Laurel, I'm with you! We should get together and "clay" in person!!

I also love our clay people community. Maybe someday we can have a claying retreat somewhere and all gather and meet in person.

aims@ You might have to drill a hole with a dremel or something in the bead once you have cured it.

First question is you first bead already pierced?

if YES?.You cover with the new clay not forgetting to put sa tiny bit of liguid clay on the first bead. You add your second layer of clay. You can touch and feel and repair after if your hole is not good on the first try. Then you cure!

If NO? you will have to make the holes after curing and it will be alright.

It is always posssible to cover a paper bead or a wood bead. You just need to put glue on it first to seal it.

So – as a newbie clayer I haven't as yet tried this and am wondering how it is done.

If you are going to use a bead that didn't work out as a base for a new bead – how do you pierce the bead with a soft covering over a hard base?

btw – Cindy did promise to tell me if my question isn't answered (once she returns from holidays) Perhaps there are multiple ways of going about it?