Music at the Lake in Chase BC

Our little Village of Chase in BC is a wonderful place to live.  It is right on the Little Shuswap Lake and surround by scenic mountains.  We have a lovely park in town at the lake with a boat launch, children's playground, picnic area, new pier and amphitheatre.

This year the Village of Chase joined the Music in the Parks program with live music held each night in a different location in the Shuswap area.  The Music on the Lake in Chase takes place every Tuesday evening from 7 to 8:30 all summer long.

Last night was the 2nd week starting out with the Checkmates from Lee Creek to warm up the crowd.

Checkmates performing

Checkmates from Lee Creek

The main act was a fabulous rock band from Kamloops called Shattered Blue.  Their music was upbeat and had a lot of people tapping their toes and dancing.  This band had just finished opening for the Sam Roberts Band the night before at Sun Peaks Resort.

I belong to the Chase Women in Business group and for a summer project we are sponsoring the Green Room by providing refreshments for the performers each week.

Last night Barb Paquette of Tree of My Heart Healing, (below, far left) and myself were in charge so was also a great opportunity to meet the musicians.  Beside me (2nd from right) is Ali Maki, one of our town councilors and heading up the Music on the Lake and far right is Natalie of One Love Photography.  You can see some blog posts on a photo shoot she did a few years ago here and here.

I am already looking forward to more great music right here all summer long!

Recovery Time and New Snap Accessories

Just last week I had surgery on my knee to repair a meniscus tear.  I had been suffering with swelling and pain for over a year so was nice to see things moving forward and I will be hopefully walking normally again soon.

Even though it wasn't serious, something like this can slow you down.  I was still been trying to stay active with the clay as much as it would allow but had to focus more on activities that involved sitting rather than standing.

We have found shows are getting harder to do with all the work in preparing, packing, setting up plus the long hours.  We managed to get through the Salmon Arm quilt show and actually found it enjoyable.  The ladies who took part in the Quilted Clay Make & Take had a lot of fun and it was a great way to share with them what polymer clay was all about and hopefully spark some interest in future workshops.

Each lady went away with a quilted clay piece in the pattern and colors of their choice that was mounted on a snap.  We had available a selection of snap base items for them to wear their quilted design and could add other snaps to interchange such as a necklace or our popular magnetic brooches.

Some of the items are new ideas we came up with special for the show and now have them available in our online store.  One is a metal shawl or hair stick with a snap base.

Here is a kilt style brooch pin for a sweater or shawlette.   The snap base has one of our clip clasps so it can be detached and worn on a chain as a necklace.

Everybody Loves Quilts - 2016 Quilt Show

We are excited to be in the quilt show put on by the Shuswap Quilters' Guild coming up already on June 3 and 4 in Salmon Arm.  This large show only happens every 3 years and we had a really great time during the last one. 

Instead of doing a live demo, we will be involving the attendees with a "Make & Take" project.  The ladies will have the opportunity to make their own 4 patch quilt block design from clay!

There is a lot of prep work involved such as making the sample templates for them to follow and mixing up all the clay colors so they are ready to cut into triangle and square shapes.

We also made clay bases to mount the quilt block designs on creating a natural frame background.  Each base has a large snap on the back so they can be added to a variety of snap base findings and used as an interchangeable button or worn as a necklace, bracelet or ring.      

They are also a perfect match for our "2 or 3 Way Magnetic Brooches" so they can be interchanged and worn several ways:

A - As a magnetic brooch (with charm),  B - As an eyeglass or badge holder (by changing the charm for the fancy metal ring) or C - As a necklace (by flipping it around and attaching to a neck chain).

We have a limited space and time for this "Make & Take" project so will set up a schedule at the show and encourage those who would like to take part to sign up for their preferred time slot and select the pattern and colors of their choice.

For more information on the show, you can follow their facebook page here.

Polymer Workshop - Playing with Textures

The pieces shown below are not ours but made by Joanne, a student at the polymer workshop Dave and I taught last Sunday.  The class was a follow-up with some of the students from our beginner workshop and was all about "Playing with Textures".  It was a full day with lots of experimentation and making their own textures plates from scratch.  It also involved getting down and dirty with mica powders and inks but everyone left smiling and excited about what they had made.

