Betrayed by the mouse

So, as I was sitting here working on some stuff (read: drill holes for jump rings in stuff) waiting for the UPS to bring my polymer clay in, after I had realized that no, I can't do any mokume gane because I THOUGHT I still had white clay when in fact I didn't have a smidgeon left, I decided to go ahead and do another tutorial today. Even if said tutorial was pretty much scheduled for more towards the winter holidays. At least I knew I had enough clay for it.

So I started, went through all the beautiful steps for it, when it came to the final steps, UPS was at the door. I paused the recording, got my package checked it then went to finish the tutorial. Clicked the unpause button, did all the steps, tadaaaaa! wanted to stop the recording and that's when I realized that my mouse had run out of battery (I have a wireless) and that when I had clicked on "unpause" in fact... I hadn't clicked. And in my hazy poor eyesight I didn't realize that I wasn't recording.

So I guess that you are, indeed, supposed to see this tutorial for the winter holidays, not in September.

Well, let me just give you a glimpse of it. It's not a biggie, just a faux silk brocade appearance (yes, those pearlescents are mixed with other color) that looks like kimono silk, in the winter holiday colors. I know, I know, there are no dragonflies in winter. So what? That's the only silk screen that I have that wasn't mandala.
PS - both the red and the green are stronger, I just took the pics in the door, and it's sunny outside.
PPS. Yes. The clay is here. I'll do the mokume gane part 2 tomorrow early in the morning!

Today's tutorial - Kalyana effect explained

So it still has about 1 hour to upload. For tomorrow, it's already uploaded and scheduled the Stroppel cane tutorial - actually both Stroppel canes with variants.
After which for Friday (I'm not done yet with it) will be two pieces made with each of the Stroppel canes (one of them with a variant)

The cane caps from TinyPandora.com are supposed to be delivered Friday, so I will do Friday afternoon the translucent "floating" Tsunami cane and a piece with it.  That will be uploaded for Saturday.

After which I will be taking a few days break - of course we will have the live event on Sunday at 2 pm CDT - but I need to catch up with stuff.

If I get the ok from the enamel manufacturer, I will upload the testing and review video too.

In the mean time, for next week:

I just got in the mail the Sculpey clear (yay!) and a few colors and samples from a not so known mica powder and glitters company. These pigments are fairly general use and the company does a lot of business in body painting, but I am sure that they will work wonders on clay - they already told me they have one other polymer clay artist who is using them. And the colors! OMG the colors they have! You will see.

Until then they sent me 2 glitter samples, one very fine and delicate and pink with iridescence, and the other one is a dream in blue - the glitter is of various sizes, but the blue is absolutely fabulous.
Pardon the quality of the photos, the new camera is not supposed to get here until the 18 so I'm still stuck with taking photos with my crappy phone.

Feast your eyes!

Tile bracelet tutorial finished

Ok sorry for that. Apparently the blogger app is just for reading and publishing, not for editing.

Anyway. Just a short note.

The tile bracelet tutorial is ready. I will make a short presentation video about it on youtube. This is a paid tutorial, otherwise you have to be one of my sponsors or Patreon patrons to have access to it. It will be available soon in my online store as a paid tutorial. It is made with two different pearlescent canes, with a pattern that continues from one tile to the other, all around the bracelet.

On a different note, I am now starting a public tutorial on a very versatile jelly roll cane.

Here the tile bracelet photos. I tried to take photos of the whole pattern wrapping around the bracelet.

Full day but no free tutorial today

I managed to finish the entire tutorial for sponsors/Patreon patrons. Divided in 7 parts, so facebook wouldn't hiccup, but it still did at part 6 which was longer than 5 minutes. Well, quite a bit longer.

What is the most irritating is that I started uploading it, no message of "'ello this is no good", but after an hour and a half, upload stops and I get the message that the codec is wrong. I said "ok" and started re-working the codec, but then I looked and saw  that it had the same encoding as the other 5 parts.

So it's the length. Uhhh. Re-editing the last 2 parts to make them into 3 parts. Hopefully it will go smooth.

And hopefully I won't fall asleep. I did manage to not fall asleep all day! and it's past 5:30 pm! This is a small victory for me.

I guess I might have to make a charm tutorial. Gayle Thompson did a few charms a little while ago - if I'm not mistaken, a ladybug, a bee and a green caterpillar. They are all cute, but I kept thinking that the caterpillar would look awesome in a tall hat. I kept pestering her about making it with a tall hat and today she said that I should do it.

Right. It's about sculpting. Like I needed any kind of challenge for that! haha. So I might make a small tutorial with a "Hat on the cat(erpillar)".

I also thought of including the varnishing technique Elizabeth asked me about in the bracelet tutorial but then I realized that 1. it would make it way too long. and 2. this is actually a tutorial that should be by itself. 

Ok. Back to editing those videos before I fall asleep.

Here's two photos (as good as I could get them with my crappy phone) of tiles that are part of the bracelet.

Mica shift necklace tutorial

It's at the final bake. Needs varnishing then putting together.  So I expect in about an hour and a half I'll start editing and should be up around noon-ish.

Also, I got a box of samples from a cold-enamel manufacturer, that I am supposed to test and review for use on polymer clay. Really excited about that. Hopefully within a week I should be able to post it. Got to run it by the people first.  But I'm really excited. I've seen Russian artists working with cold enamel and was hoping to find someone around here to make that. Guess I did.

I have to go get carrots for my dog. Yes, you read right. Carrots are his favorite snack.

About 13-14 years ago (can't remember exactly but definitely more than 11 years because one of the dogs I'm talking about died in 2006) I had the most extraordinary couple of dogs: a yorkiepoo female, Betsy, and a Newfoundland/Great Date mix, Thor. The most unusual pair, a huge dog and a tiny dog. They were inseparable. Well, they were seniors too. At the time, there was a huge scandal with tainted dog treats from (where else?) China. So I trained my dogs to eat carrots as treats. They didn't mind. Then the latest addition to the pack, a Greyhound mix, Maya, learned to like carrots too. Later, in 2007, after both Betsy (close to 20 years old) and Thor (at 16 1/2 years old) had died, Maya was getting bored while I was at work. So I adopted my present dog, Whisper, from a local sanctuary. Whisper learned from Maya to like carrots as treats. Now if he doesn't get carrots one day, he throws tantrums. I'm out of carrots.

So I need to go get carrots for my dog.

Also, we're expecting some storms this afternoon. I hope it won't knock out the power. I should be done with the rest of  my tutorials by then anyway.

Fell asleep again and got behind

So yeah, yesterday I fell asleep again around 6 pm. Slept relatively soundly - with a few bathroom breaks - til 5 am. Woke up in pain but fairly refreshed. So if it's like this, that means that if I do that, I only waste half a day sleeping instead of 2/3 of it.

Anyway, yesterday I managed to get TWO public tutorials done, not just one. One got published, the other one is scheduled for 12:30 CDT. It's on the mica shift technique.

Still working on the sponsor tutorial. I want it to be PERFECT lol. I hope to upload the first part today. I might have gotten a little bit too complicated as I am trying to make two bracelets at the same time. One is using the beautiful spiral cane, with matching ear rings, the other one a different pattern.

Also trying to wrap up a few pieces I want to show in my "June retrospective" video. I decided - I said so in my last video about this - to make a video at the end of each month about what I did and what i'm planning to do.

So. Back to work. I really need to finish stuff before 2-3 pm when it's getting real hot again. They say that Friday we'll see a little bit of cooling off. I sure hope so.