I’ve moved my Blog!

I’m moving my personal blog to blogger. As a webdeveloper, I use SO MANY google tools that it makes sense for me to streamline my stuff. But I will always love wordpress, and I use it for ALL my hosted websites. So, you could say I have a split-blogging personality.

Please visit me at http://kiraslye.blogspot.com

PCAGOE challenge this month- my favorite thing, metallic clay!

Here are the entries for the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy’s November Challenge! I am so impressed. I lot the look of metallic anything. Unfortunately, I have been so bogged down with schoolwork that I havent’ clayed in a long long time. Ah, the plight of a first-year teacher. I’m looking forward to next year! For now, enjoy! The photo is linked to our blog, where you can vote for your favorite entry and maybe win a prize!

A new direction

Every Sunday morning, my hubby and I go to the beach for a long walk. We’re not much for sunning ourselves or swimming, but the shelling and fish-sighting is lots of fun. It’s also very beautiful here, we walk the lowest portion of Boca Raton’s beaches, which are bordered by high sand dunes covered with sea grapes. There are fewer buildings on this portion of beach too. We usually start at the Pavilion at Palmetto Park Rd, and walk all the way to LG Station 20. We’re not sure how long this walk is, but I suspect it’s at about 2 miles one way. It usually takes a couple of hours, and we enjoy it because it gives us a chance to just be together and talk- which is difficult for the two of us since it seems we are both on the computer all night long after work, doing more “work.”

Robert and I both enjoy sea life, we have a large and growing collection of shells and coral pieces we have picked up on those walks, and also at our first home in Revere, MA where we had a house on the beach. We have both been SCUBA diving and agree that we need to get re-certified and start diving again here. Last spring, we saw a group of cuttlefish at a beach in Delray, very close to shore. There is a large rock shelf there, with a big crack in it- that crack is about 3 feet deep, which frightens me because when you are walking it’s hard to see and easy to “fall” into. But swimming over it is grand because all the fish gather there. That’s where we saw the cuttlefish.

I would say beaches and sea life have been a big part of our lives, both together and when we were young.

There is a particular type of shell found here, it is white and has huge spines on it. It comes from some sort of bivalve, I will have to look it up. I found a piece of one, a rather large one, Sunday, and brought it home. While studying it I had an idea to create a pendant with texture and color to emulate sea life.

Here is my result. I will be experimenting more with this idea soon.

Experiences in Apple Land.

Well, I bought myself a new MacBook on May 1, and on May 27, they released a more powerful computer with a harddrive upgrade to 160 gb (base model had 120, so I paid $50 to get more space). The .13 increase in GHz speed might not make much difference to a housewife, but to me, it’s huge. Plus, they are giving away a free ipod now.

So I call Apple, and talk to them about the fact that I want the upgraded machine, since I only bought mine 27 days ago, and actually received it in the mail 20 days ago. Their answer- 14 day return or exchange, tuff-nuts on the ipod promotion, have a nice day.

Wonderful. This is my first MAC. Will it be my last? As an Adobe CS4 pro, I don’t need this kind of poor customer service. At the very least, if I had bought a PC, I would be at Best Buy exchanging it for the upgraded machine, right now.

Studio Bijou’s Fire Mountain Gems Beading Contest 2009 Entry!

Wow. This was fun to make- it is Kato clay, Cubic Zirconia, and Waxed cotton cord. All clay elements were completely handmade by yours-truely. I hope I win! Although I did mostly do it to challenge myself, and in hopes that they might want to photograph my work to include it in one of their full-page magazine ads!

Back from Boston! Passach with the family

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting with my brother and his family, as well as extended family, on my mother’s side- which is Jewish. mmmmmmmm. I had several different keugels (no idea if I’m spelling that correctly!) and today a coworker has brought in even more, and another flourless chocolate cake! It doesn’t hurt to have a NYC-based pastry chef in the family on first-night, either. Next I have to get my butt back in the gym, because I’m sure the celebration has made it bigger! Tomorrow I’ll post photos of my Fire Mountain Gems contest entry!

