Window Ornament Swap

  And it's swap reveal blog hop time again! :-)
I love swaps, all the phases of it! It's all about expectation and creation (and chatting):

• first, you eagerly wait to know who you partner is;
• then it's time for the first contact with her (we are all women usually), some chatting to know more about each other, and a little web research to see more about her creations, preferences ...;
• after that is the creation phase - brainstorming, thinking, searching for ideas and creating the swap item, hoping that your partner would like it;
• in the meantime more chatting;
• and it's expectation time again - waiting for the packages to arrive to their final destination ... and wondering if your partner would like your creation and what will you receive;
• and finally, when the package arrives you feel like a child opening his/her Christmas gift ... :-D

  For the Window Ornament Swap (organized by Tina Holden in the Polymer Clay Swap Facebook group)  I was paired with Manon van Kempen, a lovely polymer artist living in Spain, but originally from Netherlans. She loves bright colours: orange, reds, yellow; she loves flowers and anything to do with nature; and she loves mixed media as well. Just like I do.  

  Here is what she sent to me:


One side of the ornament made by Manon van Kempen for me



    In the middle it is glass and all around polymer clay leaves, tiny flowers and butterflies. And the same on the other side. She had an injury of the right hand, but she managed to sent it in time ayway.



The other side of the ornament made by Manon van Kempen for me

   Isn't it BEAUTIFUL? I loooove it!!! And she also included some (not clay-) beads, kind of mini bead soup. Thank you, Manon, very much :-)

  
  Ok, let's see what have I made for Manon, now. She loves flowers, so let's be flowers! I wanted to make tulip-like petals and hang them upside down, so they could move when the wind blows trough the ornament. I hung them on a ring made from polymer clay. As the petals did not stay as I wanted, I needed to add another bigger ring under the middle part of the petals. Then I decided to combine it with macrame and arrange the ornament like a bell. In the macrame pattern I added some small yellow and orange round polymer clay beads and on the bottom part also 3 polymer flowers on a red wire.  

The window ornament I made for Manon van Kempen

  A closer look to the flowers:

Detail of the window ornament I made for Manon van Kempen

  As we both live near saltpans (Santa Pola - Spain for Manon and Secovlje - Slovenia for me ) I decided to include something salty, a specialty from our saltpans. You will never guess what .... Sweets!!!! More exactly Pralines with Fleur de Sel (pralines with different tastes like Fleur de Sel and Pistachio, with Fleur de Sel and Sweet Refosco, with Slovenian Honey, with Fleur the Sel and Persimmon Brandy).

  I hope Manon enjoyed this swap as much as I did.
  And I would be happy to read any of your comments :-)


  Here is the whole list of the other participants in the swap - with the links to the blog posts of those who blogged about the swap:

Manon van KEMPEN   http://www.manonvankempen.com/1/post/2012/09/window-ornament-swap.html
Tina HOLDEN   http://beadcomber.blogspot.ca/2012/08/window-ornament-swap.html

Kimberly IDALSKI   http://kimisjewelryandgifts.blogspot.ca/2012/08/artisan-polymer-clay-swap-window.html

Vanessa BETCHER   http://vanessasclayadventures.blogspot.ca/2012/08/window-ornament-swap.html

Leila BIDLER   http://www.lbidler.com/apps/blog/show/18400894-facebook-swap-organized-by-tina-holden

Anne RONCALLI   http://leboudoirdanne.canalblog.com/archives/2012/08/27/24975703.html

Nadia GENNARI   http://easywom.blogspot.it/2012/08/international-polymer-clay-swap-la-mia.html
Ilenia MORENI   http://leggendesegrete.blogspot.it/2012/09/international-swap.html

 

And for those participants who did not blog about the swap, you can find the whole gallery here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.275844535849257&type=1

  Happy hoping!

Bead Soup Blog Party - 3rd Reveal

  The 6th Bead Soup Blog Party hosted by Lori Anderson is just having its "grand finale", the 3rd and final reveal.

  You can find the complete list of participants and their creations here.  

