Shameless Plugs

The 2010 Polymer Clay Calendar by Marjorie Oxman is now available for purchase! I'm Miss September. Rather, my Stacker Beads are Miss September. You can order it here if you want a copy, and they are 25% off through October 11. Use the promocode "FALLFOTO" to get the discount! I ordered mine this morning!

December 5 is the Jingle Bell Run/Walk in Cincinnati. It's a fundraiser for the Arthritis Foundation, but even more importantly, I'll be running a real race for the first time in my life! I've been training for the past month, and hope to be able to do the run comfortably by the day of the race. So far so good! Anyway, if you feel inclined to sponsor me and support Arthritis Foundation, click here to see my personal race page. You can have your name flow down a continuous contribution ticker! I will post my results in this blog. The race is still 2 months away, but that's about how much time I'll need to be ready!

One more thing.........If I haven't already mentioned here in my blog (and I obviously haven't checked), I enhanced my Stacker tutorial page with text to help folks with tips, tricks and hints. I hope the new page will help folks learn how to make them! Initially I wanted to avoid too much text, because automatic translations across the oceans of the web could really do a botched job of it. However, maybe not.

Fall Directions

For the last couple of months I have pretty much neglected my Flickr page and blog. I guess I just don't "feel" the internet thing like I used to. After being on Facebook for a couple years, I kicked myself off after experiencing almost drug-like effects. My friends on there were for the most part pretty darn interesting, and I was always wanting to see what they have to say. Long story short, I want to spend more time doing life than talking about life. Since I ditched FB I am creating more things and being more creative.

John and I have been spending a lot of time in my attic, getting it ready for art-making season. I make art all year round, but the art in my attic is predominantly focused on my found objects/trash that I collect on the streets and the riverbank. One evening I gathered all of my finds and organized them. My attic is a wonderful, dark, inspiring place. Even though I can hear the city streets outside, I cannot see them, so it's almost like a protective coccoon. The photo above features some river finds on a square board. It's my "temporary art" board where I do simple quick meditations of arrangements of the items. This one shows a mountain landscape, with a moon, a second planet, a brown cloud and a rocket.

Yesterday I compulsively started a new bed quilt. My second one, about 3 years after completing my current one. It's turning out exactly how I imagined it would. I'm taking 9"x9" squares of my very favorite organic-y, cellular, biological-looking images. Some of them remind me of patterns one would see through the lens of a microscope, while others may mimic leaf vein patterns. Also, I am using fabrics that I swore I'd never really use, because they were perfect the way they were. Initially I expected to feel uncomfortable cutting these whole fat quarters, yard cuts and multi-yard cuts for a square I can never replace. On the contrary...I felt relief, like by using it, I'm setting it free.

This photo on the right is my cat Sweetie walking on the newly ironed pieces. Like the typical cat of a fairy tale, she tried to pry a pin out of two layers of fabric. Then she nestled in a pile of folds she made from it.

At any rate, I finished this much of it in two nights. Last night I cut about 65 squares, and tonight I cut the black strips and sewed two rows together. It will be roughly queen size. There will be either 96 or 104 squares in all. I think.

I'll try to post blogs more often. Stuff just happens so fast that I can't keep up with it!

Other People's Stacker Beads .. Part 5

Yesterday I received an email from Maika Martinez from Pamplona, Spain. She has been making Stacker beads, and I must say that she's doing just great! One thing I really like about her Stackers is her use of white. All except 4 of them have large doses of white or very light yellow. The "multiple effect" is great. They look good enough to eat!

Maika's Flickr page has lots of great work. She likes to experiment with different techniques, and she does them well. She is also a member of the APE, a.k.a. Association of Polymer clay of Spain.

Thanks Maika for sharing your version of the Stacker bead.

I invite more folks to show me theirs. If you want to give it a try, visit this page.

If you go to my archives from May and April, you'll see others who have done the same!

What a Summer!

Man it has been forever since I posted here. Since the previous post, where I started the South Beach Diet, I've lost between 16 and 18 pounds. I exercise every day, and feel absolutely terrific!

This new routine has transferred mental energy, too. Where I used to want to just retreat into my art studio sanctuary and get lost in the potential of polymer clay, I am now thinking about a new route to take on my bike, or how far I think I can jog. Food also takes up a LOT more of my mental energy, too. Cooking is so much more exciting, so I am always thinking of new ways to prepare my favorite foods. Nowadays I'm eating so much more veggies....probably more in one day that I used to eat in a whole week before I changed my ways. White potatoes have been totally deleted from my diet. My favorite veggies are asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, red bell peppers, orange bell peppers, cucumbers, onions, spinach, garlic, green beans, cauliflower and cabbage.


