The lure of transparent

Being a currently ex glass person, it goes without saying that I’m a sucker for things transparent.  For a long time, translucent was as close as you could come in polymer.  With the (newish) Pardo clay, you can go just a bit further down that road.  The results look a lot like sandblasted glass, which to me is a great plus, as I spent a good deal of my 18 years in glass with my hands in huge gloves peering into a sandblasting cabinet trying to take that pesky shine off my glass.  Who knew it could be so easy?

                       


I’ve been messing around with this for a little while between other projects, but I did take the time to actually try and put a necklace together from some different elements that I’d made.  Oh, my sad and sorry wire work – I apologise in advance to all those who do wonderful wire work!  Just part of the ‘big picture’ learning curve that I seem to be stuck at the bottom of…I know this is not new material since I’ve already posted these on Flickr, but I wanted to talk a little more about the technical aspects of these.  Besides, not everyone looks at Flickr!
There are a few things to figure out -  whether the almost transparency stays if you add new parts to your polymer piece.  This is important to me as I like to add things sometimes, or at least, have the ability to ‘tweak’ something after curing the polymer.  I think, on the whole, that my experiments show that the best clarity comes after the first high temperature curing and it’s downhill from there.  Plan accordingly.  I’m also experimenting with adding various colorants to the polymer before curing, or applying them to the surface and curing again. On these beads I’ve used alcohol inks and Pebeo SetaSilk.  Not sure which I like best yet.
                                                                                                             
                                                                
                                         

A funny constructed focal bead.  Love to play with elements and don’t seem to do it enough lately….
                                           
                                                                              

These Pardo elements are amazingly strong and flexible, in case you were wondering.  I’ve never seen a clay to match it!  It makes possible so many more design ideas that I have.  It’s not brittle at all…In fact, my only criticism of it is the way that it takes texture:  I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it sort of oozes and looses the texture unless you are very careful.  It’s worth remembering that no one clay is going to have all the characteristics that you want, and that perhaps, a better strategy is to work with and learn all the tricks of each brand and choose your clay according to the needs of your project. 

                                                  

Ok, I know…a lot of pictures of the same stuff, but did you notice how nicely the photos are PLACED?  I’m going to have something to say about that in my next post.  Oh, the time I’ve wasted trying to get photos to work well in Blogger and it turns out that it is all so simple.  Placing them 3 in a row is just showing off, but I just wanted to do it because I never could before!
I’m making some of these beads to sell individually in my Etsy shop – what do you think?  I’d love to have some feedback from you, my patient and faithful readers.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!   And here's hoping that you find all your eggs wherever you've hidden them! We're having a quiet family Easter with the absent (posted ) parent here in the flesh! Couldn't possibly miss the 'hunt', so of course I bought far too much chocolate...but, who cares? I just love watching them race around and squabbling as they go.  Am reasonably certain that my son will be asking for the 'hunt' into his twenties! (That's another ten years...)

  

 Some almost eggs for you?

No, not really....just a sucker for texture and color.
Have a good rest everyone - eat a lot of chocolate and get back to work next week with a clear conscience.  You earned the rest, and this perfect weather is your reward...well, it's perfect here at  least!  Sorry if you are enduring the perfect storm....

Surfacing

It's March and I'm coming up for air. With a little luck (and some careful planning ) I should be able to keep my head above it all.

My apologies for the protracted absence. I know what it's like to like a blog and then you keep checking and there's...nothing.  And then you secretly worry if the blogger is ok.  Rest assured, there is really not a thing wrong except the process of life which has been full of both wonderful and unpleasant challenges.  As life is...

I'm at the end of a looong period of....what?  Paralysis of will might be the best way to describe it.  Lots of changes going on here and far too much to do had the unpleasant effect of making it impossible for me to decide how to start or finish anything.  The bright side in all this is that the ideas have kept coming so that the notebook is full...yeah, yeah, you've heard it all before.  Now I have to produce the goods, as it were....

A few new projects are in the works - more about those later.  This is just a hellllloooo out there, how are you sort of post, with the shamefaced announcement that I'll be updating my shop tommorow morning with 30 new listings ( I can hardly believe it myself.)  Included in those listings will be some of the beads you see in this post.  It's a very long overdue update, and I have 20 more listings to go up by the end of the week.  NOT included in tomorrow's update are Hollow Pod beads (singletons or pairs).  Pods will be listed on Thursday at noon!

I can at least deal with the work I've already finished, right?
What a maroon I am, sometimes....