Clay Play Time and Some New Snaps

My friend Joanne stopped by yesterday and we decided to play with our clay and experiment more with some of the techniques we learned in Bettina Welker's workshop.  We had fun trying out some new color combinations and then made some of the designs into snaps for our interchangeable jewelry.

The maple leaf snap shown below was made by Joanne.  I just love how the colors came out and is so perfect for autumn!

For the larger (maple leaf and heart) snaps we mounted them on the blank flat snaps.  They work really well on snap bases that are plainer such as the simple snap pendant or some new lapel pins that just arrived!

Finished Necklaces from Bettina Welker's Workshop

Joanne Caldwell and I got together today to finish our necklaces from the beads we made in Bettina Welker's workshop.   You can see the beads I made in an earlier post here.

We are both happy to see them finished and quite pleased with the results.  It was a lot more fun and less intimidating doing it with someone else instead of alone.

Necklace made by Carolyn Good

Necklace made by Joanne Caldwell

These certainly are real artsy statement pieces and now need a place to wear them!  Both our birthdays (as well as Dave's) are this month so already planning on where to go and celebrate!

And another exciting thing that happened this week is that Bettina's book I bought arrived in the mail yesterday!  It was autographed by her so will certainly be a nice keepsake with plenty of ideas and inspiration.

Bettina Welker Workshop

I had an incredible time last weekend when I attended a polymer clay workshop by Bettina Welker.  When I heard Bettina was going to teach, I had to go and was so glad I did!  The class was on Vancouver Island and so the weekend started by driving out with my friend, Joanne.

The workshop was for two days and I found it quite exciting to create something different than what I would typically make.  We also worked with the Fimo Professional clay so was a good opportunity to see how I liked working with it.  I have found that it does have it's uses and I like the fact that it was softer yet not too sticky even though the room was quite warm.  

Bettina's style is unique and the class consisted of us constructing different beads using various techniques.  These were the beads that I had made.  They are pretty much in the similar colors as I wanted to maintain a theme and of course lime green and teals are my favorite.

Beads I made in Bettina's class

After we made all our beads, Bettina showed us how we can combine them to create a necklace.  I am playing around with them at the moment to see what combination I like best.

Testing out how to arrange the beads I made in Bettina's workshop

These are the beads Bettina demonstrated in the class and then created a necklace with them.

Necklace Bettina made in class

She then had us write our names on a piece of paper and my friend Joanne was the lucky duck to keep it!

Joanne (left) with Bettina (right)

It was a fun time and if you ever have the opportunity to take a class from Bettina, I highly recommend it.  If it isn't possible, Bettina has several classes on CraftArtEdu that you can take.

I am so glad that Bettina and her family chose to come to Canada for a vacation and I hope they enjoyed their travels as much as we enjoyed her class!  We really appreciated that they were willing to share her with us while they were here.

And of course a big thank-you to Barb Alexander and Irene Corman for all the work that they put into planning and preparing such a wonderful time!

Bettina Welker Workshop -- My Bags Are Already Packed!

I was so quite excited when I heard that Bettina Welker was visiting Canada and is going to give a workshop here in British Columbia.  Bettina is one of my top favorite artists I would love to meet and so of course I am already signed up and can hardly wait!!!

It should be a fun weekend (August 13-14) all round starting with the drive out together with my "clay" friend, Joanne (I wrote about her here), and then meeting up with old friends from Vancouver and the Island where the workshop will be held.

It will also be great to learn something fresh and new.  Even if some of the designs taught aren't necessarily our style, it can still be inspiring and the techniques learned become a springboard for new ideas.

If you are in the area and would like to attend, hurry and register today as it is filling up fast!  For more info or to register, see the poster (above photo) for more details or contact either Barb Alexander or Irene Corman. 

Extruder Cane Designs Using Kato Clay

When I came across Bettina Welker's Pixelated Retro Blend Cane tutorial, I knew I had to give it a try! Then I came across the Rainbow Daisy Pen tutorial by Amber Elledge of Starless Clay and absolutely loved the bright colors she used.  I finally had a block of time to do some experimenting and decided to cover some seam rippers and a stylus pen so finally gave it a try using both methods.

In her tutorial, Amber shared her color mixes using Premo clay.  Since we work almost entirely in Kato clay, I pulled out some clay colors that I thought would make a bright  rainbow blend.  I thought I would share the colors that I used for those of you who have my Clay Color System tutorial.

Whenever I create a new cane or color blend, I like to document it with the color recipes I used and how it was done as in the index cards shown here:

These are the color recipes I used in the order of loading the extruder.

Plum - Clay Recipe # 10-5
Lighter shade - 1 part Plum + 2 parts white mix # 1-2

Bubble Gum - Clay Recipe # 11-3
Lighter shade - 1 part Bubble Gum (#11-3) + 2 parts white mix #1-2

Cayenne - Click here to see the Pantone color recipe
Lighter shade - 1 part Cayenne + 1-1/2 parts white mix # 1-2

Celosia Orange - Click here to see the Pantone color recipe
Lighter Shade - 1 part Celosia Orange + 1-1/2 parts white mix # 1-2

Freesia - Click here to see the Pantone color recipe
Lighter shade - 2 parts Freesia + 3 parts white mix # 1-2

Bright Chartreuse - Click here to see the Pantone color recipe
Lighter shade - 1 part Chartreuse + 1-1/2 parts white mix # 1-2

Teal - Clay color recipe # 8-4
Lighter shade - 1 part Teal (#8-4) + 1-1/2 parts white mix # 1-2

Dazzling Blue - Click here to see the Pantone color recipe
Lighter shade - 1 part Dazzling Blue + 2 parts white mix # 1-2

Violet - 4 parts Kato Violet + 1 part Kato White
Lighter shade - 1 part Violet + 2 parts white mix # 1-2

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Now for Bettina Welker's method of the Pixelated Retro cane, I used the same color recipes as above (Bright Chartreuse, Teal, Dazzling Blue, Violet, Bubble Gum).

I like how it turned out but decided to do a second batch and switched out the Bright Chartreuse green for Olive green (Recipe # 7-8).