I’m cobbling together a post from your emails since I’m on vacation and laptop time is limited.
In response to yesterday’s post, Patty Barnes describes how she makes her Kemper cutters organized and portable.
“Since I have many sets of Kemper cutters and I like to take them to classes and meetings, I used a metal tin to hold them.
I pressed scrap clay inside the bottom of the tin so that it was about ½” thick. I cut out each shape with the cutters and baked the entire tin. Coating the cutters with cornstarch or ArmorAll and leaving the cutters in place during the baking helps. Polymer clay shrinks a tiny amount and leaving the cutters in place during baking makes for a better fit.”
Kylee Milner (Lunes Bijoux) sent along the link to some versatile, inexpensive pendant bails she found on Ebay.
Art Jewelry Magazine has two articles about Melanie West in their current issue. One is a look at Melanie’s solar-powered home and studio. The other is a tutorial on bonding seamless polymer over aluminum cuff armatures.
Today’s photo is from the Artful Home catalog where I searched on polymer clay and came up with four pages of mouthwatering jewelry and furniture. The credenza entitled Bending Birches by J.M. Syron and Bonnie Bishoff is covered with polymer clay marquetry. Here’s their home site.
Lenora Kandiner ,
Bonnie and her husband were at the ACC craft show which coincided with Synergy last year, so we got to see their furniture up close and personal. Then I saw more this fall at the Philadelphia Museum of Art show. It is really spectacular.
Ronna Sarvas Weltman ,
Ooh, Cynthia, you’ve hit a chord — findings! Although I craft my own metal and wire, I’m always on the lookout for ready-made findings for my students, and a little bit of class time is spent showing students how they can combine ready-made necklace, ring and bracelet bezels with polymer clay to hit that sweet spot even if they are in what I call the “pre-metal confidence stage of life.” In fact, some of Melanie’s brass channel bangles are journeying across country right now for my students to play with in a few weeks. Check out objectsandelements.com, hipposeatingalligators.com and polymerclayexpress.com as well as Melanie’s site for interesting findings.”
Lisa Bayne ,
Cynthia – thanks for mentioning us in your post. I was introduced to Bonnie’s work in person at ACC Baltimore last year, and remain in absolute awe! There is some wonderful polymer clay jewelry on our site as well.
Juli ,
There is some exceptional work in the Artful Home catalog…but there’s also a couple of really amateur-looking pieces at VERY high prices. Poorly finished, haphazardly made… There must be something to that “being in the right place at the right time” theory.