Laura Griffin Designs

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!

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!

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.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of coordinating a North Texas Polymer Clay Guild 2-day “Dragons, toads, & friends” workshop with sculptor Kathy Davis. Kathy is an amazing talent & is best known for her whimsical fairies, dragons, & mermaids. You can see some of her work here. Although I am only beginning to sculpt, I really enjoyed the class. Kathy has such an encouraging spirit. She made everyone feel really comfortable & helped foster the lil’ artist in each of us. Everyone left with such unique & different creations! Here are my three…

The first was a tired dragon:

The second was a pondering frog:

And the third was a direct copy I made of one of Kathy’s designs that she said I could post (have to give her credit for it!) I just loved the frog chilling in his own lil’ pond. What a cute idea!

Amaco & Staedtler are hosting a great challenge at the CHA Winter show this year.  For a couple of years, they have sponsored events for Bottles of Hope, an organization that distributes polymer clay-embellished chemo bottles to cancer patients & survivors.  The winners of the challenge get to donate their winnings to the cancer charity of their choice.  What a great opportunity! 

This year’s theme was mini-bottles of hope (2″ or smaller).  Participants had to decorate the bottle, add some clay beads & string a necklace for a child.   Here’s my entry… a bamboo panda bear necklace.  

I made a few decorative leaf canes & used sparkly green glitter clay for most of the beads.  Ok – so maybe they don’t really look like Bamboo…but who’s lookin’ that close!  *LOL*  The panda was sculpted from white & black clay & he holds the empty chemo bottle with a sprout of Bamboo growing from the inside.  The toggle clasp was made from polymer clay & embellished with leaf canes.  Click on the pics to see larger images.

I can’t wait to see the finalists’ entries at CHA.  I’m always so amazed at the limitless display of creativity. Only a few weeks left til the show!