Manly polymer

There’s time this weekend to whip up a manly soap dish for Father’s Day or just for fun. These are from Moscow’s Juliya Laukhina and are intended for her brother.

The men will be impressed that the patterns are composed of scrap. Use a Stroppel cane or Kim Korringa’s mosaic trick or some other variation of a scrap veneer.

Useful, not too fussy, and made with love – what more could your men want?

If you need more fresh-squeezed creative juices, head on over to StudioMojo to see what goodies we pulled out of our stash of new ideas and products that wouldn’t fit into PCD.There’s so much going on! Our juices are flowing.

When pigs…

What is Alice Stroppel telling us with her flying pigs on PolymerClayDaily.com?

Sometimes it’s clear what message polymer artists want to tell us.

What could Florida’s Alice Stroppel possibly be communicating with her latest edition of flower-covered pigs with wings?

Alice hints that “Serious fun happens when pigs fly.” There’s no holding Alice back. Her pigs will happily fly whenever she wants them to. There’s a lot we could learn from the spunky, irreverent Alice.

Speaking of unexpected fun, come on over to this week’s StudioMojo where we follow Into the Forest exhibit creators Laura Tabakman, Julie Eakes and Emily Squires Levine. Teaching their polymer methods to incarcerated women was a more joyful experience than they ever anticipated. Come find out why.

Variations on the Stroppel theme

Just when we thought we’d seen every Stroppel variation possible, we stumble on Sue Corrie’s latest riff on the technique. My eyes danced around her colors and landed on those gradated round slices with cherries on top. Even slight variations in color make a difference.

And this was just my favorite. You’ll like others in her gallery and on her Flickr site.

Be sure to read how Sue selected her business name, GhostShift.

I forgot to push the “publish” button so we missed coffee with you this morning.

Serendipitous polymer

The polymer scrap from a guild challenge provided San Antonio’s Deb Tuchsen with a rainbow of leftovers. She stacked and spiraled them into a Kato-style cane. The end bits were layered into a Stroppel-inspired log.

The synergy of the techniques and colors added up to a Van Gogh-meets-Hundertwasser cuff! This art history lesson comes to you courtesy of equal parts serendipity, sharing and skill. Congrats to Deb for bringing it all together.

I don’t know if her entry was successful in the guild challenge but this is certainly a winner. Watch the whole process on her Flickr site.