Off on another track and a look at the mirror

I am off on another track. I love the sacred hearts I have been making and I am making more. I didn't get a chance to get a picture of the new ones I had made yesterday.
Maybe you can see why I have a hard time standing still long enough to photograph anything when I am following my muse. Sometimes she will let me stop and take a breath and sometimes I am puffing real hard just trying to keep up with her.
I have learned after all of these years that if you have the chance to follow a muses lead, you will be happy(and tired) coming out the other end. Your house might suffer, your family might not like you anymore, and you may need a shower and a good nap, but you will be happy.
I am so grateful to be able to, most of the time, follow my muses lead, it is very important to me. My family having known me for so long, is very tolerant, maybe not happy, but tolerant. ;-D It must be hell living with an artist sometimes. Or maybe it is heaven. Anyway, they do put up with a lot. I am grateful.

Having no pictures of my latest, I dug through my files to see what I could put up today.

I am putting up some earrings I made probably back in 1981-1982, maybe earlier. No laughing, everyone starts in exactly the same place, the beginning. I started there too. I just don't usualy show anyone anymore. ;-D

I think it is a natural progression of working with oven bake clay to play with the scraps, they are so beautiful and the colors are fantastic. With the group of people that started in beginning of polymer clay, we all did this playing. After all, there were no instructions at that time.
Well, one of the things that happened when you cut a scrap ball of clay in half is...
each side of the cut would be a mirror image of each other.
I am telling you kids, I thought this was hot stuff back then and could spend hours doing this. There were also real interesting pictures inside too!
I called them mirror or mirror image beads. Such a descriptive title, eh?

The pair on the bottom right are just scrap coils twisted, that were rolled in to snails.
So get out your clay and start at the beginning. Get to know it first. Make snakes.
Have a great day and be sure to play!

Monday- weekend update

I have been trying to post everyday this month(harder than I thought) and I got a post up yesterday, but not until late in the day, it is good though and about my sister friend Ces' gift to Madi for her first birthday, please go see, some visual eye candy there http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/04/madis-birthday-suprise.html .

I slept till 8 am on Sunday, that is like noon now days. Went to see a friend, Lindly http://www.lindlyhaunani.com/ about 12:30pm, she was teaching a class here, at Quilter's Paradise http://www.quiltersparadiseesc.com/ the owners let our guild SDPCG, the San Diego Polymer clay guild http://sdpcg.org/  reserve the classroom for visiting teachers when they come. A wonderful classroom and very nice people are there and if you love to quilt or work with fabric and you live around here, this is the place to go!!  A gorgeous, clean, and huge store.
It was great to see Lindly, she looks good, age doesn't seem to be affecting her as bad as moi. We have known each other for a very long time. She lives on the other side of the US though, and I am glad I got to see her again, it has been too long.
Also so good to see all of my guild buddies again too! We have a great guild and awesome people here in San Diego, we are very lucky!

On Saturday, I went to play with a friend. I very rarely get away to play and I needed to. Tina http://ktdidclay.wordpress.com/ is fun, she has a wicked sense of humor and is a very sweet person. She took me to a place called Summers Past Farms http://www.summerspastfarms.com/  oh, what a fun day we had, I got a little sun, walked a craft show there (we had no idea it was going to be there, pleasant surprise)  with Tina and her darling daughter N, some people were playing live music and it was good. Bought a lemon geranium with Tina, her dad is going to make some cuttings for me. Oh geesh, does it smell divine! Smells more like key lime pie than lemons to me.

They have a soap making shop there with all kinds of goodies and soaps that they make right there. I bought a patchouli and orange bar, heavy on the orange and light on the patchouli, just perfect, yum. Little too old to be smelling like a hippie now days. LOL!! But just enough to make me feel grounded and good!
They have a sweet pea maze, that was awesome, there were llamas walking around, I had a coffee, yum! I haven't been drinking it because it makes me crazy and mean. I love it though.

We did some clay, I made these. I love them. Tina had some wire she had bent, making all kinds of shapes and I found one, the turquoise one and used it on the heart on the left. I wanted to make more so I bent some more. I made them a little bigger and thought they were just what I was looking for, I like when the bail becomes an integral part of the design. I love sacred hearts and I find myself making them all of the time. I see these beads hanging from the longest loop! Thank you Tina, for the great piece of wire.
We went to Sombrero's http://www.sombreromex.com/  I think they have they best veggie burritos for a fast food place. There are 14 locations in San Diego area. Another yum!
I am feeling so indulged! Whew, I needed that!
Do not forget the Buddha shrine giveaway http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/04/speaking-of-buddhapart-2-and-11th.html, I have added a giveaway permanent page to the top of the blog under the new banner up there so I don't have to worry about somebody missing it, it is called CURRENT GIVEAWAY. Check that for updates all of the time.

I had a great weekend it was just a little short, I have so much more to do!! LOL!
Living with a one year old is a blessing, but man are they fast!
Have a great week everyone! Blessings and magic all over all you all.
Love and hugs.

Madi's Birthday Suprise

Madi got a special gift from one of my sister friends, Ces, on her birthday. I am going to show you some glimpses of this fantastic picture and if you want to see the whole thing you can go here.
http://cesandherdishes.blogspot.com/2010/03/happy-birthday-madi.html

This is the birthday girl herself.

With butterflies from beginning...

I can not even begin to explain how wonderful this drawing is. I love Ces' work and I am drawn in to the depths of it by the minute detail.

