Meeting Announcements

Our next guild meeting will be Saturday, September 10, 2016 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. at the Unity Church Fellowship Hall at 5603 NW 41st St., approximately Ann Arbor and NW 41st.

Chris Crossland and Karen Humphreys will show us how to make this decorative box featuring a pumpkin, fall leaves, and adorable mice. Following is Chris’ supply list and clays to bring:

Karen and I are so excited to be teaching the class at guild in September!!! We have designed a cute little box that we think will be fun to do. Here are the supplies you will need. If you already have leaf colors, feel free to use them. You will also need a mix for the pumpkin and the mice.

Clay (Premo)

You will need four fall colors for leaves – green, gold, yellow, and red. Suggested mixes are listed below, but you can choose any four colors, as long as they have quite a bit of contrast. We used the following colors for the entire project:

• Cadmium red 1/2 block
• 18K gold 1/2 block
• Alizarin crimson 1/2 block
• Cadmium yellow 1 block
• Gold 1/2 block
• White 1/2 block
• Black 1 block
• Spanish Olive 1 block

Mixes for leaves:

• Red: 1 part cad red, 1 part 18K Gold, 1/2 part Alizarin
• Green: Spanish Olive
• Gold: 1 part gold, 1/32 part Alizarin
• Yellow: 1 part cad yellow, 1 part 18K Gold

Mix for mice:

• 1 part white, 1/2 part black

Mix for pumpkin:

• 1/4 block cadmium yellow plus two 1/2” circles alizarin crimson (#1 thickness)

Mica Powders

For leaves:

• Mink
• Spring Green
• Aztec Gold
• Misty Lavender
• Super Copper
• Red Russett

For mice:

• Silver

For pumpkin:

• Dark Brown
• Pumpkin Orange

Don’t worry if you don’t have some of these – we will have some to share.

Tools and Materials

Besides your usual clay tools, you will need Weldbond Glue or Bake & Bond and a small knitting needle for tendrils. You will also need the following circle cutters: 5/16″ (we will provide), 1/2″, 5/8″, and 1″. (If you are lucky enough to have a set of 7 tiny circle cutters that Myra sold at the retreat, the red one is 5/16″.)

We will provide the box, template for covering the box top, templates for leaves, and foil pumpkin form.

Our next guild meeting will be Saturday, August 13, 2016 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

Tom Gibson will be presenting our lesson. This month we will be getting acquainted with Magic Transfer Paper and Color Me Magic Transfer Paper. A few meetings ago we had a suggestion that we wear name tags. This meeting seems like a good place to start, so we will provide our guild’s logo ready to transfer on a name tag of your own design. You choose the shape and size for your tag

Tools

• Pasta machine, brayer or rod for rolling
• Work surface
• Scissors
• Blades – flex, rigid, or zig-zag
• Favorite claying tools
• Pin back, eye pin or whatever you wish to use to secure your name tag
• Any cutters you might fancy for your name tag
• A tool for burnishing (bone folder, spoon, espresso tamper, finger, etc.)
• Colored pencils, colored marking pens, alcohol ink or other coloring medium (not water-based prior to transfer, but after is fine)

Materials

• 1/2 brick (1 oz) to 1 package Premo or Fimo (white or the lighter colors work better with the transfer paper)

Mini Project (if we have time): Ear bud holder

• 1/4 brick Souffle (any color) for mini project
• 2 ½” circle cutter
• Optional – texture sheets or stamps

 Our next guild meeting will be Saturday, July 9, 2016 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

At this meeting, Lee Ann will be teaching us how to do Elissa Powell’s Tsunami Cane.

Tools

• Pasta machine
• Work surface
• Blade
• Brayer or rod for rolling
• Favorite claying tools

Materials

• 1/2 brick each of two contrasting colors of clay for Skinner blend (Fimo or Premo)
• 1/4 brick of metallic silver (glitter) and white clay or gold clay
• Scrap clay for base of bead (if we have time)

 This month, we will have our drawing, so if you won something at the last drawing, bring goodies for this one!

  We will also bring inchies with a “Summer” theme.

Our next meeting will be Saturday, June 11, 2016 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

At this month’s meeting, Penni Jo and Jane will show us how to make and reduce a cane with initials for adding to polymer clay projects when finishing.

Materials:

• Clay: Background = at least one full block of white [2 ounces] Letters = 1/4th block of very dark clay [we used black]
  NOTE 1: To create a crisp, clean design use black and white clay (or your choice of clay with very strong value contrasts)
  NOTE 2: these two colors need to be the same brand and the same softness of clay!
  NOTE 3: If using soft, new clay you may need to leach it at home before guild.

Tools:

• Pasta machine or playing cards for hand-rolled clay
• Roller: a brayer or acrylic rod to square up the cane
• Work surface
• Blades: one rigid and one flexible
• Optional = acrylic disks for reducing canes, or scrap clay can be added to the ends of the finished clay to reduce the cane evenly
• Even more optional: if you have a recent cane like a heart or other very simple cane you might be able to add it to the cane.

Our next meeting will be Saturday, May 14, 2016 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

Laura Clarkson will present an elegant Christmas tree design for our May guild meeting. This class is a smaller version of Laura’s lighted Christmas tree.

Materials

• One 2 ounce package translucent clay
• One 2 ounce package pearl clay
• A scrap of gold clay

Tools

• Work surface
• Pasta machine
• Blade
• Smallest round or teardrop cutter
• Scissors
• Optional: bring your favorite clay tools

Laura will provide paper to make the cones to build the tree on.

 We will be having our drawing this month, so if you won something in the last drawing, be sure to bring some goodies for this month!

Our next meeting will be Saturday, March 12, 2016 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

We are delighted to welcome Deb Hart as our special guest teacher for the March guild meeting. She will show us how to make these adorable sculpted owl earrings using canes.

There’s a LOT of information about Deb and this project in the attached PDF file. In preparation, be sure to make the two bullseye canes ahead of time that are listed under “Materials” in the PDF.

This is also raffle month, so bring your goodies if you won something in the last one!

Our next meeting will be Saturday, February 13, 2016 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

Rescheduled from last month: Lori Luli will show us how to make a blinking snowflake pendant and flower pendants, incorporating LED lights for a high-tech effect. Lori will have lights available for the pendant. (For non-members, there will be a charge for lights and battery).

Materials:

Clay needed:

• Translucent, 1/2 block
• White or very pale blue, 1/2 block
• Liquid clay
• For a snowflake-ish pendant
  – Blue-ish clay (for snowflake background)
  – White, pearl, or glitter white clay, 1/4 block
• For a flower-ish pendant
  – Background color of choice
  – Flower color (s) of choice, 1/4 block

Tools:

• Design cutter (snowflake, flower, etc.) smaller than 1.5×2 inches
• Background cutter (circle, oval, rectangle, etc.) larger than 2×3 inches
• Standard clay tools (pasta machine, blade, etc.)

Optional:

• Your favorite decorative elements such as mica powders

For this meeting, extra are at Lori’s cost:

• RGB blinking LEDs $.75
• Plain LEDs $.25
• Coin Battery $.50
• Prices may be higher at later meetings