Most of the time I receive bills and junk credit card offers in the mail. Not the other day though. I received treasure in my mailbox! A beautiful pendant and a pair of earrings from the wonderful Nina Bagley. As I connect more with my love of writing, this pendant is a perfect companion to grace my neck. Nina’s poetic writing, soulful photos and creative artwork have been such an inspiration to me and I am honored to wear her jewelry.
As I was beginning to think about my January page, I imagined a spiral path. Spirals keep popping up in my pages. I had so much fun creating the glazed face cabochons at my guild meeting a couple of weeks ago that I knew that I’d like to continue working with glazed polymer clay. So, I’ve created polymer clay “pebbles” for my path. I used some letter stamps to spell out “The Journey to Myself”, commemorating the journey of a lifetime and celebrating my 50th birthday. I love the way that the glaze concentrated in the recessed letters.
What do you think?
A thin light threads through the clouds this morning, illuminating the light frosting of snow covering the ground and the trees. We’ve had snow showers on and off for the past week that will continue through this weekend. I love this kind of snow because it doesn’t muck up the driving and constantly gives everything a fresh coating, covering over the dinginess on the side of the road.
This morning I have brewed up a cup of a Chinese Oolong called Da Hong Pao. It is grown in the gorgeous Wu Yi mountain region, located in the Fujian province of China. Traditionally, it is an old and venerable high quality tea reserved especially for honored guests. So, this morning, I honor and raise my tea cup to you, dear tea readers.
The leaf is huge and very dark, even after steeping. I steeped for 4 minutes with 190 degree F water, revealing a dark amber liquor with a sweet chestnut aroma. The taste fills my mouth with buttery smooth honey and nutty notes.
This tea was reputed by some to help with weight loss. I’m not sure what was so different in the components of this particular kind of tea that it would act in this way. You can read extensively on the internet about the “miracles” of this tea, including a lot of articles explaining its weight loss secrets. If you’d like to read about debunking this myth, go here.
About 6 years ago, I started a free form peyote stitch amulet bag in luscious sea colors. Over the course of 4 years and a challenging time in my life, I worked on it on and off until it was finally finished. I loved the meditative feel of adding beads a little at a time and it mirrored for me the small positive steps I was taking in my life. Perhaps the healing memories of creating that amulet bag is one aspect of what drew me to the idea of the Beaded Journal Project years later. Recently, when I saw this bracelet created by Libby at Libzoid, it further awakened those memories. So, inspired by Libby’s creation and the sunrise colors in my December page, I created this free form bracelet. I call it “Awakenings”.
Last week at my RIPCG meeting, some of us experimented with creating glazed face cabochons. We started out with various colors of polymer clay and some purchased face molds. I used a blend of ecru and white clay. After the face was molded, we rubbed small amounts of Pearl Ex powder on the faces and cured them for 10 minutes. The ones above have macropearl, bronze and gold, going left to right. After curing, we mixed a couple of drops of Pinata ink (I used 1 drop each of Baja Blue and Rainforest Green) with some liquid polymer clay. I used the Kato brand while some of my fellow members used the Sculpey brand. I save the sauce containers from my Chinese food orders and they’re perfect for mixing small batches of paint or glaze. The faces went back in the oven for about a half hour. We noticed that the faces with the Kato glaze came out shinier whereas the Sculpey faces had a matte finish. With the profile face, I experimented further with some Tim Holtz Distress embossing powder in a Tea Dye color (of course!). I rubbed it over the face and popped it back in the oven for awhile. When I took it out, it looked like nothing much had changed. The powder was still sitting on top of the face so I rubbed it off and it left behind some interesting spots. I glazed again to seal in those rusty looking spots.
I’m not sure yet what I will do with these faces. They might whisper to be used on one of my beaded journal pages. Or, perhaps a bead embroidered pin or pendant. Experimenting with glazing polymer clay has inspired me to create something for my January page that I’ve been puzzling over in my mind all month. It’s not done yet but I will post pictures once I have them made. A hint – pebbles on a path that spell out a message.
If anyone has any experience with glazing polymer clay, I invite you to share your story.
Art and Tea 