Raise the roof

This year you raised enough money to build a permanent home for the Samunnat women’s project in Nepal. This music video by Australia’s Cathy Bucolo tells the story beautifully. The pictures of the construction and the stories of the women in this thriving program will astonish you.

Dr. Ron Lehocky has been a force behind the project (along with Australia’s Wendy Moore and Nepal’s Kopila Basnet).

When Ron saw pictures of the iron rebar jutting out of the roof for a second floor some day and asked about the stairs that lead to an upstairs eventually – well he couldn’t stand it. “The builder is there, the materials are available, the women need the space. You can do it now,” he said firmly and wisely.

If 500 people give $20, Samunnat can complete the second floor and fence the grounds for livestock and gardening. Ron seeded the project with $2000 (and a cow) and already polymer artists have begun contributing. Help now!

Every contribution counts and you can follow along online to see what a difference you’ve made. Need a holiday gift? A donation in the name of a friend or family member makes a thoughtful gift. Here’s a gift/donation card that you can print and send. You can also help by putting this ad on your blog or talking about Raise the Roof on social media. Let’s do it this month!

Simple Slicer Cyber Monday

If you’ve been eyeing one of Lee Ann Armstrong’s popular Simple Slicers, Monday is the day to jump on it. Lee Ann is donating all her Monday sales (not just a slice but the whole shebang) to Samunnat. You’ll be getting a super slicer and making a mighty donation at the same time!

Here in America, shopping gets frantic for the next few days. Monday is the big day for online holiday sales. Our buying frenzy is a little embarrassing but Lee Ann helps you slice better, shop smart and feel good this Cyber Monday.

Thankful polymer

Colorado’s Amy Giacomelli painted murals and backdrops for film and television for years. She started her Etsy shop in 2008 and her 1 1/2″ polymer pumpkins say it all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Polymer geometry

Snowflakes bring reminders of the awesome geometry of nature. Remember cutting and unfolding paper snowflakes that taught you the secrets of repeating patterns? Some of us still thrill to that lesson in polymer.

San Francisco’s YarnNClay (Lina Bailey and Yana Mostitsky) offer these gracefully shaped drop earrings decorated with a snowflake cane reduced to tiny dimensions. The two artists met on the internet and now mix their media fashionably in an Etsy shop.

This year I vow to make some of Jan Montarsi’s glittery snowflake ornaments. Look closely and you’ll begin to see how he used small cutters, combining them into a geometry of his own for ornaments. His delightful tutorial shares some of the finer points.

Bringing back childhood pleasures is a sure way to stay in touch with the truer meaning of the season.

Facing the holidays

Melanie West went all “spots and dots” while Donna Kato got “spikey” and Loretta Lam played “hide and seek” in the new work they just unveiled on Facebook in time for the season. The works have a loose and confident feel about them.

Not ready for the holidays? Join the rest of us in the crowd who have good intentions and are scrambling to get artworks finished (or started).

Settle down and remember that the holidays aren’t really about competition but about heartfelt expression.

Breathe and take in the beauty of what others have created.

Crocheted polymer

Cut out and texture a polymer slab, pierce the clay with a few small evenly-spaced circles. Consider adding a second layer and more holes. Fire the design. Sew contrasting threads in and out of the holes, wrapping the edges and adding colorful touches.

Madrid’s Fabiola Perez Ajates developed this simple decorative mixed media technique that simulates popular crocheted fashions.

See how quickly her students added their own touches to Fabi’s concept and include this idea in your holiday project stash. Fabi is featured in the Polymer Clay Global Persepctives and her projects are inviting and ingenious.

Mutilated polymer

Margit Bohmer chops, scratches, carves, gouges, and mutilates her polymer beads in the most delightful and enthusiastic ways. Her colors are exuberant.

“I especially like to make simple, rustic beads and ethnic-inspired jewelry. Krobo beads from Ghana and the gorgeous jewelry from Tibet are wonderful sources of inspiration,” she says.

Margit’s DaWanda shop and her Flickr pages show how her color palette has remained constant over the last few years while her techniques have gotten bolder and more energetic.

Have a bold, energetic and enthusiastic weekend!

Two-faced polymer

Athens’ Anarina Anar (oops, that’s Angeliki Karamanlaki) challenges what we think about beads with this two-faced necklace.

She shows us how beads can be flat and connected with different colors on the front and back. See how she links them into long chains and dangles them as earrings. She knows how to build drama with strips of polymer in vibrant colors. This one’s for sale in her Etsy shop.

Heartfelt homecoming

Veronika Sturdy (from Prague and now working in London) brings us charming off-season dotty hearts. The texture and the individually placed dots on a slightly graduated background make a soft and romantic statement.

Veronika has heaps of works in all kinds of polymer techniques for you to explore on Flickr and Facebook. She’s a ceramic artist who googled “clay” and got thrown wildly off-course when “polymer clay” came up in her results.

Veronika’s heartfelt reminders reflect my comfort with being back home with my lusciously large desktop screen and screaming fast Internet connection. Happy to be home! Now to answer all your emails!

On-the-road polymer

Vera Kleist Thom shows up with this dynamite looking polymer Kameko Vase for our last post from the road. I’ll be home-based tomorrow.

Vera’s work makes me want to get back in the studio and make something big and unusual. You too?

Terrific muted colors, zooming shapes, slightly retro , updated mosaic and it could be extruded! Here’s her Etsy shop.

Glamorous polymer

Let’s start the week with some polymer glamor from Russia’s Olga Permyakova

Friday’s PCDaily looked at how Jan Geisen makes shapes work together. Olga hooks her shapes together tightly with rings and wires, sometimes linking an entire framed construction of polymer pieces.

See Olga’s Fall/Winter 2013-14 collection in this Facebook album and find it for sale here.

Homeward bound

One more day one the road! Days in the car make me feel anything but glamorous and if you’re waiting for an email from me, please be patient. We’ll be back soon.

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