Secrets from the hardware store

Julie Picarello's secrets come from the hardware store on PolymerClayDaily.com

California’s Julie Picarello has a new batch of focals ready for the annual Tucson bead show next week. She’ll be buying, selling, and teaching her new Lunar Feather Beads.

She prowls through hardware stores and walks the long aisles of the big box stores looking for pieces she can stamp into or otherwise incorporate into her mokume gane designs.

In her Tucson classes, students will learn how to use new tools she appropriated from the HVAC department!

In the group pictured here, Julie gives a nod to textiles but look closely and you’ll see washers and traces of metal. This new series is done in her signature color palettes and sprinkled with painted and torched do-dads. She’s on Facebook here.

Stacking and unpacking

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I’m sending you off to France to discover that By IC is Isa Castellano. I’m liking the way she stacks graduated polymer clay disks into a focal bead. Isa combines beads and colors and media with energy and abandon.

The translation is garbled but the pictures tell a great story.

I’m unloading my suitcase, bringing my head back into the right timezone and readjusting to what passes for normal life. Enjoy IC’s site and her DaWanda gallery while I catch up.