Faux Marble

Rambling about varnishing versus buffing

Last week I read on someones blog that it was absolutely unnecessary to varnish polymer clay beads. Hm! I just sat there scratching my head and looked at some of my beads....I varnish 99% of my beads!!! *grinning* Yes, I varnish almost all of them because I like the "glass-like" look of the beads and I think the colours come out more brightly after varnishing and they just feel so smooth!

Now yesterday I was sanding my newest beads and in the end I decided to try "buffing". I never really tried it because I found that sanding was enough work already, forget the buffing. I never believed either that it was possible to get such a shine with just buffing as you do with varnishing. I was always sceptical with the foto's in books that state it's a buff. *grinning* Yeah, so I tried buffing a bead on my cotton kitchen cloth after sanding. I was a bit in a craze because I really really really wanted to finish these beads. Hey, and it kinda worked. The bead came out pretty shinny and the colour looks bright aswell. So I buffed the rest of that kind of bead and left it at that. (I also added some hand cream unintentionaly because I creamed my hands just before, hey, that even adds to the shine!) I did varnish some other beads because I'm just the varnish type....and am, I guess, afraid to leave my beads so naked. Yes, maybe that's it! I feel like if I don't varnish my beads, they wont be protected.

Hm. So what's your take on varnishing versus buffing?

Slowly but surely

I'm still here, I haven't quit beading! Nononono... I am actually working on something but slowly. It's a project that is taking a lot of sanding and as you know, I can't sand too much in one sitting so I have been sanding much. I'm on one week holiday now though and I hope to finish my project by the end of the week. Maybe...because every time I have something curing in the oven I have a new idea what next to try out!

I'm exited to show off my work soon though!

Reading the rainbow

When I was a kid and lived in Toronto, I used to watch "the reading rainbow" with Levar Burton, on t.v. I loved that show and for some reason these beads remind me of that show. I'm sure it's just the rainbow colours...the words....*smile". It's nice though that beads I've made give me back good childhood memories!

Gone all weaved up

Book News

I finally was able to get my hands on a Book I've wanted to buy but couldn't. My mom gave it to me for my birthday. She bought it in england where she lives, as Switzerland is just so so tiny and it's so hard to get my hands on books like these (If you don't have a credit cards!)

It's the Carol Blackburn book "Making Polymer Clay Beads".

I find it very inspirational to try out new things, especially things that I thought were too hard! But in the book everything is described so easily that I just "did it".

Yey, for books!

I'm still creating

I haven't blogged in a while! I've been so busy with work, now that I am working more and also with keeping up with my business in my parts of the world. The business is going good but I have to stay on the ball and keep it going. So when I can, I create new things and make new beads. I have set my self new goals to create a certain amount of beads each week and put them up for sale on Sunday nights. Now I am not so sure if this is such a good idea yet but I'm willing to try and see how it goes. My first batch that I put up last night has already sold out though and now I'm not sure if I should create more each week, hehehehe! I love it!

Right now I'm really into butterflies. They are such beautiful creatures! I have never really noticed all the wonderful colours they carry until I started studying some photo's for canes. Wow!

The first Butterfly cane is a Monarch. The colours came out pretty nice but I'm not so happy with the whole of it. On Saturday I tried to copy a blue butterfly I have on a photo but it didn't look anything like it in the end! Still happy with it though!

Ah, I love creating...