Thursday, January 08, 2009

Accessories from Recycled Zippers

In the past year, I have become much more interested in making things from recycled items. I started by making crocheted totebags from plarn - yarn made from strips of plastic grocery bags. More recently, I fused layers of the plastic bags to make some really cute makup bags. I finally got around to felting the large boxes of wool sweaters that I've had for several years in the basement and I had lots of fun making softies, puppets, barrettes and ornaments from them. I took an old bright green raincoat apart and used the fabric to make two reusable grocery bags (using the raincoat belt for straps, saved all the buttons and kept the really long zipper that connected the lining. I've also started using alot more recycled materials in my kids classes, both here and at the Arts Center. Too bad I didn't take pictures of most of these and they have either been sold or given as gifts. One item that has taken off has been my zipper accessories.


You can read about the basics of making them from a 4-H project here. I actually use polymer clay as a base for my items so that I am totally free to do any size or shape that I'd like. You can find these items for sale at my Etsy Store.

Polymer Clay Technique Experiments

As I learn about polymer clay, it's fun to try different techniques. The first two pictures are of items I made using my extruder....




We gave the mirror to friends in Hawaii when we stayed in their home for vacation last year. The color scheme reminded me of the ocean and their home was right on it!! Beautiful!! The whole mirror is made of clay. I even made a little clay hanger on the back for hanging on the wall.









We gave the baby and serving spoon set to Todd and Keegan for Christmas last year- just before Rhys was born. (It amazingly matched in color and design his car seat fabric that was in his birth announcement picture).








I made the polymer clay pendant in a class with Ellen Marshall. I'm not quite sure why, but this necklace is David's favorite thing I've ever made (so he says). I do like it, but I don't think it's even on my top 10.




The watch was made early on in my experiementation and I made this as a present for my dear friend, Stacy. (the other Stacy).

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Polymer Clay Projects




I've become more interested in playing with polymer clay over the past few years. I love trying all the different techniques and am amazed by the color combinations, textures and designs that one can create - it really is incredibly versatile.
I am involved with an Empty Bowls event here every year. This past year I made polymer clay brooches for all the people on the committee and I made a polmer clay bowl that was auctioned off at the Swanky Bowls event. Here are pics of those.




More Pictures - A few Chain Maille Pieces

I don't have too many good pictures of my chain maille and sterling jewelry, but here are a couple of designs. I start with sterling wire. The wire is wrapped around a mandrel into a long coil and then each ring is cut from that. The individual rings are then woven into these elaborate and beautiful patterns. You have to see and feel the bracelets to believe them.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Some Pictures of Beaded Items

I love doing off loom bead weaving and bead embroidery. Thank goodness that my close up vision is still good because I definitely like the really small beads!.
This bracelet is my "Garden Club" bracelet. I always joke that this is as close as I'll ever get to the real garden club. This bracelet has always been one of my favorite to make and one of my best sellers.
This bracelet won first place at the Hildene Needlework Show. It has a peyote base with lots of embellishment on top. The bracelet closes with hidden snaps.
I do have quite a bit of my bead embroidery on other blog posts. I especially like some of the barrettes that I've done. All of these are definitely labors of love. They all take many hours of work but I really enjoy doing it.

Time to Update my Blog With Pictures

I'm taking a four day workshop at the end of the month on color with the expert, Maggie Maggie. She sent out an email for us to complete a pre-workshop survey. One of the questions was whether we had a website or somewhere online that she could see our work. Since this and facebook are my only online venues, I thought I would update this with lots of pictures of some of the many many things I've made in the past few years.

I also noticed on the pre-workshop survey a question about what medium we work in. As you will see, I haven't yet made up my mind... I'll try to upload the pictures in some sort of order, but you will notice that there is variety as my interest and enthusiasm ebbs and flows.

We'll do sewing and quilting things first because that is where alot of it began. This is the first real quilt I ever finished. It won prizes both at the Hildene Needlework Show and at the Vermont Quilt Festival. I have always had a fascination with optical illusions and3D designs on a 2 dimensional format- It's my love of math and puzzles.

The next two pictures are of two small art quilts that I did at a Melody Johnson quilt workshop. It also started my love of hand dying and painting fabric. The second one was my attempt at working with neutral colors - it was way hard!!








The final fabric pictures will be of two fabric postcards that I did in a 2007 postcard swap. These are two of my favorites.