Joanne is a talented jewelry artist and she 

finished off her pieces so beautifully.

It is exciting as we are already planning our next clay gathering that will be entirely for fun and play and we now have a small group of polymer clayers in our area to eventually form our own guild.

If you are in our area and already play with clay and would like to join up with us for a good time, contact us for more information.

If you would like to learn more about working with polymer clay, we are planning another beginner workshop in June.  You can contact us or Thread & Paper in Salmon Arm for more information.

Sockeye Salmon are Coming!

It has been an unusually busy summer for us as we have the Salmon Festival coming up in October which happens only every 4th year.  The salmon are already arriving but the great event starts October 3rd and will run for 3 weeks.  This means we have had to work on creating our salmon pieces in between our regular shows and filling store orders.

In order to do this, we had set aside several hours each day to work on our salmon fish pieces.  So far we have made more than 1000 clay "fish" which are then attached to various findings and made into items such as key chains, zipper pulls, cell phone charms, necklaces, earrings, tie bars, fridge magnets and even switch plate covers.

Salmon earring beads ready to bake

Finished salmon pieces

New Scarf Jewelry

We've managed to take a few days out this week to visit several quilt and yarn shops in the Kelowna area (central Okanagan part of BC) and are back in time to prepare for my clay bead demo at the Fireweed Art Studio in Scotch Creek tonight.

I thought I would finally show you one of our latest designs we've created.  This is our scarf jewelry where you can turn your scarf into a necklace.

The flowers were created using my Sculpted flowers technique and then added to a large metal bail.  Our handcrafted matching flower buds and leaves dangle from chain strands with Swarovski or Czech crystals.

These pieces were a popular item at the Shuswap Lake Festival of the Arts show and right now they are available at Bead Connections in Aberdeem Mall and Electrictree Yarns in downtown Kamloops.  We also have several more styles and colors at the Fireweed Art Studio in Scotch Creek.

U-Design Bead System

We've had several requests from stores to make some large hole beads similar to the Pandora or European style for them to sell.  I finally worked out a way to make them more consistent in size and shape.  We now have them in a wide selection of solid colors and patterns as well as various shapes and sizes.

We are calling our new bead collection the "U-Design Bead System" , where we create the beads and "you" design your own bracelet or necklace.

You can read more about it on our website and we will be adding more bead designs as we make them.

I will also be making some of these beads in my live demo this coming Friday evening at the Fireweed Art Studio in Scotch Creek (north shore of the Little Shuswap).  We will have a wide selection of our large hole beads and braided leather cord in different colors on hand for those who want to design their own bracelet, anklet or necklace.  It should be a lot of fun and we are looking forward to it.

If you are in the area, there is also a live outdoor concert with Sly Valley, so bring your camp chair and have a good toe tapping time!

Fireweed Art Studio and New Jewelry Cards

Our jewelry display is now set up and ready for the summer crowd at the Fireweed Art Studio.

This is one of our new jewelry designs in denim blue and olive green.  The beads in this set were made using my mini mokume technique that is included in my Clay Color System tutorial.  I like to call them tie dye beads as they have that appearance.

We also made new cards for our necklace and earring sets.  The earrings are hung on a metallic wire mesh that is attached to the card and there is a plastic tab at the top to hang for display.

Summer Night Concert at Fireweed Art Studio

We had a great time at the Fireweed Art Studio yesterday where some of our jewelry pieces are sold and I am teaching classes there this summer.  This is Lynn Erin who is the main artist and owner of the Fireweed Art Studio.

Every Thursday evening in July and August, there is a live outdoor concert on the front lawn put on by Lynn's partner, and great musician, Sylvain Vallee of the Vallee Music Studio.

The weather didn't seem to want to cooperate at first and there were off and on showers right up until it started so some of us were huddled under umbrellas to keep dry.

When the music started the rain stopped and the sun broke out which made the music even more enjoyable!  That is Sylvain on the far right on the keyboard in the photo below.

There were about 100 people who turned out last night which was a nice number considering the rain and all. There was quite a variety in music and we are already looking forward to next weeks concert.