Latest polymer clay - Mokume Gane

I thought I would share my latest polymer clay experiments with you.  I have been investigating a technique called Mokume Gane (Mo-koo-may Gar-nay) which is from Japanese metalworking, where layers of metal are sliced through to create patterns. The same technique works really well in polymer clay.  I made a stack of purples and pinks, with a bit of silver polymer too and then impressed patterns into it.  I then sliced through the stack, creating the shavings you can see above.

 I then placed pieces together onto a base and created these pendants.

 I loved the swirly patterns - they reminded me of a machine at the fair where you could drizzle paint into a cylinder and centrifugal force would create a pattern.  Alternatively, they do resemble 1960s psychedelia too!

 For my next experiment, I used translucent clay, some tinted with purple, and glitter and foil and pearl clay.  Here's the stack I created with impressed patterns and some infills of pearl clay too.

These are the slices, ready to be put together.

 The finished result - quite subtle but I really like it. You can see the foil shining through the layers underneath.  I made some tube beads which I think will look like glass once they are sanded and varnished.

 I used the translucent clay with a tint of blue and some black, pearl clay and foil, for these.  I am really pleased with how they turned out too.

I have also decorated the backs, which I like almost as much as the fronts!
I used a fantastic book for techniques and inspiration - 'How to make Polymer Clay beads' by Carol Blackburn, which had lots of photos and very helpful advice.  I am constantly amazed by the versatility of polymer clay and particularly enjoyed using this technique.  I can see I shall be re-visiting this one!
I forgot to add that these are completely one of a kind - I couldn't replicate the patterns, even if I wanted to.  Isn't it great that no-one else in the whole world has pendants exactly the same as these?

Open Gardens (tea and cake)

 It was an Open Gardens day at a village not far away from us, so we made the most of the sunny weather and headed off.  I love having the chance to be nosey and peek into other peoples' gardens.  However, it does make me wish I had a bigger garden!  Here are just a few of the highlights.  The first garden, above, had lots of areas, and some beautiful cottage garden planting.  They were trying to be as eco-friendly as they could, with compost from the local council, a wormery, compost bins, mulches round the veg plot and all beautifully laid out.  A lot of time and effort had gone into all the gardens, but this one was especially impressive.

 This one was an artist's garden, with lovely planting and interesting sculptures dotted about.  I loved walking down the path through the blue spires of delphiniums.

 One of my favourite gardens had this fantastic display of peonies, along the side of the house.  The owner was so welcoming and had free plants (yes, free!), although we did give a contribution for the local church funds. I got a lovely dark leaved hardy geranium.

 The same lady had this rich, jewel coloured astrantia in her front garden.  Lucky her!  Her garden went all around the house and the front was lovely herbaceous plants.  The back garden was gravelled, but had a huge number of interesting plants in pots and in the gravel.

 This was part of the front garden with romantic, feminine planting.

 This aquilegia was about three feet tall  - the colours were just beautiful.

This garden was full of interesting areas too and I particularly liked the river of mexican daisies (erigeron) which had seeded in the paving.
Once we had looked round the nine gardens, all of which were lovely and were different sizes and styles, we went to the church for tea and cake (there just has to be cake!).  Coffee and walnut for my sister-in-law and Victoria sandwich for me.  A perfect finish to a lovely couple of hours - and the weather stayed fine all the time we were out!

Tea, cake and a treasure trove...and egg sandwiches

We had a very nice morning on Sunday, wandering around the town and looking in charity shops to see what we could find.  We actually went for the amethyst chip necklace above, which Chris had seen on Saturday but hadn't bought  as he wasn't sure whether I needed it. (Of course I needed it!).  When we got there, the shop was closed, but as luck would have it, the lady was just opening it so I was able to buy the necklace.  I will be re-purposing it to make memory wire amethyst bracelets and possibly a necklace.

The chips have a lovely range of colours so colour grading them will keep me very occupied.

