Laura Griffin Designs

Polymer Radial Blend Bowl

Nancy Lotzer, one of the talented members of our local polymer clay guild, did a great demo at this month’s meeting on how to make these fabulous ripple bowls. She is so creative! The bowls have a radial Skinner blend that looks so beautiful in the finished product.

I used Premo! clay in the one pictured here (white, red, blue, & green pearl). I love all the rainbow colors you get when you blend them together. Can’t share any more secrets since this is Nancy’s technique, but I love how the end result almost looks like a flower…

Happy claying!

Polymer Bracelet/Pendant Set

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any polymer work. I’ve been working on projects for Polyform, but unfortunately, I can’t share any of those here! I decided to post a pendant/bracelet set I made a while back. I have sets of these in different colors, but this one is in a happy shade of orange.

The pendant has a frame of sterling silver around it. I found it at a local silver store – though you can make your own by flattening silver wire & soldering it in the desired shape. For the clay, I’ve used simple flower, leaf, and striped canes on basic black.

The bracelet uses sterling spacer beads & is textured with swirls on the inside:

Happy Claying!

A bouquet of roses – miniaturized!

Diane Foster just retired her presidency of our local polymer clay guild. Part of the tradition of the outgoing president is to make a small gift for the officers. Diane spent years making miniatures…and believe it or not, she does it without a magnifying glass! I was amazed when she handed me this darling bouquet of sweet pink roses as her parting gift. What a pleasant surprise! They are so delicately formed, and to give you an idea of just how tiny they are, I pictured them here with a coin. All I could find tonight was a Chinese Yuan. *LOL* It is about the size of a quarter.

Amazing, eh? I never cease to be amazed by the talent of our local PC Guild. I’m looking forward to getting started with our meetings again in August.

Skinner blends…

In my last post, I failed to show you what the back of the pendants looked like!

I used a couple of skinner blends for the gradiated color. Since my translucent clay wasn’t cooperating much on day 2 of the workshop, I don’t have any pieces yet to show you with image transfers…but I’ll be sure to post some as soon as they are complete. TFL!

Kathleen Dustin Workshop – Day 1

Today I had the privilege of attending a Kathleen Dustin polymer clay workshop. I have admired her work for years, and was thrilled to get a chance to learn from her first-hand. She is both a generous & kind teacher. She shared so much knowledge in a short amount of time & provided everyone endless amounts of encouragement. Her enthusiasm for the medium shines through…it’s no wonder that she received the Smithsonian’s “Excellence in Design Of the Future” award!

I finished four focal beads in today’s class & created the two below necklaces with them incorporating drawing, inclusions, carving & canework into each piece. IRL, the beads have a lot of depth to them. Tomorrow we’ll be working on incorporating image transfers to similar pieces. I can hardly wait!

Lots o’ molds!

This past Sunday, I demonstrated how to make faux ceramic beads to my local polymer clay guild. Credit goes to Patricia Kimle, a wonderful & creative polymer clay artist, who first introduced me to this technique with her necklace tutorial published in the May-June 2006 issue of Step-by-Step Beads magazine.

I was thrilled that everyone brought their own unique collections of buttons to share & we were all in a mold-making frenzy! As you can see from the pic – I made just a few to play with later. *LOL*

After playing around with colors a bit with this technique, I still like shades of blue the best, however, I am particularly taken with the teal color you get by mixing Ranger’s Stream alcohol ink with Jacquard’s Sapphire Blue Pinata ink (with a hint of Tangerine & Senorita Magenta in the mix). It gives your beads a beautiful antique look that is really yummy. I had some difficulty getting a decent picture of the ones I made with this color combo (the below really doesn’t do the color justice), so I’ll have to go back & make a whole jewelry piece to post later.

Thanks for dropping by!

Kathleen Dustin…

I am so excited that in only two short weeks, Kathleen Dustin will be in town teaching our local polymer clay guild!

As the VP of workshops, this has always been a “dream” workshop to bring, and it sold out in just one day! I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with over the course of the weekend. For those of you that may not be familiar with Kathleen’s work, she makes amazing museum-quality pieces with ground-breaking translucent techniques. She is best know for her purses. Many of them have hand-drawn faces featuring her translucent techniques. She also has a more organic series she began in recent years that is absolutely stunning. She does terrific jewelry work as well. I am really taken with her tornado beads/brooches as seen here to the left. Take a look at more eye candy in her gallery. It’s just amazing!

Mail Art

This year, I am the VP of workshops for my local polymer clay guild & am currently coordinating the registration of an upcoming event. One of my fellow guild members, Barb Petroski, sent me her registration in this wonderful envelope. Not only did she take the time to add this awesome calligraphy on the front, but she included a Griffin stamp to boot! Too cool…just had to take a moment & share her talent.

Polymer Clay Swirl pendants

At our North Texas Polymer Clay Guild meeting last weekend, our current president, Diane Foster, gave a demo on how to make these cool swirl beads. Her versions have glitter embedded in them as well as some gold leaf & translucent canes. I used a chrysanthemum cane in these examples as well as a pretty blue flower cane made by my friend Denise Spillane. The bead came from some scrap clay I had on hand in turquoise, violet & gold. Once the beads were formed & baked, I added a coat of Future floor finish to add shine. For a basic online tutorial on swirl beads…check out Desiree’s great clay site here.

Linda Peterson

For those of you that may not know Linda, she has been a talent in the craft industry for many years and does fabulous work. I first recall seeing her on the Carol Duvall show making a darling polymer clay Dachshund Pen Holder. I always thought she made sculpting look so easy! Over the years, she has shown that her talents lie far beyond the polymer clay world. Among other things, she is now an accomplished papercrafter, metal embosser, & jewelrymaker.
She has had multiple TV appearances on shows like Carol Duvall, DIY Scrapbooking, & DIY Jewelry Making. I love that she isn’t afraid to embrace new mediums, and that she comes up with some really fabulous cross-over ideas.

Take her metal mania techniques, for example. Now how many of you own a Cuttlebug? If you work in paper, there’s a high likelihood that you have one sitting around the house. Linda uses Amaco’s ArtEmboss metals in her Cuttlebug embossing folders to produce amazing focal beads & one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces. Who would have thought she could make something like this with just a flat piece of metal & a plastic embossing folder!?!

Linda has a polymer clay bead-making book coming out in the next couple of months. I saw a copy at CHA & it is filled with wonderful faux stone techniques that I’ll have to try as soon as I snag my copy! You can learn more about the book & see samples of Linda’s work on her blog here.