Posted on 7 Comments

With all of this new jewelry, maybe I should dress up once in a while.

I miss the Hampton Inn.  I miss the most comfortable mattress I’ve ever slept on, I miss the laptop power cord I accidentally left on the desk there, but most of all I miss the soap dish and lumbar pillow.  I know that sounds weird, but they were my props for the photo shoot on Saturday night, and I just love the way those pictures came out.  If I were different kind of person, you can bet that soap dish, at least, would have found its way into my handy dandy Polka Dot Cottage tote bag (yes, I have one of those – don’t laugh!)

More from the weekend

I suppose until I come across another dollar store soap dish like that one, I’ll have to make due with staging my shots in this fancy Lenox bowl wedding present, eh?  Is it crazy that I prefer the cheesy soap dish?

As you can probably tell from my pictures, I really enjoyed the Julie Picarello class.  I loved the technique, and I loved the pace of the class.  I tend to work quickly, so I always bring extra clay with me so that I can make more than one of whatever we’re doing, if time allows.  This time I was able to make the one mokume gane slab out of Premo along with the class, and two others using some of my favorite Sculpey colors.

You know how I feel about Sculpey, so I hate to admit this, but they were awful.  I mashed up nearly everything I made from them.  Loved, loved, loved the results I got out of the Premo slab, though!  If I want to keep playing with this technique, I need to do one of three things:

  1. come up with formulas for recreating my existing color schemes in Premo,
  2. modify the technique so that it fits in with my current way of doing things and does not compromise the strength of the finished piece, or
  3. forget about fitting in with my current color schemes and just make anything I do with this “special limited edition” pieces.

My preference is for #2, and I spent a lot of time thinking during my 2-hour drive home.  I have an idea in mind that may just work for me, but I have to squeeze a spare moment out of this week to give it a try.

More from the weekend

These two images represent what I made at yesterday’s guild meeting.  I chucked the Sulpey idea for the time being and just used up the Premo I had brought with me for the class.  I like them a lot, but I’ll never be able to duplicate them, as I flew by the seat of my pants and didn’t write down any recipes.

I suspect with a technique like this, where every slice is different than the last, it might be hard to part with some of the things you make.   With caning, you theoretically can get multiple slices exactly the same, so it’s possible to very closely approximate something you’ve done before.  Part of me is repelled by that lack of control, but there’s another part of me that wants to embrace it.  And then there’s the part of me that wants to dump all of these pieces in my jewelry box and keep them for myself, since I will never be able to make the same thing ever again, and what if I miss those pink & green earrings someday??

Anyway, I’m feeling very good that this is the class I chose to spend my workshop money on this year.  My mind is full of ideas for how I can make these more “me.” Plus, I think I’ve been converted, after 13 years, to the idea of sanding & buffing my work.  I have always loved the way that looks & feels, but figured that to do so would take so much extra time, and cause me to price my work right out of my market!  Turns out, sanding is not the horribly time-consuming process I thought it was.  And my couch does a fabulous buffing job.  Now I know how I can spend my TV time in the evenings – vigorously rubbing beads on the couch cushions.  Neil‘s going to love sitting next to that every night.  Heh.

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Posted on 7 Comments

7 thoughts on “With all of this new jewelry, maybe I should dress up once in a while.

  1. Man, you are so talented!

    See what Marty has been blogging about: For Earth Week

  2. They are all very beautiful Lisa! And….I bet the hotel would have sold you a soap dish. 😉

    See what Chris has been blogging about: we have a winner

    1. Now, why didn’t I think of that? I should have had them slip one into the package that they’ll be mailing my power cord back to me in 😉

  3. I just had to comment because I love this post’s title. I think that’s why I’ve never gotten into making jewelry for myself… it would require too much additional effort! 🙂

    Glad to hear you enjoyed the class — the results are gorgeous!

    1. It’s funny, isn’t it? I only wear jewelry when it looks good up against a t-shirt 😉

  4. Isn’t Julie just wonderful to take a class from? I came away with way more info from the little tidbits that she tossed out. Not to mention she is just a fun person to be around!

    See what Kathi has been blogging about: This weekend

  5. […] did, as it turns out.  A few of the necklaces I made after Julie Picarello’s class last April were a perfect color and I hadn’t sold them yet.  Still, I wanted something a little more […]

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