Pretty Polymer Clay Projects – Flower Cane Fridge Magnets

Dear Cindy,

I definitely learn better by viewing pictures, so I would love to see you institute the photo gallery feature.

Cindy…you already know I am soooooooooooo excited about this idea! :) :) :) I just had to jump in and say it again!!! I think that having a place to share our pictures of our successes and our not-so-successful pieces would be amazing!!! It would bring a new feeling of participation to this ALREADY WONDERFULLY AWESOME website!!!

Cindy, you are so good to always listen so considerately to all of us here. I am smiling big as I write to you. Thank you for being such a thoughtful and insightful and inspiring teacher and friend to us all!

Big hugs to you as always,

Cindy E.

Betsy, I love your magnet!!! I used to make refrigerator magnets out of cut out wooden shapes, such as gingerbread men, that I would cover with contact paper and various other materials. This is a really cute idea, and it quite lovely. You've got my creative thoughts running!!! Thanks so much for sharing :)

Cindy, thanks sooooooooooooo much for sharing Betsy's picture with us!!!

Hugs and smiles to you,

Cindy E.

I agree CindyE… Betsy's magnet is awesome and it does get the creative thoughts running for other magnet ideas!!

I am hoping some other people pipe up about wanting a photo gallery. I think it could be a real supportive and creative learning tool!

Photo Gallery = Creativity. I'm game for that. I would definately download photo's (good and bad) and share ideas and thoughts. I am new so it might not be pretty but am still willing to share. When looking for inspiration I do tend to look at other people's work for ideas as I am sure most of us do. This could be fun. Count me in!!!!!

Thank you so much Shelly for your feedback!!

Anyone else want to chime in?

Come on fellow polymer clayers!!! Lets all encourage Cindy to put up a photo gallery!!! It would be awesome!!! :) :) :)

A photo gallery would be really great! I've been thinking about sending you a photo of one of my flower petal bead necklaces. But I'll have to admit that I'm hesitant to do so because I feel insecure about showing my work to others. My friends and family love it but to other clay artists? Kind of scarey to me….

I understand how you feel Marsha. I'm sure there are others who feel the same as you.

What about if I set up the photo gallery as a members-only feature instead of having it wide open to the public here at the blog? That way the group would be smaller and more supportive of each other.

The more I think about this, the more I love the idea! It would really help to build a strong community of learning and encouragement for everyone.

Thoughts? What does everyone think about setting up this photo gallery as part of your membership at the new video/recipe library?

Cindy,

I totally understand Marsha's feelings and hesitation about showing our work…it is a bit intimidating, as not all of us here are pros yet…but I think the point is to encourage each other and to learn from each other. I know I certainly come up with a lot of silly and amateurish looking pieces!!! But I think it would be really fun to not feel alone in my mistakes and troubled pieces :) Therefore, I am willing to show my awkward and not-so-great-yet work. Who knows, I might just have some gorgeous looking stuff down the line that I will feel very proud to show as well!!!

I think that setting up this photo gallery as part of our membership at the new video/recipe library would be a great idea!!! Cindy, you are so brilliant!!! :)
(as always :) !).

Hugs to you!

Cindy E.

Great feedback Cindy E!

A member photo gallery sounds great. We are all here to learn. How many times did Thomas Eddison try to make a light bulb before get one that worked; I believe it was well over 1000 times. I subscribe to Polymer Clay Daily and get a daily e-mail featuring work of PC artists form all over the world. Some of the work I like, others are not at all appealing. I see this as a wonderful learning opportunity and copy quite a few of these pictures to my computer for inspiration. I find appealing color combinations, or a variety of textures, surface treatments or combinations of bead shapes I had never considered; even the ghastly ones have something to offer.

I feel that PC requires a lot of trial and error but the most important thing is that we are learning and having fun. I hope the Gallery will have a "What was I thinking?" section. I recently spent hour and hours and hours making a the perfect gift for a PC friend by coving a pre-purchased desk clock; it was such a great idea I bought two of the desk clocks. I used a color wheel to determine colors combinations, wored hard on color balance, made sure the clock hands would be ale to move freely on the face, added decoration to the face, mitered the corners, smoothed every seam perfectly used Pearl Ex powders and texture sheets. It looked great when I put it in the oven to cure. My "What was i thinking" moment came after I shut the oven door and said…." I wonder if that PLASTIC clock base can tolerate the 275 temp, oh the temp is not too high." Things seemed to be going well because there were no unusually melting plastic smells in my kitchen. Well, it was quite a sight after 15 minutes. My friend and I laughed and laughed when I showed her and decided that surely there is a way to attach the clock movement to the very abstract melted clock; she has the perfect spot for it in her office.

Hi Anna,

I bet your clock looks really cool!!! Maybe like a Salvador Dali clock!?! Mistakes can be beautiful too!!!

I told Cindy about one of my mistakes a few months ago:

I tried covering a letter opener handle in a piece of polymer clay "fabric" that I made, and really felt good about. The opener looked so beautiful before I baked it! I was really looking forward to the end results. Well, I didn't think about the plastic handle on the letter opener before I covered it with PC. When I pulled it out of the oven, sadly, the covered handle was all black, burnt, and distorted. I felt so bad because I had used mostly all of this certain "fabric" that I had made just to cover the letter opener.

Well, a few months have passed since I made this burnt mess, and I still use the letter opener. A lot of the burnt black stuff on the clay is gone, and the design on the "fabric" kind of shows through. The letter opener is still distorted, but I keep it, and I use it because it reminds me to never bake my clay projects without thinking and contemplating what could go wrong first!

Anna, thanks for sharing your melted clock story with all of us. I hope that you took a picture of the melted clock…I'd LOVE to see it!!!

:) Cindy E.

LOL Sounds we need to have a special gallery area for those " Holy Crap, What Was I Thinking" projects.

Glad you have warned me about the letter opener handle. I have seen a few really pretty ones covered with PC, wonder were they get the non plastic variety.

LOL that is so funny you girls! Actually laughed out loud! I'm just picturing all these melted art pieces! You could say it was on purpose… be a lot tougher for people to steal your ideas that way! ;-)

Those melted plastic stories are so funny!

I like the idea of a gallery, it would be really nice to see what other people are making (particularly if they explain a little how they made it).

I'm a bit nervous too though, because I know my work isn't brilliant, but I guess we all have different talents and experience levels, and we can all learn from each other. Someone who isn't very experienced with the technical side of claying for example, might be very creative and come up with fantastic new ideas.

It would be good to get feedback on our projects, maybe in a "what do you like about it and what would you do differently?" kind of way.

Anna…xxx

I'm glad you're interested in a gallery Anna! I think it would be a great tool for everyone. Sometimes it's hard to know what went wrong or to notice when things went right. Some positive feedback can always be helpful. I wouldn't be too nervous though, I would never allow mean comments! :)

We'll let you know when we can get the gallery up. There are some technical issues that need to be worked out first.