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December 2014

December 2014 Meeting: Show & Tell, Dirty Santa, and Snacks!

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Our next meeting will be Saturday, December 13, 2014 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

As we usually do for our December guild meeting, we will not have a lesson. Instead, we will bring items for show & tell, and then (optionally) swap our items in a Dirty Santa exchange. You don’t have to swap your item if you want to keep it, though! We’ll also bring goodies to snack on, and just generally have a good time of claymate fellowship.

Tom has adapted the rules of the Dirty Santa game to our purposes, so if anyone isn’t familiar with the rules, here they are:

How to Play Dirty Santa

Everyone playing the game brings a hand-crafted polymer item. Sometimes an item using a technique learned this past year or one you just enjoyed making and sharing. Please, please bring an item. It is so much more fun with many participants.

VARIATION: Since we will be showing off our gifts during Show & Tell, I will bring gift bags to mask the items for the game. Just to keep it in the spirit of Dirty Santa.

Numbers are written on pieces of paper for every gift and places them in a basket, bowl or hat.

Each person draws a number. Getting a higher number is actually better because you will have more chosen gifts to choose from.

The person with #1 picks a gift to open from the array of gift bags. The person with #2 can choose to another bag or steal the gift from #1. If a gift is stolen, the person who had it then steals from someone else or picks another gift to open. Gifts stolen cannot be directly stolen back. They must be in the pool of opened and unopened gifts for at least one turn.

The game continues like this until everyone takes a turn select an item or stealing an item. The last person to go can steal from anyone in the game or select the remaining item.

NOTICE: If the first person has not had their selection stolen during the game, they may steal a gift from anyone else. This may open a new round of stealing, but that’s the nature of Dirty Santa.

Once a gift is stolen three times, it is retired from the game.

So, let’s all come and have a great time!!!

Minutes for November 2014 Meeting

We had 15 members and 1 visitor at our November 8th meeting. We kicked things off with Show and Tell that included a cat and pumpkin pin, a wide variety of personalized magnets, a turtle sculpture, bikini earrings, and a Bottle of Hope.

Our presenter this month was Penni Jo, who showed the group how to make her amazing “dressy earrings” on tiny coat hangers. Her instruction and handouts were superb, as usual. Thank you, Penni Jo!

In the business meeting, October’s minutes were approved with a motion by Penni Jo and a second by Lee Ann.

Connie gave a report on upcoming classes:

  • December: Annual Christmas meeting. Bring snacks. If you want to participate in the Dirty Santa swap, bring something you made from polymer clay. No raffle or inchie swap in December.
  • January: Tom will show how to make an owl similar to his state fair entry. Raffle month.
  • February: Angela will show how to make containers using cookie cutters as the form. Inchie swap month.

Angela gave the treasurer’s report. We now have 27 members.

Nance gave the Bottles of Hope report, and said she has bottles she needs covered. She reported that the BOH are very popular — the hospital is giving them to patients just as they’re starting chemo. She specifically requested BOH for young children.

Jane gave the librarian’s report. Our newest book, Creating Lifelike Figures in Polymer Clay, has good sculpting info for people. The new Polymer CAFE arrived and has a Sydney Holt project. This month’s Polymer CAFE challenge theme is nature, with photos due December 31st.

Webmaster Myra reported that she’s waiting on class info so she can put the retreat signup online.

In new business, we discussed the 2015 retreat. Tom passed around the retreat class options from Lisa Pavelka for us to choose from, and folks voted for their favorites. Tom asked for 3 volunteers to contact companies about goody bag/auction donations; Jane, Angela, and Deborah signed up.

Our inchie swap theme for the meeting was Thanks/Thanksgiving.