Meeting Announcements

Let’s try this again…..

Our next meeting will be Saturday, June 13, 2015 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

We will have a raffle this month, so if you won something in the last raffle, please bring an item for this one. Inchies will be in July, with a red/white/blue, 4th of July, or summertime theme.

Laura Clarkson will be teaching us an attractive herringbone design this month. This class was shown on Sculpey’s website. If you’d like a preview, the link is here.

Materials:

• Clay – Silver, black, and white (or three colors of your choosing that have good contrast – Lori suggested bronze/pearl/18K gold)
• Small tin box or money clip (we will have small boxes available for $1 at the meeting)

Tools:

• Pasta machine
• Blade
• Craft knife
• Ruler
• Work surface
• Wax paper

UPDATE: Due to possible severe weather on Saturday, our meeting is cancelled for May. We will do the May demo in the June meeting. Stay safe!

Our next meeting will be Saturday, May 9, 2015 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

There will be no raffle or inchies this month. Our next raffle will be in June, so if you won something in the last raffle, please bring an item for this one. Inchies will be in July, with a red/white/blue, 4th of July, or summertime theme.

Laura Clarkson will be teaching us an attractive herringbone design this month. This class was shown on Sculpey’s website. If you’d like a preview, the link is here.

Materials:

• Clay – Silver, black, and white (or three colors of your choosing that have good contrast)
• Small tin box or money clip (we will have small boxes available for $1 at the meeting)

Tools:

• Pasta machine
• Blade
• Craft knife
• Ruler
• Work surface
• Wax paper

Our next meeting will be Saturday, March 14, 2015 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds.

This month, we will be working on and sharing ideas for our inchies that we trade at the retreat. They’re fun to make and fun to exchange with others as a little souvenir of our time together. And it’s a great way to make new friends at the retreat, too! And if you won’t be at the retreat, you can work on some inchies for our next swap at the guild meeting in July. The theme for those inchies goes along with the season – so some ideas might be summer, hot, 4th of July, apple pie, America – or whatever says “summer” to you!

So bring some clay and your favorite tools, and let your imagination run wild with your little 1″x1″ pieces of art!

Our next meeting will be Saturday, February 14, 2015 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds. Enter from Gate 5, across from Forest Lumber on May Ave.

This month, Angela will be teaching us how to use cookie cutters to make polymer clay containers.  This technique was used by Heather Roselli in Irene Semanchuk Dean’s book The Weekend Crafter: Polymer Clay: 20 Weekend Projects Using New & Exciting Techniques, and Dean generously granted Angela permission to teach the project at our meeting.

Materials

• Clay to make the container, approximately 3 oz (one and a half packages). You may choose to make the walls, base and lid of your container the same color, or you may want to mix things up.
• Additional clay colors, canes, etc. for your embellishing your container
• Liquid polymer clay *
• Corn starch, Repel Gel, or other release agent *

Tools

• Pasta machine
• Metal cookie cutter in whatever shape you want your container to be *
• Clay blade
• Craft knife or Sculpey 5-in-1 Tool Kit
• Clay extruder *
• Knitting needle or Penni Jo’s Clay Tools *
• Any other favorite clay tools you might want
• Stamps, textures, transfers, or anything else you need for your design
• Working surface

* Don’t worry if you don’t have the items marked with asterisks. Angela will bring extra to share.

Our next meeting will be Saturday, January 10, 2015 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in the Contemporary Arts Center at the fairgrounds. Enter from Gate 5, across from Forest Lumber on May Ave.

This is also our raffle month – so if you won something at the last raffle, bring something for this one! Also, registration for our retreat on April 9-11, 2015 is now live – the information and link to the online registration form is on this page.

Materials

• A 2 oz. block of base color for the owl. The instructions refer to it as gold but variety is the spice you know.
  Yours can be whatever color you like, I think a short Skinner blend might be interesting.
• Some scraps, no more than a 1/2″ ball is needed – Yellow and black for the eyes. Brown, beige or other contrasting colors for the feet and horns (ears?).
• Craft cord – two 12″ lengths ( Tom used AMY Nylon 13+ craft cord and will bring enough for the class)
• Any other embellishments that you might like -mica powder, glitter, findings, jewels, Marquis-cut diamonds, etc.

Tom will bring the (hardware) movement items: Strong thread, paper fasteners, jump ring, eyelet, and a bead (for the pull).

Tools

• Your usual clay tools
• Pasta machine for mixing and the clay
• Working surface (a 4×4 ceramic tile works well)
• Craft knife
• Knitting or darning needle or PJ tool to smooth the holes
• Scissors
• Wire cutters

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!!!

Penni Jo will show us how to create and embellish a tiny dress or gown for pendant, earring, ornament, etc. Dresses can be fancy or plain, your choice. The same technique can be used to make pendants or pins if you do not want earrings.

Materials

• Wire plain or coated: 22 to 24 gauge
• Polymer clay: Solid color of your choice for gown. Small amounts of two or three shades of clay for ombre ribbons. Flower & leaf colors. Translucent & white for swirls
• Mica Powder: micro pearl, or for dark colors, interference gold or other interference colors. If you choose a light colored clay, you’ll need regular Gold Mica powder as Interference Gold will not show up well on light colors. (I will have a variety of mica powders for use in class for use.)
• Findings: jump rings – 4, earring wires – 2, optional: eye pins and or headpins if dangles are desired.
• Optional: Bake ‘N Bond or Poly Paste. (Penni Jo will have some in class for use)

Tools

• Clay tools like Penni Jo’s Clay Tools or your favorite
• Jewelry tools: round nose pliers and a wooden clip clothespin
• Scissors

Guild announcements: We will be voting on Lisa Pavelka’s classes for our upcoming retreat at the November meeting. See the choices here. If you can’t come to the November meeting, contact Tom or someone else to act as your proxy. Let your voice be heard! It’s also inchie month, and our theme is Fall/Thanksgiving.