After three weeks of having all my brood (including big ol' hairy boy) all at home I am a wee bit weary.
It feels like I am a one-person fast food outlet, constantly cooking to the tune of "Mum, I'm so hungry my tummy is folding up".
And when not on kitchen duty I am entertainment manager for both the small people AND the large hairy one. All of whom struggle to entertain themselves without my input. Apparently none of them can even watch TV unless I am sat watching it with them. Gah!
I had a rest from major housework this week since we are all a bit tired. De-clutter was replaced with some much needed therapeutic clay play.
The Polymer Clay Collective is a super-friendly facebook group dedicated to all things polymer clay and for all levels of experience from 'just starting to dabble' to 'Wow! How did you do that?'
Alenka of Pepita Handmade is very generously sponsoring a blog hop to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of her blog :
I was super lucky enough to recently win a give-away by Cyndi Lavin of Beading Arts. There are some great resources on her site for beaders, mixed media artists and polymer clayers and Cyndi has some great free tutorials too - one of my favourites is the splendiferous Resin Polymer Clay Bezel, pictured below.
(Apologies for lateness, I had this set to post automatically in the wee hours of the 31st and then forgot to check. Clearly I do not know how to use technology properly, doh! Better late than never though.)
Today is the day for my first ever reveal of a blog hop challenge and I am inappropriately over-excited about it! The challange was to create a unique piece of jewellery based upon a given colour palette. Here's the palette I chose:
My home is currently the location of multiple rebellions.
My 5 year old is rebelling against being told what to do. My daughter is rebelling against eating anything that is not a sandwich. Not entirely sure what my other half is rebelling against but it involves lots of complaining, grumpy faces and sitting parked in front of some form of goggle box. As for me I'm rebelling against not having any time off. And I'm sure all the Mum's out there are familiar with that one!
Every fortnight I leave the lot of them to their small skirmishes and immerse myself in clay for 4 hours. I rarely ever get to finish my projects, and if I do, I rarely like them, but I recently made some loud and spangly beads based upon a tutorial by Randee M Ketzel and, when I got back from my 4 hour retreat, I refused to be good little housewife until I'd found coordinating beads and strung them all together.
I love the fascinating patterns created by using Randee's technique and the strange, loud clashes of colours created by using blobs of 'scrap' clay. These loud little beads are my Rebel Yell against the unending piles of laundry, the ever growing stacks of dirty dishes, the piles of clothes that won't put themselves away and the endless all- encompassing dust. Sigh. I'm off to hang out the washing!
For Valentines day Irish Mishly published a free Angry Birds video and my son and I made some for Dad. My son liked his so much that Dad only has them 'on loan'. I like them so much that I am sharing them with you.
All his own work and he's only five! He even put a red fence around the red one and made a white base for them all to sit on. My little artist!
Meanwhile my less-than-tiny hands has been having fun with my bead soup and I've almost finished two items. I'm really pleased with what i've done so far. Here's a wee teaser pic:
At the moment I'm rediscovering my love of bangles. In used to wear arms full of them, chunky, thin, fancy, plain, all the way up to my elbows. I loved the variety and I loved the feel of them clanging and rattling as I moved. I'd constantly be taking one off to play with it and examine it in detail.
With the coming of babies jewellery became impracticle. Always being yanked at or catching on something and always that worry that something small may get sucked of chewed off and do bubba some damage.
Now my bubbas are (mostly) out of the yanking and popping things in mouth stage I'm finding myself popping in a pair of earrings or whacking on a bracelet more often.
I treated myself to Iris Mishly's Extrudinary tutorials and youngest and I have been popping out extruded bangles with abandon. So fast, easy and pleasing with never ending variations. A fabulous way to use up cruddy coloured clay.
Here's a pair I finished off at this Saturday's clay play.