Here is one of my favorite photos I've taken with my new camera. Yes, this is my third camera in the last 5 years. This is a dried seed pod from a water lily. This has been in my collection of natural items for a few years. Picked it up at Cowan Lake near Wilmington.

My brother took me to Cowan Lake a week ago for my first kayaking trip. It was perfect. And so much easier than I thought it would be. Granted, the surface of the water was like glass....zero current. But the big "field" of waterlilies and the creek that connected to it were just gorgeous! (Sorry, no pix of that!)

This picture is a recent one of me...taken earlier this week. My friend Alyssa and her mom visited the shop. Alyssa is I think 13 years old (her birthday was July 4 but I forget what number she turned!) and is a real natural at designing earrings. She brought in a container of them to show me and hear my professional opinion of them. I think they're great. I can tell she thinks them through. She was sweet enough to give me two pair as a thank you for encouraging her. You can't see them in this picture, but they look damn good.


Green beans at Susan's! She invited me over for dinner last Sunday. It was one of the best dinner's I've ever had. These green beans were so good!

These are little scraps of aluminum and other metals I found on the banks of the Ohio River. The artisitc possibilities of stuff like this kind of just blows my mind.


Well I better get going. I need to do something to prepare for a show I'm doing Sept 26 in Anderson Township. A Fair of the Arts. Be There.

The Incredible Shrinking Beadmaker

Well, that title seems a little preliminary, but I thought it seemed a little catchy.

Today is my 3rd day on Phase 1 of South Beach Diet. I've never been a yo-yo dieter or try every goshdernit diet invented, but after seeing my friend Susan shrink to a hottie bod, I decided to give it a shot. I read her whole South Beach Diet Supercharged book before I began it. Then she lended me the first one, and I read most of that too.

What amazed me the most is that I already eat most of what one can have anyway. My biggest weaknesses are bread and potatoes, not sweets. But I do have some sugar-free candies on hand for sudden urges. I can feel my cravings for chocolate and other carbs quickly going away....I have to make myself eat the snacks between meals that I'm supposed to have. My skill in the kitchen is getting better....I can't wait til I can have root veggies so I can add them to my big veggie soup recipe.

My perception of my body feels different too. Granted, I've been doing a lot of exercising the last week, so of course I feel physically better. But my mind is so clear...my awareness is very sharp. I don't feel or look physically lighter (yet), but I do feel mentally lighter. The thought of buying myself a bikini for my 40th birthday is very enticing. I've been plus-sized since high school....not severely, but I've always heard "you have such a pretty face" and "you have such a great personality". Clothes shopping is sucky. I don't expect to start wearing really slutty or revealing clothes when I lose it, but I do expect to have a much better selection to choose from.

So for the next 11 days, I will eat no bread, no fruit, no sugary items, and low fat everything else. I'm eating lean meat like chicken and sirloin, lots of veggies like red peppers, mushrooms, onions, spinach. Can't wait to sink my teeth into a nice Gala apple!

Polymer Clay Class 2009...the out-of-towners!

These are my new friends! All 4 drove from pretty far away from Cincinnati .... 3 from the east coast, and one from Texas! Here they are, having fun making beads.

Ok guys, here is how you make Stacker beads. Cut a thin slice fom 5 different colors of clay, right off of the brick. Stack them on top of each other, cut that stack in half and then stack the two half-stacks on top of each other. Got that??

Roll the cube of stripes into a ball, then begin to roll it so that you create a striped cone. Remember, don't roll it back-and-forth...just in one direction. You want it to be kind of like a cone-shaped barber shop pole.

Determine a good place to cut the striped cone. This spot looks pretty good!

After you cut the cone down the center from the point to the fat end, start to coil it onto itself, kind of like a snail shell, except the fat end is in the middle instead of the tiny end. This keeps the beads solid and strong.

Before you know it, you'll have a tray chock-full of Stacker beads, ready to be drilled! These gals were Stacker bead experts in just a matter of a couple of hours.

Thank you Marie, Leah, Carroll and Helen for coming so far to spend time with me, sightseeing, eating, swimming, beadmaking, laughing, driving, exploring and creating. I hope you can come back to Cincinnati again next year.......... for Part 2~!!

When People Use My Work, I Smile

Recently I got a nice stack of orders from this gal, Stephanie Hovsepian of Mine Hill, NJ. I was wondering, what the heck would someone need so many buttons for? Who is knitting sweaters in the middle of a hot summer? Then she sent photos, and it all made sense. Visit her Etsy shop to see more! Thanks, Stephanie, for your support of Ovenfried Beads! *(and ovenfriedbuttons on Etsy.)