“Just sold 3 pairs
of those Faux Jade
rose leaf earrings shortly
after posting them on
Facebook. I am so excited
right now!” ~Brenda-M
These “Spot” features are for you guys to display your accomplishments, share stories of inspiration and even ask for assistance with challenges that you may be experiencing. The projects are based on techniques learned from articles here at the blog, as well as from tutorials at the Polymer Clay Video Library. My hope is for these “Show and Tell” features to help everyone get to know each other a bit better, thanks to this wonderfully artistic medium of polymer clay. And… by participating, you can win some beads too!
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If you are interested in sharing pictures of your polymer clay projects with the community, please follow these 2 simple steps:
1) Email several of your photos to me as attachments. My email address is shown in the “From” line of the weekly Polymer Clay Newsletter that gets sent out each and every Friday morning.
2) Include a description and/or story about your pieces, being sure to reference the tutorial(s) or blog article(s) that provided at least some level of inspiration for your work.
Don’t be shy. Everyone is VERY friendly here.
In the comment section below, please do compliment each other; Offer encouragement; Ask questions about the techniques used; And in general… be social. This is your community! It’s up to you to make it a fun and supportive place to hang out. All of you are amazing and it’s wonderful to have everyone here!
I feel that everyday here at your Polymer Clay Tutor site, I get closer to my claying friends. Starting to remember names and faces… man wouldn’t it be nice if we all lived closer? So that we could give each other big bear hugs. ~Brenda-M
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Congratulations Brenda! On both your beautiful work and your sales! Great!
Brenda Very nice work and good luck for future sales it does boost the ego.
These are beautiful, Brenda! What did you use for the gold veins in the leaves? Is that ink, paint, some kind of pen? Also, congrat’s on the sales! You really do some wonderful work. I love your enthusiasm, too, and how you get right into every project! You’re awesome! ~Kat
P.S. Love the 80’s music!
@Phaedrakat: I love the 70’s music better “LOL” But the 80’s is what I had on that day.. Don’t get me started on music we will be here all night :)
Love your faux jade pieces, especially the gold in the veins. Did you paint that in? So cool that you sold them after posting on facebook.
Yay, well done, they look fantastic. :)
Brenda,
So sweet and pretty…great job! I love the wire curly-q’s..!! Congrats on your sales! I guess I’d better get busy and put some of my work together and get it posted online!
Not much to do today – we had a BIG storm this morning – we lost half an acient pine tree out back, makes me sad, and we’ve got no power until 8pm (got the generator going now) and it’s been out since 9:30ish am… Got fairly scary for a bit there!!! And we might get more – I seriously hope not – I’ve had enough for one day!
@Lisa Whitham: We got pounded here too. My whole back yard was flooded. I had to rescue two kittens. One I could not get too :( it was crying so bad. I felt horrible. It got deep enough for a duck to swim. I took photos of that duck too. We have ugly ducks here in Fl. Big ugly worty looking cones on there head and face. LOL I put the kittens back where I found them so their mommy could get to them.
@Brenda: You’re right. We’d better not introduce any other topics — we’ve talked about everything BUT clay today! You guys’ weather is surprising. We’ve got full-on summer here in CA. I’m not ready for it yet, though. I hate the heat, and I need to postpone turning on AC for as long as possible. Congrat’s again on your sales, and on your Kitty-kat rescue! ;D
@Lisa Whitham: Your storm sounds really scary! I’m sorry you had to deal with a power outage and the fallen tree; must be a real mess! I hope the power’s back on now, and that you’re done with the storms for a nice, long while! Hopefully tomorrow will be a much better day, without scary incidents! :D
@Lisa Whitham:
Lisa, I live in Florida too….Sebring
@Hooky46: Bless your heart… You live way deep in Fl.. Hurricane alley is what I call it. Thank the Lord it passes on through on us.
Fantastic, they look great. Congrats on the sales, it’s great to sell something, but to have it sell so quickly goes beyond that.
