Our springs have sprung into a necklace!

Well here it is ... a spring necklace made from the spring beads.

The other beads were done in a Mokume Gane technique strung with fresh water pearls.  There is a barrel clasp hidden inside a polymer clay bead. We will tell you more about those later.

I think we will experiment a little more with the spring idea and see what else we can come up with since they were a lot of fun to make.

Spring has Sprung!

   

Looks like spring has arrived -- at least in our corner of the world. Seeing the new flowers sprouting up can't help but make your heart sing and feel drawn towards their beautiful colors after a long cold winter. These flowers in our yard actually survived the winter and have been in full bloom for several weeks now. I love the bright jewel tone colors of the Primulas and how they stay in bloom for so long which is probably why it is my favorite spring flower.

I've been working on other "spring" type clay projects lately. Here are some Spring beads I made with an idea in mind on how to use them. We will see what Dave comes up with in a few days and keep you posted.

These are a few of the flowers on clay tiles I have been working on for the past week to decorate a different sort of jewellry/trinket display cabinet. I will show more photos later of the progress and the final finished project.

   

What's in a name?

When we started this blog we wanted a catchy moniker that might stick in peoples minds. Dave looked in various trade magazines and found a variety of word-play names. It seems that the majority of jewelry/artist/business types choose to name their business after either where they live, what their name is or after their favorite letter of the alphabet. But, there are several people who, like us, obviously stress the hobby and fun part, name the business after;

A) a Thing - the Bead Bug, The Beadoir, Beadniks, Bumblebeads, Busy Little Beads, Beads of a Feather, The Birds and the Beads, Three Little Beads, or Beauty and the Beads.
B) a favorite band - the Beadles, Beadlemania, the Beadgee - a favorite song - Let it Bead, the Bead Goes On, Just Bead It, We Got the Bead, don’t worry - Bead Happy
- a T.V. show - the Regal Beader (3’s Company), 3 Beads and a Button, or Bead Me Up (Scotty)
C) Sayings - Keep Me in Stitches, Bead Creative, the Garden of Beadin, the Beading Heart, Bead Different, a Beadiful Thing, Beading Around the Bush, Beadazzled, the Beadaholic, Meant To Bead, Needin to be Beadin, Off the Beadin Path, Bead a Little - Bead a Lot, To Bead or Knot to Bead, All Strung Out, and High Strung.

We wanted a unique name that included both of us and our surname. We thought of : Two Cute Beads or 2Busy Beads or 2 Good Beaders. Hmmm.....almost. Well we are husband and wife and we are best friends (you might say mates) soooooo......how about 2 Good Claymates. Dave especially likes the claymate part as he says that I will always be his Claymate of the Year!

Devine Intervention?

We really enjoy making jewellry for our friends. One of them only wears necklaces with a cross. When we asked her about it, she told us it was one of her favorite pieces as she is a Christian and it was a symbol of her faith.

We decided to make her a necklace with a polymer clay cross and matching tube beads in a mokume gane style. This is a metal smithing technique from Japan that can be imitated by stacking clay in an assortment of colors and then cut into with tools or stamps. Pieces are then thinly shaved off leaving a random design. I stamped the layered clay with some circle and square cutters and then carefully shaved thin layers off placing onto a sheet of black clay. I was almost done when somethig amazing happened. I think you will agree with me that what was left in the centre of the cross after I carefully cut around it added an even deeper meaning.

Howdy folks!

We haven't posted for a few days now because we were having too much fun with our clay and creating new things. We had some clay lentil swirl pendants along with some other beads we wanted to use, so decided to try them in a lariat style. I think Dave got hooked (or should I say lassooed) as he ended up making five more after that! Maybe it was our early years of growing up in Alberta with the rodeo and stampede that influenced us or they were just a lot of fun to create (and wear) but we will probably make more of them in the future! You will see a few more in our flickr photo collection. We are interested in what you think of our designs and appreciate any comments you can offer.

Keeping time in style ...

For as long as I've known Dave, he has never owned or worn a watch. He must have some sort of built in sensor as he always seems to know what time it is and never late for any appointments.

I, on the other hand, can't get by without some sort of timing device. There is a clock in every room of o

ur house plus several kitchen timers. I also feel totally lost if I happen to go out and forget my watch.

I like bracelets but never found them very functional like the watch that I would always have on my wrist. I thought about combining the two in some way so I made several beaded watch bands turning my functional piece into a very attractive bracelet. When I discovered polymer clay I saw some beautiful bracelets and the wheels in my head started to turn a little faster. Why not make my own watch band links out of the clay to create designer watch bracelets? So I went to work right away and have since made an assortment of watch bands, some of which coordinate with the necklaces and other accessories we have made. You will find some photos posted on our flickr site.

Some people have asked me how I make them and so I will be sharing my technique at our next meeting with the Vanouver Polymer Clay Guild. Hopefully by the end of the day, everyone attending will go home with their own designer watch band.

Below are an assortment of watch bands we have made.

My gecko friends

I happen to like geckos. Some people think they are creepy like snakes but I think they are quite cute. We use to have them inside our house in Mexico. They would hide behind the bookshelves or pictures on the wall and in the electrical sockets which were always a little smaller than the holes cut out in the brick. They mainly came out at night but every so often we would see one come out of their hiding spot. We never minded them hanging around since they were very beneficial as they would eat any annoying flys and mosquitos. Some of the geckos were so transparent you could almost see their little hearts beating like crazy.

We also had larger and more colorful lizards in our yard. They use to run pretty fast and our two little dogs use to have fun chasing them. They always managed to run just fast enough to tease them but stay out of their reach. We could always tell if our one dog, Chewy, managed to corner one when we would hear the little yipping sounds he would make.

Because of these fond memories, I decided to have fun with making geckos out of polymer clay. I started out with some gecko brooches and then decided to put some on top of pill boxes like the one shown below. So just like the real ones in our home in Mexico, you never know where my little clay friends will come popping out from next. We will keep you posted!