Carolina Snowfall

Those of us living in the U.S. deep South hardly ever get snow. We sure got some tonight. The lowcountry of South Carolina is blanketed with the most gorgeous glittery white powder! It is thrilling and breathtaking.



Those of you who regularly get snow are probably thinking I'm a nutjob, but for someone who has seen snow a handful of times in my 50 years, only 3 times that I can remember where it actually stuck to the ground and accumulated any significant amount. Well, it did tonight! 5" in my backyard so far, and it's still snowing!



I snapped these photos in the backyard. This is my dogwood tree, and the church across the street. I hope the snow sticks around until tomorrow. If it does, I intend to go exploring with my camera!

Spring Has Sprung In The Diva Studio

It was a busy weekend in the Diva studio. I got back to the image transfers in a big way, turning out more than 50 new pendants. I wanted to get some new stock in the Etsy shop to start gearing up for Spring, Easter and Mother's Day.

I am absolutely nuts about vintage floral images and book illustrations because they always have beautiful, bold, vibrant graphics that make my knees weak.












I hit the jackpot with these new images purchased from a fellow Southerner's Etsy shop, LunaGirl. I bought the CD with 900 images and impatiently waited for it to arrive. I was not disappointed. The knees went to jelly when I opened the files. Sheer nirvana.

Just look at these gorgeous colors!

I'm Featured in an Etsy Gallery!

What a nice surprise! I found out one of my necklaces is included in this lovely salmon and gray gallery of flickr photos created by FauxDonna. What a thrill!




Thank you so much, Donna! I'm honored!

Congratulations to the Winners!

The winners have been announced in PCAGOE's February Challenge, "Flowers and Gemstones Associated With Your Birth Month" and I received 2nd place in the member vote! Thank you, everyone who voted for me, and congratulations to the other winners, too!

Winners of the Public vote:

1st - BeeTreeByMe
2nd - 11BoldStreet
3rd - JKollmann

Winners of the PCAGOE Member vote:

1st - BeeTreeByMe
2nd - SCDiva
3rd - JKollmann

Next month's theme is "Texture", and I can't wait. I have something very special planned, if I can pull it off, so stay tuned. This is always a very popular theme with the members, and I am very excited to see what everyone creates!

My Jade Babies Hit The Big Time!

Thank you, Cynthia Tinapple, for including my jade pieces at Polymer Clay Daily today. What an awesome thing to wake up to this morning, and if this doesn't get the muse out of hiding, nothing will!

This is the second time my work has featured at PCD, an honor I would never have imagined. The other time was last April and it was for my image transfers. It is very gratifying to be featured for a different technique, and a huge boost to my confidence.

Cynthia does so much to promote polymer clay in a positive way and as a bona fide art medium, and I just thrilled to be mentioned in the company of so many fabulously talented artists.

Okay, hold me down because I'll be hanging out on cloud 9 again all day today, maybe even all week, me and my muse.

Thank you again, Cynthia. You are the best!

Back to Basics - What You Do When The Muse Goes Into Hiding

I have been struggling with my muse for the past month. After turning out many, many image transfers, I think I hit a wall. One after another just didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, and I had to stop.

Usually when my muse goes South, I can look through my stash of Art Jewelry and Architectural Digest magazines and find something to fuel my creativity, but lately, not even that has worked.

So, last Thursday night, for my guild's weekly Clay and Play session, I decided to go back to the basics and do some things I haven't done on a large scale in awhile, like faux finishes. I pulled out a couple of books and decided to try faux jade and faux bone and faux turquoise. I didn't quite make it to the faux turquoise because I got so absorbed in the faux jade.

I did some research and discovered there are six colors of natural jade: Black, red, green, yellow, white and lavender. I wanted to try a batch of each, but only got as far as green, yellow, red and lavender this go-round, but I intend to do some more. I haven't had that much fun claying in ages.

I am really pleased with the results of the green and yellow. The red, which my research source says can range from reddish brown to orange, looks a little too orange to me, but hey, how about faux carnelian? The lavender turned out too gray, but not black enough to be black, so I need to experiment some more with those colors.

Then I decided to do a quick batch of faux bone. I deliberately left the beads in the cooker for longer than I was supposed to (don't try this at home unless you bake outside) because I wanted a darker striation. My neighbor saw these and thought they looked more like wood. I'll try to cook them like I'm supposed to cook them next time, but I love these, too.

All in all, a very good weekend. Now if that truckload of translucent clay I ordered would just get here, I could do some more.



Dark Green "Jadeite" Faux Jade - Architectural Detail and Gingko Leaves



Medium Green "Burmese" Faux Jade Raised Koi Fish - Pendant



Medium Green "Burmese" Faux Jade - Chrysanthemums and Lotus Blossoms Pendant



Medium Green "Burmese" Faux Jade Pendant/Brooch - Koi Fish



Light Olive Green East-West Faux Jade Focal Bead - Koi Fish



Reddish Orange Faux Red Jade Asian Waves Pendant



Yellow Faux Jade Floral Carved Cylinder Bead



Lavender Faux Jade - Asian Letters Pendant






Faux Bone Pendants

February PCAGOE Challenge - Gemstones and Flowers Associated With Your Birth Month

This was one of the most interesting PCAGOE contests yet for me. I was really excited to see what everyone would come up with, and 13 members took the challenge. I wasn't disappointed. All the entries are beautiful, and really diverse takes on the theme.

Vote for your top three favorites from February 1st to February 7th. The winning entries will be announced at pcagoe.com on February 8th.

Five lucky voters, chosen at random, will also win a beautiful polymer clay prize made by one of our talented member artists.

Here is a mosaic of the entries for February.



1) BeeTreeByMe
2) NKDesigns
3) KellyPlaysClay
4) SCDiva
5) Eugena777
6) ElementalDragons
7) 11BoldStreet
8) ArrowdaleArtStudio
9) YoungCreative
10) PolymerClayCreations
11) Cloud9ClayCreations
12) JKollmann
13) BlessedBeadJewelry

Here is a mosaic of the prizes you could win:



1st row, l-r: ClayCenter, SCDiva, SilverGateStudio, JKollmann

2nd row, l-r: MarciaPalmer, RMKDesign, WorthingtonFox , RiverValleyDesigns

3rd row, l-r: ClayHappy, PolymerClayCreations, LaurelSteven, NKDesigns

4th row, l-r: BeeTreeByMe, Jencom72, StudioSChiek, SpiritMama

Thank you!