A Day In The Studio

I thought it would be fun to walk you step by step through one of my more unusual custom orders. A customer was browsing through my work and was inspired to request a guest book with a decorative polymer clay tile ornament on the cover.

1. I start my tile with a lump of polymer clay, conditioned and ready to run through the pasta machine to get it to a uniform thickness.

2. Here I've gotten the clay rolled out to the thickness I desired and impressed a design into it with a rubber stamp. I have my mica powders out and I have been filling color into the patterns on the tile.

**Very important to note when working with mica powder--less is more! I've learned that lesson the hard way, overloading my brush with powder and making the most garish mess.

3. Cooking in my dedicated polymer clay toaster over. This is an older Black & Decker that has a short in it and randomly cuts itself on when no one's looking. Scary, eh? That's why it's been relegated to polymer clay and isn't used routinely in the kitchen without supervision!

4. Cooling the tile under weight to keep it flat. My Pyrex baking dishes were the nearest thing I could find in a pinch. I put them slightly off center because they're stamped with some wording on the bottom and I was concerned the words might impress upon the tile.

5. The finished tile attached to the front cover of the book.

Thoughts on new products for the summer

One of this month's themes to blog about for the Etsy Bloggers Team is your new line of products for the summer. Frankly, I haven't gotten past spring yet! Summer? Geesh!!

Seriously, I have been thinking on a "new" product to introduce. If you took a look at my shop a year ago, you would have found that many of my journals incorporated polymer clay as an embellishment for the cover. I've since sold out of most of those journals and have gotten away from that style, but I think I may experiment with bringing it back on some of my guest books.

Sapphire Spice Journal

It's funny how an item can sit in my shop for months with little or no attention paid to it, and all of a sudden it becomes in great demand. That recently happened with my Sapphire Spice Journal. I originally made two of them in different color schemes. The companion sold months ago, but this one sat around in my shop and got renewed and renewed and renewed. I was about to give up on it and use it for myself when BAM! First it generated a custom guest book order for me, then it sold less than a week later to someone else.

Dew Drop Hibiscus Journal

Here's another that is currently on sale in my shop. It's a cute little journal and if no one buys it soon I'm going to start writing in it!

Paisley Flower Jeweled Journal

This journal was one of my favorites, I just loved the color combination of the greens and aquas. The little jewel on the front I made from glass and polymer clay. I think it gives the journal an ethereal look, kind of like the keyhole to the Secret Garden or something! When it sold, I had mixed feelings--I was glad to have made a sale, but sad to see it go.

Hopefully I'll have time to start experimenting with my new ideas! Summer is always a busy time for me in my personal life and I've had a lot of custom orders lately, so we'll see!

More features!

Yeah! I've been honored in another Etsy treasury, this one curated by BurningRiverBeads. My pendant is the first one in row three.

My Red Hibiscus Pendant has also been featured today in SweetVib's blog. Thank you very much!! http://sweetvib.blogspot.com/2008/06/polymer-clay-magic-by-uberart.html I'm still surprised at how much attention my pendants have received, since my shop's main focus has been journals! I guess that will be changing soon--maybe 60% journals-40% pendants.

I'm getting ready to ramp up my inventory in preparation for the holidays. It seems a bit early, but if you notice in the stores, they're already getting Halloween items stocked. Besides, these things tend to sneak up on me and I'm scrambling at the last minute!

New inventory--and my history on Etsy

I've expanded my shop and added some polymer clay pendants for sale. I originally thought I was going to have a jewelry shop on Etsy. However, after listing three items--a pendant, a journal, and a polymer clay pot--and having only the journal sell, I took a different direction. There is a lot of competition in the jewelry market! So many beautiful designs!

Instead, I incorporated my "jewels" as I call them, onto the covers of some of my journals. The pendants have been sitting around for two years. Every once in a while I'll wear one and I always get compliments. So I thought I'd give it another whirl and see what happens.

Here's a sneak peek at one not yet listed!

When I first started on Etsy, I did absolutely no marketing whatsoever. I listed my items and had one sell within 24 hours, so I erroneously concluded that is all one has to do, kind of like Ebay. List and sit back...the buyers just come to you! My pot and pendant sat there for 4 months and I kind of gave up all hope of them ever selling. When my listings approached their expiration, I decided to try something different and started making more journals.
Some of my first listings on Etsy!

I want to continue making journals, since that is my passion for the time being, but I like to keep things fresh. Popping something new and unexpected into my shop is a good way to stay relevant, and surprise people at the same time! Tee hee! I'm having fun, can you tell?

Burning down the house...

It was a productive evening, as I sit here picking polymer clay out of my fingernails. I probably have pearl ex powder on my face also because I had a little "issue" with the lid not screwing down all the way. It's a lovely color blue, probably compliments my skin tone well! :)

I worked on three new beach journals, finished binding them and spent the rest of the evening making the polymer clay and beach glass ornamentation. I was scared to death to bake them due to the day I had (more on that in a minute). I was certain I was doomed to burn them, but they turned out well.

I've burned polymer clay one time, about fifteen years ago, and hopefully will never do it again. I made the mistake of asking my husband to turn on the toaster oven for me and he misunderstood the temperature I said. Instead of 275, he put it on 375. After about five minutes, I noticed black smoke coming out of the oven and ran over to unplug it. Mistake number 2 was opening the door! One puff of those noxious fumes sent me gagging and weezing outside to the porch as fast as I could run! It was as if I couldn't breathe, even though I was taking in air. All my hard work was scorched, but I only had myself to blame...I should have checked the temperature before I put my pieces in.

Anyhow, on to my day, which ironically involved burning something else. I decided to make vegetable soup today. This is the first time I've made soup on my new stove, which is one of those smoothtops. I really like the way they look, just not the way they cook. It takes forever to boil water, but once it gets going, it really goes. As for the soup, well, it went. All the water cooked out of it after only an hour, despite that I had it on low, and I was left with a burnt mess by the time I smelled it. I thought I was going to have to throw out my pot, but I managed to salvage that. As for dinner, I wasn't as fortunate!

Then I had some book binding issues while the soup was cooking/burning, which is why I didn't smell the burnt soup sooner as I was in my studio. I stuck myself pretty good with the needle while sewing signatures together, miscalculated how much thread I needed and ran out with one hole left to sew, and ripped a signature cover and had to replace it. Grrr...and then came the soup. And that was my day!