The parts for this tiny vase have been laying in my craft area for a long time, and I finally got around to assembling flower arrangement. It was made with left over Sculpey clay and baked in the oven. I sprayed the arrangement with polyacrylic varnish. The flower arrangement is approximately 4″ tall.
Yes, it appears that I only painted two houses in 2019. I did not get a chance to seal the houses until a few weeks ago, because of cold weather and Covid-19. (I can’t varnish if someone in the household sinuses gets upset around paint and varnish.)
These are California Creations houses. The company went out of business in the early 2000s. Yes, these have been in storage waiting for me to paint them.
Pink House
Bed and Breakfast
Here is my latest vase I created from polymer clay. The clay was put on top of a glass vase. I used polyurethane vanish to seal the clay.
Here are my latest vases done with polymer clay. I took some blue and mixed in a little black to get the dark blue color. I wrapped the glass vases with the dark blue and added the flowers. I wanted the vases to have an oriental feel to them.
Below are batches 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of my polymer clay roses with leaves and stems.
Batch 2:
I took some white clay and blended one edge with some pink clay. The leaves and stems contains three shades of green and gold clay.
Batch 3:
The center of the roses were made from the clay left over from Batch 2. However, there wasn’t enough for three flowers, so I mix a little red with the pink and white for the outer petals.
Batch 4:
I wanted some flowers that glowed in the dark. I mixed bright pink, yellow, and orange clay with some florescent clay.
Batch 5:
These red roses were also mixed with some florescent clay, but they do not shine as well as the pink roses in Batch 4.
Batch 6:
I had just finished the yellow sunflower vase and wanted some yellow roses to put in the vase. But, yellow roses would just be too plain. The rose color from stem to the petal tips are hot pink, orange, yellow, and lemon yellow.
Batch 7:
Some more vase inspired flowers. I used the leftover clay from the vase. I gently it mixed together to make the roses.
It is the Christmas Season! All the presents are wrapped and all the cards have mailed; it is time that I share with you my Christmas Card of 2017.
I usually start thinking about my Christmas Cards around July. If I wait until Thanksgiving, I sure that disasters will strike and I would be force into buying Christmas cards from the store. This year the ideal was a Snow Globe Christmas card. I researched the ideal and knew it was possible.
But, I didn’t really want to put a piece of plastic wrap or it’s equivalent on the card. And, than I found Jullibean Soup’s Large Circles by Hampton Art. It was a quick Click and Order from Amazon. Once the circles came in, I started to work on the card.
I thought about designing a village scene to put inside the snow globe, but I wanted a little deep. Then it occurred to me; I have polymer clay, I have cutters for snowman and trees. The card was coming together.
The snowman, trees, and snow were made with Sculpey Polymer Clay using a setting of 3 in the pasta machine and cut with “cookie” cutters, bake and covered with sparkle varnish. (Which was the first mistake.) However, I need to draw the face and buttons, and color the hats on the snowman. I got out may Sharpie pens and colored the hats. They looked awful. I should not have varnished the snowmen first. What was I going to do, paint all the snowmen? Nooooo! I had just recent purchase a set of Chameleon Pens, which worked with beautiful results. It even covered where I used a Sharpie.
Since the Snowman were coming together, I could now design the inside of the card. This was done using Corel Draw. I probably spend too much time making snowflakes, but I was having so much fun. I hope the shading on the snowman gives it some dimension.
At Office Depot, I found dual color cardstock. It was light blue on one side and white on the other side. This was perfect for my card. It would give me the blue sky I wanted behind the snowman scene on the front and white on the inside. I found the snowflake paper at Hobby Lobby. I found some nice light blue glitter paper at JoAnn’s and had the silver paper left over from last year.
The Jullibean Soup circle comes with adhesive around the circle, so it was not necessary to stick it through the first layer of paper and glue everything down. I used Silhouette Studio to design the silver snow globe and the cut for the top paper layer. Everything was cut using my Silhouette Curio. I was really dreading gluing it all together.
More research. I found this wonderful blog that talked about ways to glue paper together. Did you know you can put cheap plastic wrap between two piece of paper and use a hot iron to fix them together. I didn’t use plastic wrap. The blog also talk about Xyron Creative Station for sticking paper together. This is the best machine I have bought all year. It did exactly what I expected. It basically creates stickers when you roll your paper through the machine. Afterwards, you just peel it off and stick it where you want it. It even handled the delicate “Merry Christmas”.
To assemble the card:
First step: print the inside of the card on cardstock on the correct side of the paper and cut everything. Run the snowflake paper, the silver snow globe, and the Merry Christmas through the Xyron Creative Station.
Second step: stick the snowflake paper to the correct side of the card.
Third step: Use glue dots to fix the snowman, trees, and snow to the card. Top with snow. (Second mistake.) After sitting in a box for several weeks, the trees and snowman started to come loose. The problem was I did not use permanent glue dots for those items. I had to gently open up at least half of the cards and redo the inside. I am glad I switched glue dots during the assembly.
Fourth step: Place plastic circle on tope of snowman and snow.
Fifth step: Place silver globe around circle and add Merry Christmas.
We have a finished card. Well, almost. It needed something else. I used glitter glue to around the border to give it more sparkle.
I put the card in an envelope that I stamped with snowflakes. Both, envelope and card was mail in a bubble mailer. Any thicker and the card could not be sent First Class mail.
In August 2016, my storage unit flooded when areas of Louisiana received over 25 inches of rain within 24 hours. I was going to abandon the houses that sat in flood water for over a week, but my sister rescued them.
I was excited to paint these house, because they were interesting and unique.
Tailor Shop: Yes, it needed a cooper roof. I had trouble deciding on a color for the door, so I decided to let it stand out.
English Cottage: Painted it a traditional colors. The front door needed to be stained glass colors.
Bed and Breakfast: I wanted my Bed and Breakfast house to have a white porch, but I didn’t want the house to be too dark or pink. I wanted the roof to be a grayish blue.
In August 2016, the storage unit where I kept my belonging flooded. In those belonging was all my Christmas Village Plastercraft Houses. Many of the houses, painted and unpainted, was either wet or underwater for about a week. I was going to abandon them because I had no means of drying or cleaning them. My sister, who showed up to help me salvage what belonging I could, insisted that I could not abandon my houses.
She took all the wet houses to her flooded house, unwrapped, cleaned, and let the houses dry out while her house was drying out. After everything was dried, she carefully packed the house. In June, I was able to retrieve the unpainted houses from her. She did an amazing job. All three of these houses have minor damage, but no house is perfect. Of course, the inserts with suggested painting is gone, so I choose the colors myself.
These are the first three houses that she recovered that I have painted.
Don’s Donuts: I decided I would paint it the colors of the best donut shop, Krispy Kreme. The car had to be blue.
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Bowling Alley: I thought this building needed to be bright and metallic.
Toy Maker: Deciding the colors were a little difficult. What colors would Santa have on his shop?
There will be more houses to come. I usually paint three at a time.
My father-in-law has shown very interested in the 3D printing. Asking questions about how it works and what can it print. Before Father’s Day, I sat down in from of the computer and said “What can I print for my father-in-law? He plays dominoes every Friday! I can do that!”
I looked up the dimensions for Dominoes; design the dominoes; and created the case to look like a domino.
His own personalized dominoes. I also printed a set for my dad for Father’s Day with his last name on them.
The .stl files can be downloaded from youmagine.com.
https://www.youmagine.com/designs/dominoes/embed
I made some brown e’s for April Fool Day 2016. I just love April.
Happy April Fools Day!
Thank Alexa for the idea!
Sarah Cath's Adventures 