Button Making Workshop.
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| The Gang in the Upstairs Workroom. |
Well, another polymer clay Button Making workshop at the Thousand Islands Art Center in Clayton NY successfully completed. Not a huge class, I’m used to 10 – 15 but the five lovely ladies I had this year consisted of the three ladies I had last year and two newbies. What a great gang!
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| Newbie work! |
I just wanted to post some pictures I made of the finished work done during the day, some very creative items. I love the colours on the button/pin selection above, I think this is Dianna’s It also shows that you can work on a colour grouping, I see some rolled cane here, and then just run with it, experimenting with designs, shapes and combinations.
Susan got rolling right away trying something that turned out to be just like my own Pansy buttons! Then, looking for a button for a creamy garment she has, she experimented with some white with translucent. Translucent makes a great cream but with depth. Love her ‘pin’ of ‘bits’ in an asymmetrical shape.
‘You’ve come a long way, baby’ applies to Edwina who was all organic last year and now is funky fashionable with her buttons! She even ventured into beads for a necklace to wear to a wedding. I think some black silky rattail with a nice fastener and it will rock!
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| Shank backs on Edwina’s buttons. |
Last year, Edwina had a knit garment under way and this year she brought it so show us with the button she had made for it. Cool.
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| Edwina’s Vest |
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| Beth’s efforts. |
Beth, of Sheep Thrills in North Syracuse NY, was new this year but quickly got hold of the cane idea and ran with that. I think the colourful work below was Dianna’s (of Needle & Thread in Plattsburgh NY) and I love the use of colour (of course). I wonder if she’s making something to go with these buttons, something simple would showcase them.
I think the buttons and flower are Paula’s, she really went to town this year but I took these photos at the end of the day and I’m sure I missed some good stuff.
The pen thingy is a problem I’m trying to solve. 11 years ago my niece entered the Women’s Art Festival here in Kingston and raked in quite a few dollars by selling the ‘fridge magnets and pens and such that she had made over five weeks coming to my studio on Saturdays. I have covered pens to go with the guest book I have in my booth at shows and just for fun. I use to pick up a box of stick pens from Staples , take out the ink cartridge with pliers and put it back in when I had covered and baked the shell. In the past few years the I’ve tried all sorts of stick pens and the plastic is cheaper and melts leaving you with an awful mess in the oven!!! I’m really annoyed and am still looking for a stick pen that will stand up to the 275 degrees F of the toaster oven. Many books who have projects have covered and decorated pens… it seems we can no longer make those.
What we did here was (thanks to Edwina) take a wooden dowel the size of the pens, cover and bake the slide off the ‘skin’ and slide it onto the pen… a bit of glue is probably needed but these are our results.
If anyone has any word on which pens we can still cover and decorate please let me know!
Edwina, Susan, Paula, Dianna and Beth. Thanks for making my day.
Sorry that I don't have a pen alternative to suggest. Love the students' work! Gorgeousness….
Carolyn, this is great! Glad everyone had fun in class. We can't wait to have you back again.
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