@Ken H.: I know.. It was nice selling them.. I personally didn’t think they were all that. But they did. :)
Congratulations on the beautiful work and the sales. You must feel so good!. I love the wire curly q’s too and the gold veins give the leaves a rich feel. Did you paint the veins in with gold leaf
I used a gold paint pen then sanded the tops off. I had to get busy and make more because I only made one pair. Then I had a person that wanted just the leaf. My Goal is to make a bunch of different stuff from each tutorial to sale. I post them on Fb to get comments to see if anyone liked them. My Older Sister is my biggest fan. She has purchaced five pendants and one bracelet so far. I have given her two. I feel bad for charging. But, if I give it all away I won’t be able to pay for supplies.
Thank you all for the nice comments. It is you that inspire me to keep going. Cindy is a wonderful teacher. I feel blessed to have run across her site.
Congrats, Brenda, on your lovely work and the sales. You are such an inspiration, as an individual and as an artist. Continued success…
Brenda, You sure have the talent! Your work is absolutely lovely and I can see why there are quick sales! Keep it up and I pray for even greater success for you!
@carolyn: Thank you so much Carolyn.
Ok” I just phoned about an occupational Lic. $30. Not bad.. I want you all to check out where I want to set up. Here is the link: riversideartsmarket.com/index.html
Let me know what you think… I am kind of nervous. My husband purchase my canopy this weekend. I wish my daughter lived here she could hold my hand. LOL
@brenda: If there is as much traffic as the photos show, it should be a great place for you to sell. That’s what I always look for. If I see just a few people milling around a craft show, I don’t bother with it. Your work is fabulous and if the traffic is there, you’ll sell out in no time.
@brenda: Looks very promising! I agree with Carolyn, your wares are gonna sell like hotcakes! (Or whatever that means… LOL) You’re gonna be strong, and confident, w/o need of hand-holding. And that’s because your work is fantastic! I understand being nervous, if this is your first time. But after that, it should be a piece of cake! (There I go again — I should check the etymology…) Anyway, if for some impossible reason someone doesn’t buy your jewelry (can’t imagine why!) then “let ’em eat CAKE!” Sorry, I can’t seem to stop. But seriously, this craft fair will be a cake-walk! Okay, that’s really enough! Best of luck to you! ~Kat
PS: I just want you to be able to have your cake & eat it, too!
@Phaedrakat: Thanks for the encouragement.. Your making me hungry with all that talk about cake :)
Hey Guys’ I went to the Riverside Art Market today and there where A LOT OF PEEPS THERE!. I met a lady that travels with her Polymer clay designs. Her stuff is different and interesting. She said that her kids are grown and she is single so she travels with her jewelry. How cool is that?? I wore my hammered Bezil heart pendant with the faux opal on it and she kinda flicked it and said Cute! Like she knew that I made it :) Her web is gloriadanvers.net. fun day!
@brenda: How did you do? Did you sell some stuff?
@Phaedrakat: Oh’ I didn’t go to sell. I went to check it out.. I still have to purchase my occupational license. I am waiting on display supplies too. I got some great Ideas for the canopy to make it look more like a shop. I am so pumped about this… It will give me a little more time to make more jewelry :)
@brenda: Oh, when you were talking about your hubby buying your canopy, I thought it was happening this weekend. I get it now. You’re right. You’ve got more time to build inventory! I can’t wait to see how you do, since I know you’ve got beautiful jewelry!
@brenda: That art market looks like a fabulous venue for selling your jewelry. I wish you the best of luck.
Your polymer clay leaves are beautiful and I just love those little wire curliques. No wonder you’re selling those earrings so quickly!
Those are great!!! I wasn’t sure if I wanted to try the jade tute but after seeing these leaves, I think I will!! Congrats on the sales!
@Carrie: Thank You! Cindy’s tutorial is great. I had fun doing this one.
Brenda your leaf charms are lovely! Great idea adding them to glass bottles too. Good luck, I’m sure you’ll do well with more sales…keep us posted if you can.
Beautiful Brenda!! Congratualtions on your sales! I think your going to be very busy making more pendants and earrings!
Wow, I love all your jade creations. They are beautiful! I am going to have to go back and try this tut. I have been so busy with life lately I haven’t gotten to do much. However, I did make some leopard beads from the tut. LOVE EM! Great job on the jade Brenda.