 Having made it to Steep Hill, we stopped at Bunty's Tea Rooms (photo above from their Facebook page), run by a very nice chap Chris knows and a lovely place for tea and cake if you are ever passing. There is vintage china with proper tea cups and the whole place has a vintage look and is very welcoming.  We were going to have egg mayonnaise sandwiches but I remembered we had some nice bread at home so we settled for tea and cake.  Chris had dandelion and burdock cake which had violet icing and I chose chocolate.  Judging by the speed with which the cakes disappeared, I would say they were a good choice!

 We set off home suitably replenished and went into pretty much every charity shop we could find.  here's what we came home with.  Loads of wooden beads and shell beads all just waiting to be made into something interesting.  Chris has a few ideas in mind...

Here is my egg and cress sandwich - one of my all time favourite sandwich fillings - and it was delicious!

Swirl beads, jewel enamel powder and bracelets

 I really enjoy working with polymer clay and am constantly finding new techniques which I just have to try.  The swirl bead was new to me, as was using jewel enamel as a glaze, which gave a look of enamel.  The swirl techniques worked better on some than others but it was a good way to use up some scrap clay and the end of a striped cane I made some time last year.

 Here are my beads, ready to go into the oven, with a top layer of the jewel enamel.

 This is what they looked like once cooled.  The jewel enamel has given a glaze to the top surface.

This is my favourite as the swirl worked well and the blue translucent polymer clay I used for the base has silver foil running through it (a bit of gold also got in there!)  This is a technique I shall use again...

 The macrame bracelets were commissions from a work colleague who loves pink, but wanted a delicate pink. I used crackled quartz, rose quartz and star rose quartz to create these and made two different sizes so that she could choose which one fitted her best.

The flash has washed out the delicate pink, but this combination works well, I think.

Chelsea Flower Show 2014

 I don't know about you, but I have been glued to the Chelsea Flower Show coverage on BBC1 and BBC2 this past week.  I have never been to the show itself, but I do like to watch the programmes.  Here are some of my favourite gardens and I think they all have 'floofy' planting in common. The photos are all from the RHS Chelsea website here.  Not for me the best in show choice, with clean lines and restricted beds of plants.  I like the exuberant planting where things are allowed to spill out. Irises featured strongly in a lot of the gardens as did foxgloves. First is the Homebase garden by Adam Frost, with lovely native countryside plants.

 I really want one of these tree trunk seats (when I get my slightly bigger garden...no harm in dreaming!).  It looked such a peaceful and relaxing place.

 The Hope/Help for Heroes garden had more beautiful planting and lots of grasses.  It symbolised the journey through recovery for injured members of the armed forces and won the People's Choice award too. The other great thing about it is that it is going to be a garden for injured service people to use, so will have a new life helping those very people it was designed for.

 Cleve West always has lovely planting schemes.

 This was the No Man's Land garden with a mound at the back with natural planting, symbolising the trenches in the battlefields slowly being taken back by nature.

The Topiarist's Garden was in the artisan category and had incredible attention to detail. The planting was mainly white and green.

 The Night Sky garden was another lovely example of planting combinations and used lots of white flowers to represent the stars . The black background had little brass circles on it which did look as though they glinted.

Another view of the Night Sky garden.

Finally, the Potter's Garden, another in the Artisan category but again showing such an eye for detail.  Call me old fashioned, but these gardens all appeal with the planting and the atmospheres they conjure up.  I'd be happy to sit in any of them.  Now that Chelsea is all over for another year, it is strange to think that all this beauty has vanished, as if it had never been there at all.

Purple in the garden

 

 The vibrant colours of the tulips have gone, to be replaced with delicate shades of lilac and purple.  Above, Clematis Ice Blue starts to unravel its petals, showing just the faintest hint of lilac/blue.

 The alliums are in flower and looking wonderful (they always seem to flower for Chelsea Flower Show week!)

 They are amazing in close up too...

These alliums (Christophii, I think but am not sure) are just starting to explode into life.

 Reliable and beautiful geranium Rozanne (complete with a coups of aphids - yuck- which are plaguing my roses and pretty much everything else at the moment.

