Click to send your valentine

Your chance to send some valentine joy is waiting at the top of the right column. Your donation, no matter how big or small, will help the women of the Samunnat women’s project in eastern Nepal build a home.

Ron Lehocky will double the love by matching your gifts up to $2000.

PCDaily will bring you regular reports about the project. I’ll tell you about all the wonderful ways polymer artists have already helped their sisters thrive. Go on and CLICK to add your love.

The backstory

Ron Lehocky is no stranger to fundraising projects. He has made and sold over 20,000 polymer hearts to support the Kids Center in Louisville, Kentucky. The ones pictured here are part of his 2013 Valentines Day collection.

Australia’s Wendy Moore contacted Ron to purchase some hearts to take to Nepal. She thought the women in the Samunnat project would be inspired by the work of an American doctor who developed a small polymer project that became remarkably successful at helping children.

As they corresponded, Ron and Wendy shared stories. Wendy told him about the abuse and discrimination that the Samunnat women had endured and how the polymer skills that they learned had transformed their lives and made them agents of change.

She described how the group had moved its offices four times in the last six years because of arbitrary and frequent rent increases. Their first facility, shown here, was little more than an open storefront on a busy highway.

A gift of a small parcel of land and growing success in marketing their beads abroad allowed Samunnat to consider building a facility. For under $10,000 they could construct their own building that would give them the room they need to continue and grow.

To Ron, the building sounded like a small step with a big payoff. He thought it over. To kickstart a construction fund, Ron offered to match donations up to $2000. Isn’t that fantastic?

More to this story on Monday. Why wait? CLICK now.

Harlequin heart

polymer heart

Spain’s Pilar Rodriguez Dominguez (Amatista) ends our week with a bright polymer love token, part of her Harlequin collection that’s colored with acrylic inks. You can study her work best on Flickr.

If a caned heart is more your type of valentine, hop on over to Boston Baked Beads to see Lisa Mackin’s scalloped edged beauty that’s waiting to be reduced. Have a lovely weekend.

Go-for-it polymer

Interior designer Nao from Brussels focuses her designer’s eye on polymer with this That’s not the shape of my heart pendant with freshwater pearl and gold chain.

She upcycles and recycles, mixing and matching her materials with flair and style.

Free from what can be the complications of tools and techniques, Nao starts from a designer’s perspective.

See more in her Etsy shop. Genevieve Williamson sent the link along (and she shows a neat earring trick here).

Reminder

Online party tomorrow night at 8:00 ET. BYOpolymer!

Heartfelt polymer

Katie Way brings us a whole bunch of very cool textured polymer hearts for our Friday enjoyment. Katie’s Bull’s Eye Studio shares studio spaces and gallery/classroom area at Upstairs Studio in downtown Anchorage, Alaska.

If you want a hit of happy color or a reason to dust off your extruder, check out the header on her Facebook page. (Here’s the image for the non-FB crowd.)

Tute treat

One more sweet little non-caloric treat to make it a lovely weekend – a freebie heart tutorial from Meg Newberg.

Heartfelt polymer

Just a few days after the big holiday season and already the hearts are popping up for the next celebration. Tejae Floyde is in her element and this year’s line includes a polymer heart with a love-me/love-me-not indicator. See the video for her Spinner Hearts.

And in the “awwww” category, Melissa McCarthy shows off this 2-inch tall miniature love tree that’s topped with a heart. Her Etsy shop is appropriately titled Made with Clay and Love.

More to come in the heart department!

Halloween hearts

Ron Lehocky takes a more benign approach to Halloween with his heart pins that support the Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies. Ron works on heart number 20,203 as he sits across the table from me at the Kentucky gathering. Artists generously send him their scraps and cane ends which he upcycles into new creations.

Guild members are also working on Beads of Courage and Bottles of Hope. Tonight I regaled them with stories of the Samunnat project. You can take pride in the amount of heart shared by polymer clay artists. We’re playing….see you Monday. Look, Ron added a few Nepali mirrors to his latest heart!

Houndstooth hearts

Louisville pediatrician Ron Lehocky has made 18,200 polymer hearts which makes him the valentine king. Today is his day. Blow a kiss toward Kentucky.

Not only has Ron raised $10 for each of those hearts which goes to the KIDS Center, he’s also raised the bar on what one person can accomplish. Other polymer artists have helped by sending Ron their scrap clay and old canes (he has enough to carry him through 2020).

Ron started his project as a small fundraising effort in 2005. It’s fun to look back at the PCDaily posts that have charted his climbing numbers.

This year Alabama fans asked Ron to take up the houndstooth challenge, a tribute to coach Bear Bryant who wore a houndstooth hat. After a few trial and error canes, Ron created these as his entry. Here’s another recent photo of his 2012 designs.

Email Ron if you’d like to purchase a heart and spread a little love. Happy V Day.

Love Notes

Just one more! Check out Tejae Floyde’s love note hearts for a Valentine’s Day love story.

Time for polymer hearts

Time flies and it’s nearly time to gather up all the hearts in your studio and deliver them.

These lovelies from Israel’s Eti Raz and Massachusetts’ Amy Crawley may inspire you to make a few last-minute valentines.

Eti’s heart is covered with cane slices, layered with a clock face and given patterned wings. Amy’s is inked, textured and stamped. Both of their sites are full of more examples. Love, any way you want to say it.

Wisdom of the heart

Estera from Croatia speaks the international language of love…in polymer.

In fact you’ll find her two Etsy sites here and here filled with paint-spattered, mosaic and textured hearts in fresh, inviting colors.

There’s no imitation or struggle to prove herself here, just an exhuberance and innovation that’s pleasant for a Thursday browse.

Verklempt polymer

Or as Laurel Steven jokes about her polymer hearts wall piece, VerClumped. Overcome with emotion, that is, verklempt by all the birthday wishes and hoping that the site is up in time for me to post this. Seems the server was overwhelmed too! (Yea! we’re back.)

Camille Young throws her heart into the ring and in keeping with our bad pun birthday theme, we’ll call that Young at Heart (she calls it Majora’s Mask). With so many terrific hearts online this season, you can expect to see them sprinkled liberally in posts for the next two weeks.