Shelties and cattle

Lindsay Locatelli carves cattle earrings on PolymerClayDaily.com

Colorado’s Lindsay Locatelli was trained in woodworking. So what does she do with polymer? She carves it! She experiments and fools around and has fun.

Lindsay Locatelli's carved Shelties on PolymerClayDaily.com

Here she turns her horned friends into post earrings. Picture yourself wearing these at your next party. Getting a few looks? Uh-huh.

If you’re more of a dog person, try on her Shelties.

Join other serious clay freaks over at StudioMojo every Saturday. If you’re itching to get beyond your comfort zone and bored with what’s trendy, come on over. We’ll show you some exciting, edgy stuff that will stretch your brain and make you the belle of the ball.

The polymer olympics

Circle pins from Olympic experimenter Nikolina Otrzan on PolymerClayDaily.com

A few more circles and Croatia’s Nikolina Otrzan (Orson’s world) could be building her own polymer Olympic logo with her Texture Play series of circle pins!

Let’s hope she’s building a tutorial to show us how she achieves the painterly textures and loose patterns.

Nik is certainly in the Polymer Olympics when it comes to pushing the boundaries. She’s created 26 rich, dense tutorials, each with an AHA moment that comes from ceaseless playing around. Keep a close eye on her on Facebook.

Carved hearts

This won’t be an all-hearts week but how could we pass up these carved white Ultra Light pendants from Indiana’s Ponsawan Sila?

She has nicked horizontally across the surfaces by hand for an almost basket weave appearance.

Ponsawan may not be finished but the long narrow hearts seem pure and remarkable just as they are. You’ll have to visit her on Facebook or Flickr to find out what happens next.

Ponsawan doesn’t toot her own horn but you’ll see lots of her work and tutorials pinned on Pinterest. She’ll be teaching at French Lick (so will I) in June.

Warm, sunny polymer

The news this Friday is full of talk about the cold, snowy weather in our neck of the woods. My eyes went hunting for something hot and colorful to warm the white weekend. They landed in Australia – Barwon Heads, Victoria to be precise.

Jemima Kingston (kingstonjewellery) uses a palette of sea and sun colors on her polymer jewelry. Her edges are roughly carved and splashed with wave-like paints or edged with dots and lines. All fresh and breezy.

You’ll want to spend some time first on her Instagram page to get the feel, then wander over to Facebook and Etsy for the full tour. Oh, plus stop by Pinterest to see her inspirations. I hope you’re warm, cozy and in the studio this weekend.