Packaging Video

Happy Halloween!

I put together a little video on how I package my jewelry when I ship them out. Hope it gives you some ideas and make sure to check out the Squidoo lens I have on the topic: Make your Handmade Products Stand Out! Using Creative Packaging

New Cuttlefish Complete

So here are the newest cuttlefish. As you can see the translucent ones turned out quite well. I also made a much darker cuttlefish as well. This was also an experiment with colored clay, this time pure black clay colored with just a little red paint and Pearl Ex powders in Super Russet and Blue Russet.

Goodies Arrived

My supplies arrived today and I'm all excited to start making stuff with them. Click the picture below to go to flickr and see it all labeled with what everything is.

Also in the package were a couple other cool things with the package. First this is what I saw when I opened the box which I thought was really great. Also this incredibly bright pink tote bag, cute but not my thing so I gave it to my mom.

Translucency Test

Now that I have some test cuttlefish with this new clay blend I needed to test just how translucent it really is. I'm very pleased with the results. Here's a photo of the cuttlefish pendant held up to a candle.

I eyeball amounts when mixing clay so this isn't exact but the mix is basically 1/4 of a 2oz package of premo frost, a pea size ball of white premo, a smidgen of blue premo (maybe 1/6 of the size of the ball of white). You want to add just enough white and blue to make the premo frost look whiter, it's normal color is a little beige or cream colored but much less so than normal translucent premo.

Next up is painting these cuttlefish. I need to be very careful to only slightly tint them with paint and pearlex, I don't want to hide the translucency at all. I'll probably wait until after my new beads arrive to start painting because I want to be able to compliment the bead colors nicely.

Winter Cuttlefish Test

So I've sculpted the first winter cuttlefish pendants and earring bases. Took me a bit to get just the right blend of clay, I wanted translucent but needed it whiter so I added a tiny bit of white and even tinier bit of blue premo to premo frost so get my mix. Here's what they look like compared to my usual peach base.

Winter cuttlefish may not remain the name of this line depending on if I decide to keep making them throughout the year. Haven't decided on an alternative name though (anything but pastel cuttlefish).

New ideas and waiting for supplies

So I ordered some jewelry supplies Thursday night. Lots of nice goodies to play with when they arrive. I ordered from Firemountain Gems and they have lots of cool stuff and an even cooler assortment deal. I had picked out 12 items that I wanted and it came to about $46, little notice on my shopping cart said that if I ordered 15+ items I get the discounted prices for them, so I picked out 3 more things and guess what? The cost actually dropped to $37! Now that's pretty cool.

So I'm still waiting for my stuff to arrive, according to FedEx that will be Thursday. In the meantime since my wrist still hurts I'm planning new designs that will use my new goodies. Some of the things I ordered are little glass bottle pendants, I'm thinking tiny Perma-Pet necklaces.

I also got some nice pastel gemstone beads and I was thinking about making some winter cuttlefish using translucent clay mixed with a little blue and white and tinting with pearl ex in various wintry colors.

Not entirely sure how I'm going to decorate them yet but I ordered some blank barrettes and hairsticks.

I'm sure other ideas will come to me once I have my little paws on my new supplies and can start playing with them.

Rather frustrated with myself

So I had this rather cheap chair for use at my desk, a couple weeks ago I noticed the seat was slightly tilted and I knew that wasn't good. I had been planning to buy a new chair but had been procrastinating. Last night I learned why that was a bad idea.

The chair broke completely dumping me on the floor. I'm sure it probably looked absolutely silly and hilarious but it also really hurt. I landed with all my weight on my right wrist and sprained it rather badly. So no sculpting for me for a few days at least and now I have no choice but to go buy a new chair this weekend so I can return the one I'm sitting in right now to the dining room.

Behold the Xmas Platypus

This idea has been floating around in my head for actually a couple years now and I just never found the time to do it. I was thinking this week that I should start getting ready for holiday sales and what better way to start? I don't take Christmas or other holidays seriously so I like strange and silly stuff. He's sculpted in polymer clay and painted in acrylics with holly leaves and berries on his tush.

This is up for sale, you can find it in my Etsy shop.

Want a free necklace?

Running a quick promotion for my new Etsy Shop anyone who buys anything at all from my shop in the next 24 hours (ending 9pm eastern time tomorrow) gets a free Cthulhu's Gem necklace with a leather cord.

Happy Cephalopod Appreciation Day

Today is the 2nd Annual International Cephalopod Awareness Day!

You all know how much I love cephalopods so I'm celebrating. So where has my obsession gone since last year? Well I'm still making Perma-Pets and now I have the Cuttlefish Jewelry to add to the mix as well as Ammonite Jewelry celebrating fossil cephalopods.

So since people ask on occasion why I like cuttlefish so much (everyone knows squid and octopus) here's a list of the cool things about cuttlefish:

• Cuttlebones for buoyancy
• Many species have amazing skin changing abilities
• Some cuttlefish even hypnotize their prey with a flashing skin pattern
• Green-blue blood
• W-shaped pupils
• Pfeffer's Flamboyant Cuttlefish's muscles contain a powerful toxin

More on Cuttlefish from Wikipedia

You can find my cephalopod art and jewelry both on my eCrater StoreEtsy Shop.

Finally made up my mind.

It took a while but I did finally make up my mind about what to sculpt for the center of that lavender necklace: a seahorse. I managed to match the colors quite closely with premo (didn't paint this one other than the eye and clear coating it) and added some pearl ex powders in micro pearl, misty lavender, and interference violet.

I also made a small pair of matching earring with two more of the briolette beads. It's up for sale on Etsy.