 Here's a more tropical flower.  It's more on the pink side than purple, but I am delighted because it is flowering for the second time!  I am not that good with house plants, so when my Mum gave me this orchid, I was rather concerned.  I put it in the bathroom because I thought it would like the humidity and I think it does.  It probably needs a bit of food now though.

Nothing to do with actual flowers, but I was intrigued by the pattern the sun made shining through the net curtain this morning. It has been lovely to enjoy the sun, but all my pots now need watering!

Spring garden

 The wet weather has encouraged the plants to put on a lot of growth and it is all looking rather green and luscious.  Above is Clematis Crystal Fountain which is looking very flamboyant.

 The blowsy clematis contrasts well with the understated elegance of this aquilegia (I don't know the variety).

 This one is supposed to be 'Navy and White', but appears to have turned pink.  I do like it, despite it not being blue!

 Here's one of my newest plants, Magnolia 'Fairy Blush' which has such pretty flowers.  It is supposed not to get too massive, can be pruned and is meant to be really hardy. I'm impressed so far - how could I not like those flowers?

 Really pretty delicate colours.  I also have a white/cream one, but it only has leaves as it is a younger plant.

The tulips have been beautiful this year and I have already put in my order for next year!  Although most of them are now over, Red Shine continues to give a splash of colour which offsets all the green so well.  Chris said how much he liked these particular ones (just as well, because I have ordered more!).  Although there is quite as bit of dodging showers for us, the plants are loving it and I am looking forward to seeing what flowers next.

Polymer Clay Play Day

 A friend of mine came round yesterday to be introduced to the joys that are creating with polymer clay.  Eventually, she wants to use polymer clay for sculpture, but as an introduction, we made canes and turned them into pendants.  We made bull's eye canes, flower canes, spiral canes, kaleidoscope canes and stained glass canes.  She had a go with the extruder too and investigated foil and stamps with mica powder.  Above are some of her pendants - I really liked all the greeny blues she used.

Here are my creations. I tried to make myself use different colours from the ones I would naturally choose and used the bright lime green colour, 'wasabi'. However, we both discovered that despite the bright colour,  it is actually a versatile shade and will work with a variety of other colours.  The cane I used for the pendants on the right I christened my 'rhubarb' cane as the colours really reminded me of a stick of rhubarb!

Here's a close up (it is a little blurry, but you get the idea) - well, I think the colours look very rhubarby!  All in all, a very productive day was spent and I think my friend may well be at the start of an obsession (sorry about that!)

Apricot Rock Cakes

As you may know, I have an aversion to raisins and sultanas (although I like grapes).  I'm not that keen on dried fruit much at all, but, for some reason, I do like dried apricots.  I have made and posted about apricot rock cakes before but can't remember whether I posted the recipe.  If I did, apologies, but actually, it is so nice and easy and gives such good results, it is worth posting again.  For anyone who doesn't know what they are, they are a cakey-biscuity-chewy treat (I am sure that is a very helpful description!) and of course, they have fruit in them, so could possibly be thought of as healthy (!)

Ingredients:
225g/8oz self raising flour
110g/4oz margarine
110g/4oz granulated sugar
175g/6oz dried but ready to eat apricots
1 egg
a little milk to mix
brown sugar to sprinkle on tops

Makes 18 cakes.

1. Heat oven to gas mark 7/220 degrees centigrade/435 degrees fahrenheit. Lightly grease 2 baking trays.
2. Sift flour into mixing bowl and rub in the margarine.
3. Add sugar and apricots. Make a well in the centre.
4. Beat the egg, then add to dry ingredients with a little milk, to make a stiff consistency.
5. Place the mixture in rough heaps on the baking trays, leaving a little space between them as they will spread a bit. Sprinkle on some brown sugar
6. Bake for approx 10 mins (mine take longer but I have a very old oven) until golden brown.
7. Cool on wire rack.  Once cool, test quality of rock cakes (cook's prerogative) and enjoy!

Of course, if you don't have problems with dried fruit, you can put whatever you like in the cakes; traditionally it is mixed dried fruit. Dried cranberries, dried blueberries... Chocolate chips might be a nice addition too...