  Can you imagine that there were 400 participants from all over the world!!! And 3 from Slovenia amongst them: Kitty, Ana and me. Here's the map Lori made:

  I have to say I'm soo happy to have taken my courage in both hands as a total self-tought beginner in jewellery making and signed for the Bead Soup Blog Party for many reasons:

  - First (and I'm putting it on the first place not only because of the timeline, but for the importance it has for me), I met a wonderful person - a talented beadweaver and my partner in the bead soup party Amy Severino. We have so much in common and I'm sure our friendship will last. It's one of the things you just know. And maybe we can meet in person one day, America is not that far away ;-). We have just settle the timeline for a project in common, but I will keep it secret for some more time ...
  Well, it seems Lori has a special feeling (or intuition if you prefer) to match participants, because there are many of them that were paired with a similar soul - al least that's what I frequently read on the blogs;

  - Second, participating internationally was a huge motivation for my creativity and thinking "outside my confort zone", trying to push myself on the next level. My work was supposed to be seen all over the world and I did not want to disappoint Lori, Amy or any of the visitors of my blog reveal, and myself neither;

  - Third, it is a big platform for all the participants and their work;

  - Fourth, for me it was a big discovery of so many different techniques for making jewellery and materials used in many unusual ways. On several blogs my mouth remained open seeing such beauty and creativity!!! And I will absolutely try to learn some new techniques!

  - and maybe there are more things I'm not aware of in this moment.

  So, thank you Lori very much for your efforts and all the work you've done for this Bead Soup Blog Party! You're amazing!!

Flower power (#24/52 Earrings)

  I'm back! ... or better more regularly participating at the 52 earrings a year challenge. This is the 33 week of this year and the theme of the week was nothing else but FLOWER POWER.  
 
  My first idea was to use my millefiori flower canes (all the 3 of them), but then I came accros Elissa Powell's Translucent Chrysanthemum Cane© tutorial and a 25-watt light bulb appeared over my head ;-)

  For the cane I used white Premo, metallic perlmutt Fimo, transparent orange Fimo and some leftovers from a yellow-orange-red-white mokume gane. This is the result:

  It's a very simple cane to make, you can use your leftovers and the result is great, as you can see.

 The only problem I've had was the cracling of the white Premo. I like the snow white colour of Premo after curing and I had a half package left so I used it for the cane; I conditioned it well enough (about 20 times through the pasta machine on 4-5 different settings), just as other pieces, but after rolling the cane it begun to cracle ... I have to say I was quite dissapointed!!!

  Do any of you use Premo clay and do you have the same problems or it's just my package that was old?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  No, pa sem se le spet vrnila k rednemu sodelovanju v izzivu 52 earrings a year (52 uhanov na leto) z mojim 24. parom. Tema tekočega tedna je bila FLOWER POWER, zato sem seveda razmišljala "rožasto". Prva ideja je bila uporabiti (vse tri) moje cvetlične kačice, nato pa sem naletela na zelo zanimiv in preprost tutorial Elisse Powell Translucent Chrysantemum Cane© in žarnica nad mojo glavo je veselo zasvetila!

  Na zgornji sliki lahko vidite rezultat - uporabila pa sem bel Premo, metallic perlmutt Fimo, prozoren oranžen Fimo ter ostanke rumeno-oranžne-rdeče-bele mokume gane plahtice. Postopek je zelo enostaven, rezultat pa čudovit.

  Edino težavo, s katero sem se soočila pri zvijanju kačice, mi je povzročil bel Premo, ki je začel pokati. Glede na to, da sem ga vsaj 20-krat spustila skozi "pašta-mašino" na 4-5 različnih nastavitvah, se mi ne sanja, zakaj tako pokanje. Ni mi potrebno razlagati, da sem bila zeloooo razočarana in res ne vem, če ga bom še kupila ... čeprav mi je njegova snežno bela barva zelo všeč!!

 Imate kaj izkušenj s Premo? Se tudi vam dogaja enako ali je bil samo moj paketek star?