@Laurel: Ah” would love to see your Beads. I bet they are beautiful. The leaves are just a few things I made with the faux jade. I have beads, and other pendants too. They are gone as well. I have a customer that goes hog wild when I show her my stuff.
@brenda:
Love the translucent quality you acheived with all these wonderful color variants. Looks absolutely like the real thing to me. Great photos, too. Always enjoy your work, your stuff reminds me of Tory’s as shown in her book. Organic and exquisitely finished and detailed.
@Jocelyn: Thank you.. I hate to sound dumb but, Who is Tory? I haven’t purchased many books. I’ll put that on my to do list. I am kind of funny about my work.. If I don’t like it.. I have it in my mind that no others will either. I have been suprized by some of my peices selling that I thought were just ugly and someone purchase them.
@Brenda: Tory Hughes.
Thanks Kat.
Brenda….a warning….this book will change your life, it is that fabulous. Having said that, I would use amazon.com to pick up a used version for less than a brand new edition, but, that’s me. Tons of polymer clay books and vids there, for extremely reasonable prices. I have used this site for years and never had a problem with orders, credit, or delivery. Copied the details for you below. Notice she’s got a new tome out on Mokume Gane. Going back to order that one for myself….lol.
Product Details
Polymer – The Chameleon Clay: ArtRanch Techniques for Re-creating the Look of Ivory, Jade, Turquoise, and Other Natural Materials by Victoria Hughes (Paperback – Oct. 10, 2002)
9 new from $4.79
24 used from $4.78
4.5 out of 5 stars (10)
Books: See all 5 items
2.
Product Details
Mokume Gane in Polymer Clay (Mastering the New Clay with Tory Hughes Vol. 6) (DVD)
1 new from $28.00
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
Movies & TV: See all 20 ite
Note: the Mokume Gane is a video, and she has several…
I should add that Tory Hughe’s work was directly responsible for me locating Cindy and her blog and tutorials. I love using Google images, and was looking at Tory’s pictures from her books, etc. Noticed I kept being attracted to the pics displayed on Cindy’s site.
I see Cindy’s work as having the same basic quality and fineness as that done by Tory, and better than punch, she shares and describes her techniques in such a way as to produce mastery. This blog site and those folks who started out with her training course and are producing selling work now are perfect examples.
With Tory’s book, I used to ooooo and ahhhh, but, struggled. Cindy solved the latter.
@Jocelyn: Wow, thank you Jocelyn for saying that! I consider Tory to be one of the true pioneers of this medium. She takes faux techniques to a Master level.
I know that even excellent techniques can get ‘lost in translation’ when done in books. I try my best to make things as simple and as doable as possible. When you watch the tutorial videos, you should not be just amazed by the cool technique, you should be able to do it yourself.
Nothing makes me happier than hearing from a student that started out as a complete beginner and in not too much time ends up selling their beautiful work. Makes me feel as though I have done my job properly as a tutor and teacher!
I just tried making faux raku crackle, but I overheated it with the heat gun. It never made it to the “edge breaking off stage”, so I kept heating it. It was still flexible, but I think I TOTALLY cured it. So when I tried to make it crackle by putting it through the pasta machine, it didn’t do a thing!! I am going to try again right now. I hope that I have better success this time.
@Dorothy: Dorothy, don’t you just hate when that happens? LOL! So sorry to hear your first attempt didn’t work, let us know how you make out when you try it again. The heat gun can be tough to work with, so I wonder if you covered the poly with aluminum foil, and slowly used a hot iron, if that would cure it faster and better?
Will put that on my list of things to try and note results here. The first time I crackled, I used the toaster to heat the piece (NOT RECOMMENDED) by holding it over the slots while on high. It worked the one time, but, cannot see it for production work, lol.
Brenda
I am so happy for successful sale of the earrings . I have been making things but just don’t know how to market it other than my friends. How did you do it on facebook? Was it hard?
Hi Natalie,
I just posted a picture of them on fb. People requested that they would like a pair and they asked the price. It was, people that I knew. It’s really hard getting started. I am still trying to get out at craft shows,but something always gets in the way of that. You just gotta jump in with both feet and get wet. :) Good Luck