Tribal Twist- my entry in the 2009 Bead Dreams competition, challenge, or whatever you’d like to call it!

I discovered this: spanglercandy.com, and this: Story of the Candy Cane
after reading one of the projects in Donna Kato’s updated Art of Polymer Clay. She used the candy cane twist to make tube beads. Tube beads are totally not my style, but the spiral definately is. So I studied a little further on how they make large amounts of the same spiral so that I would have enough to make a bead set and have all the stripes match.

Here is my second result. The first one I created is going to the Fire Mountain Gems 2009 Beading Contest, in my opinion it is one of the best pieces I have made thus far. I’ll be showing it off next week (I’m competitive to a fault, when I want to be. I couldn’t possibly show pictures of anything for a competition until AFTER the due date!!!!) This one was made to further celebrate the technique. I also used a mix of premo, fimo, and kato in this one- and FMG doesn’t allow that, it had to be pure Kato. I understand why, because they sell it. But I really need to soften Kato up to be able to effectively work with it. To me, “effective” means that I can create a beautiful piece in a reasonable amount of time- and Kato just takes way to long for me to condition. I don’t want to spend all my working time rolling clay thru a pasta machine! So here she is, Tribal Twist. I imagine a beautiful Jungle Queen wearing this while hunting tigers! Click to view them larger.

It’s that time again…PCAGOE Challenge Time!

The talent in our group is amazing! This month’s theme was Faux. I really wanted to enter this time, but alas, I ran out of time. I’ve got too much going on this month with competitions and my spring break from school!
Be sure to visit the group, click the photo above, to vote for your favorite and you might win a prize!

Polymer Clay and Mixed media, a natural combination

Well, this week I tried to enter the Art Bead Scene monthly challenge. You can see my entry at my flickr (studiobijou.) Unfortunately, they posted that they would pick the winner on April 1, with entries due by today, but they already picked the winner! But, it did get me to make something and get my mental gears turning. Kinda like homework used to. The theme was Matisse’s Fauvist Red Goldfish painting, which I took literally….

I enjoy mixed media, probably the most common form I use is jewelry art. I just got a bottle of Lisa Pavelka’s Magic Gloss, which is a UV resin that cures in sunlight (or a blacklight, but I don’t need one, living in Florida I can use mother nature) and boy, is it fun. A tad expensive, at $9.50 per ounce- however, after researching UV resins, it’s about 60% cheaper than others on the market so I won’t complain. I embedded a dried daisy in the resin and cured it, then flipped it over and poured some on the back so it would be completely embedded, cured that…then created a polymer clay frame for the whole thing and baked it- and it’s pretty cool. I want to do some more experimentation with it and then I’ll post pics. My nephew has been visiting this week, so I’ve been a little pressed for time and haven’t made many new things.

I have an idea…. Do you sometimes hate to say that the way I do?

I used to keep a green notebook full of ideas. One time, a business exec told me that I could start a new business every day. LOL. I believe that. It’s unfortunate for me though, because I am an idea-machine- but also a businesswoman, realizing that in order to build a personal brand it would be very difficult to start a new “business” every day.

I have decided that when I get a particularly good one, I am going to work out the details and submit it for publication- let the idea run wild in the great outdoors and see who it resonates with. Selling my ideas, as it were. For the really, really good ones, I will play with them myself for a while and see which ones stick. My main problem is that I don’t really enjoy repeating a design more than about 10 times, so I need to create things with infinite variability or else I get super-bored, super-fast. I enjoy making birds and I think that’s going to stick around for a while. Everything else is an experimentation.

It is really frustrating to me to have so many ideas. Some people would probably tell me that this is a really crappy thing to be complaining about, but I find it inhibiting. Because I have so many ideas and I often play with one a couple of times before giving it up, it has become difficult to decide if I should invest, say, in a tool or supply for that idea. I find myself shooting my ideas in the foot before I get started for fear that I’m going to waste a whole bunch of time and money on an idea that will bore me in 10 seconds. Help!