...to end and in between

Well, to see it in person took my breath away. She pumps these babies out like it is nothing. You would think there would be smudges as fast as she works, but au contraire mon ami!
Click on the pics for a little bigger view of mastery at its finest!
Thank you Ces! I am so honored to have a piece of your art. Yes, what you see is true. Even though Madi loves this picture that you have drawn and giggles with delight when she sees it, she also love love loves to eat paper and I think I should keep it safe for her until she is about 33. My eyesight should be completely gone by then!!
The note on the back is divine. Bless you sweet one for your kindness.

She is brewing up another storm of goodness, do not miss it!


http://cesandherdishes.blogspot.com/

And do not forget the 11th giveaway here.
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/04/speaking-of-buddhapart-2-and-11th.html

Speaking of Buddha...Part 2 and the 11th giveaway

I think I have figured out how to hang the Buddha shrine.
I bent a 12 gauge copper wire into shape and then gently (oh maybe not so gently) pounded it flatter with a hammer.
I drilled through the board and made large jump rings out of 14 gauge wire.

You can see the whole thing here
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/04/speaking-of-buddha.html

I hung the hanger through the jump rings and tah dah!
It is very simple and I like it!
If you would like a chance to win the Buddha shrine leave a comment on this post only.
Tell your friends.
The giveaway will close on the 26th of April at 6 pm PDT.

Just thought I would sneak that in there. Hee hee! Have a great weekend dear ones! Welcome to all my new pretties. I appreciate your follows. Thank you!

Cannon's Birthday- Part Deux

WARNING this post is photo intensive!

Well, this is part two from Cannon's birthday. I almost posted the cute picture of him again but decided not to. You have to go here to see it. http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/04/cannons-birthday.html

I added the characters to a grass pad that is about 1/2 block of Cernit Green and 1/2 Light Green marbled together or 2.2 ounces total.

They seem to like sitting on the grass, it is probably way better than that foil covered cardboard.

Next I made the letters for Cannon's name. They are just rolled out coils that are about 3/16" to 1/4" in diameter bent in to the letter shapes. I lay the letters on to the grass to see if they will all fit well before pressing them in to place.

I decided when I laid the letters out that I would like them better if they were elevated a little from the base.
So I rolled out  1/2" coil of the green colored clay and place the coil across the front of the base.
I pressed only on the front of the coil when I pressed it down so that it would be lower in the front than in the back.
I then placed the letters on top of that coil and gently pressed them in to place.

I have a rubber stamp with my name on it. I stamped this in to the light green and placed it against the blue monster. Then dated it with marking '10 on it.
I placed a cone of yellow and red together and twisted them together then rolled that cone on my work area to smooth it to make the party hat.
The top of the party hat is just little tiny cones placed on the tip of the hat.

I added a giant  number one to the blue monsters right side, he holds this with his hand.

Here is the way it all looks with the additions.
I am going to add some more things now.

I added a package and tied it with a bow.

I added another package with a bow and a banner to write on to the front of the letters.

Then another long rectangle package to the side where the baby bird is and then added a purple ribbon and a bow to that!

Here is the finished piece and it is baked. I have written on the banner and this also a better glimpse of the colors.

A closer look!

The back side of the piece and the blue and red monsters too.

This is the piece from the top and the right side of it.

This is the front and a closer look at the characters.

This is another view.

I signed the bottom from all of us.

A final look, a birds eye view.
Happy 1st Birthday Little Cannon.
Have a wonderful day!


The size of the base is 5" across and the height of the piece is about 3 1/2".
The weight of the piece is 10 ounces that is almost 5 blocks of clay.

Cannon's Birthday

Madi's little friend Cannon is having a birthday party this weekend. You may remember Cannon from this picture at Halloween. http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2009/11/madis-1st-halloween.html

I wanted to do something special for Cannon. This is the group that my daughter and I did Lamaze with when she was pregnant with Madi.

My daughter and Madi have celebrated a lot of firsts with these kids and their parents. I am so glad they have all stayed in touch over the year.
It is so fun to be in on this from the beginning!

They are a great group of kids with kids, lol!!

They are very nice to me and Cannon's dad is the one that pieced a computer together for me when I worked mine in to the ground and had no money to buy another one, and because of him I was able to keep posting and commenting.

I am so grateful for that!!

Cannon's theme for his Birthday revolves around little baby puppets.

I love little baby puppets.

I wanted to make them in a ring, so I put this cutter there.
Here are the legs to the first one, can you guess who it is yet?

Here he is finished, with the next guy coming to life besides him.
Awwwwwwwwww so cute.
That bird thing in the back though looks like he is coming out of the desk.

Now the bird looks better. If you will notice they are sitting next to each other.
Forget the ring of characters.
I am always going back and forth with how I want something to be in the end.

A pair of legs, I bet you can guess who this is, right?
Well, maybe not, but I will tell you he is my favorite monster and he loves to be tickled.
Sorry these pictures are not so great! I have to work on these in the late hours of the day.
With a one year old running around the place, it is very hard to get much of anything done during the day.

I kind of let the pieces fall where they may. They tell me how they should stand together.
I know, sounds crazy, yep!!
They are looking very cute together though.
Luckily I work pretty fast, don't want to give them a chance to change their minds.

Here is a view from different angle.

Here is another character coming to life.
They seem to greet each other as they come alive.
Is it?...

Yes, it is!
"ME LOVES COOKIES!"
Oops, looks like the red baby grew a nose too!












To be continued---------------------------------------------------------------------------->

Taking shape-changing ideas and altered directions- part 10

Brooch or cabochon, slight variation and smaller.

2" x 1 3/4"