Because I have some photo posting problems here, this went to my other blog.

You are welcomed to check out my little Rainbow Sweat Shop's products.

Imitation ones! Before hardening:


Finished test patch:


These were actually pretty tricky to make:
1) Buy chocolate pralines (Finns can actually recognize these since they are very traditional christmas chocolates.)
2) Make molds using the chocolates. I had to knead in a crazy amount of liquid clay to make the mold clay elastic enough to not break the filled chocolates while pushing. Also removing the chocolates from the ready molds is tricky.
3) Throw the used chocolate away. You can eat the rest.
4) Bake. (I tried first to harden the mold with the chocolate still in it, but the chocolate melted faster than what the clay hardened, making the mold looking like a sponge.)
5) Make the beads. I filled the beads with aluminum foil, otherwise they would have been too heavy.

I used the pendant (In the photo with the chain) today at work and got very positive feedback, and an order for a set of fridge magnets :) Next I plan to make some fake Geisha candies still in their pink wraps. Oh, and a necklace imitating english licorice.

( More creations )

A bit of something. This was originated from my attempt on making cherry earrings...



( more stuff - Warning! Large file! )

( more )
For my next project, I'm thinking a Russian doll millefiori, wit every single rose make individually. but that would need something like one kilogram of clay, so we'll see. I'm also thinking of making more figurines.

My intention was to create some 3D honey comb effect using translucent clay. Naaah. Should know better than to harden crap. The round red ones are something that I intended, but the color out of the package is blah. Maybe there will be a necklace out of these. Dunno. The fan in the middle of the pic is a concept try out. It's made of paper. It's really difficult to fold paper in these sizes!



But the image is just a reason for posting some delicious links!

So-Charmed.com
The pretties and most imaginative polymer clay food jewelry.

FaerieSmak,com
Kind of a net shop deal that would be nice to open. She has a too slow server, though.

Cruel and Unusual Crafts Wonderful Amigurumi projects.

Trialing out a new server and thinking other website'y things, too. and crafting, again.

Here is a pretty nifty necklace that I managed to craft after making more of red beads of the same type that I posted last time. Making this took the season ending of Supernatural and at least four episodes of Project Catwalk Canada so I would say about three hours.


( more pics and projects )

Question: If I would make a web page out of this, should it be 1) in English (more users), 2) in Finnish (Also for kids and parents who don't read English), or 3) both (It's all about pictures and html anyway, it's not that big a job to do two languages)

My crappy web host crapped on me again and it looks like my domain is gone, including all the polymer_zen pictures and two complete web sites. I sure hope that they are not gone forever, but I wouldn't really be surprised if they would reply with "So sorry, all your material is lost forever! Better luck next time!" I managed to log in to my account and it's status is "active". Doesn't help me any, that. Anyway. If and when I'll end up switching something better, I will download all the images in Polymer_zen again, even if I'll have to do it by hand. Damnit.

But! Long time no see. Actual work has taken my time, along with relaxation with reading instead of crafting. I actually applied to Helsinki University to study käsityötiede (=sewing and handcraft science), but that was only the first round. I bet that if my points credit me to the second round, the practical part of the test will be, like, sewing a medieval triptych in a week or handcrafting linen bed sheets or something.

Here is something I made (pictures hosted in Aijaa.com). White and translucent millefiori over red and brown core beads, plus some beads made with interesting looking pastel colored scrap clay.


( More works )
And that's it. I'll try to solve the image hosting problem and get the pics back for the old posts.

So, just for fun I made these crazy-ass beads. The first batch went haywire. Firts everything looked good; I made these pretty, multicolored beads. Only after baking I noticed that 1) instead of white pearly powder I had used silver powder, which efectively transfered all my thoughfully colored beads to solid silver color, and that 2) while turning the heat for baking down from 130C to 110C, I had accidentally turned the heat *up* to 150C, which made the bead go, uh. melty. So, that was that.

The second try went better. I like the pink beads. The sparkly disco ball beads are pretty crazy, I just had to try the glitter out on beads since it had worked so god in the easter egg. Did not work on beads, though, but at least I tried.

( another pic )