Lost in colorful Nambi world

Is already the end of March? Where did the time go?
Each winter has freezing and paralyzing effect on me. This past one was fairly long and cold and I slowed down a bit. But I was moderately busy and highly creative. At the end of the last year I revisited my Nambi tutorial and gave it several new spins. I am still hooked up and I keep making new things with this tutorial.

The original tutorial is made in English language and it can be found in my Etsy shop. Additional text files (translations) are now available in Spanish, French and Dutch languages too.

I also started a secret FB Nambi group for everyone who purchased a tutorial. We call ourselves Nambians. New members are added with every new purchase. My goal is to add more value to people who support my artistic journey by purchasing this tutorial.
I share new discoveries there as I go; I add new ideas, share thought and make mini tutorials. Nambi girls are explained there in detail, paints and new ways of coloring, using various tools, questions are answered. We share our work and discuss how to improve it.

If you are interested feel free to join us. The more the merrier! Once you purchase a tutorial I will send you an invitation via email or you can add me as a friend on Facebook.
Once I add you to Nambi group feel free to unfriend me, I am not trying to trick people to have more friends. I can only invite people to the group if we are Facebook friends or via email.

Between December and present day I made some pretty and colorful Nambi stuff:

1. Boxes and vessels

2. Nambi Girls necklaces and brooches

3. Tribal mask earrings

4. Owl earrings and necklaces

5. Orange necklace

and

6. Pocket mirrors

There are possibly more photos of my work in my Flickr and Facebook albums.

Join Nambians if you feel inspired there's so much more that can be done with this technique.
Stay safe, cool and positive I am going back to my claying table.

Cactus mania

I just finished an interesting project. It all started with a sweet email from a cactus lover wondering if I am willing to do a custom order for her. She admires my work and was willing to give me full freedom to make fridge magnets with cactus theme. Naturally, I was intrigued.

Once in childhood I actually had a window full of potted cactuses (or is it cacti, I am never sure) and I even sat in one, which was an unfortunate experience, as you can imagine. Once in my teen and young adult years I had a house full of pot flowers of all kinds. I loved and took care of them and they loved me back.
Suddenly, about 15 years ago it all stopped. I don't know exactly why but I lost interest in house plants. Fast forward to my recent project I realized as much as interesting this assignment might be it will be challenging. I had to familiarize with the house plants once again and with those with thorns!

So this project quite unexpectedly turned into a study. My customer wanted bright magnets to stand out so I decided to use my Nambi technique.

I found a book of flowers and actually made detailed sketches. Since I am not familiar with the material I had to see how it will turn out in clay within Nambi technique. Surprisingly, I had so much fun in the process of sketching. Most of the time, for my polymer clay projects I just use very primitive drawings. This time I took time to color the sketches too.
Since both customer and I were pretty happy with sketches, I used my template paper to copy the shape that will become a magnet.

I use this template paper for years, it is sturdy and somewhat transparent, allows making original templates made based on your drawings which can be used many times. You can find this template paper in my Etsy shop.

After that the whole project has gone awry. Right about Halloween my oven decided to play a trick on me and burnt me two batches of these magnets and a batch of beads for another customer. It was crazy! I was mad and cried and tried to eat my misery away.

By the time this third batch got to the oven, they were made quickly and looked great! It is proven that practice makes it perfect after all. I put two thermometers in the oven and sat in front of it the whole baking time. Tell me about being dedicated to the project! They were baked perfectly and were ready for finishing.

Cactus magnets are colorful and vibrant, I like them very much. My customer is happy, apart from purple color on the pot. But since she forgot to mention it in advance, she says she can live with it. Once they were finished I attached magnets to their back.

It is always fun to revisit a technique once developed and make something different with it then jewelry. Nambi tutorial is available in my Etsy shop if you are interested.

I hope you will find these magnets interesting as I do. Leave a comment or a question if you wish to.

Mini Stud Earrings

I have to share my newest obsession with you: mini stud earrings.

It all started few days ago when I realized that I have a considerable amount of polymer clay flower canes with transparent background. I randomly picked thicker and thinner ones trying to find if they are still usable. You know how they tent to dry when laying in a box for a while. And then I just got an idea!

Within minutes I made some cane slices and put them into oven to cure. Half and hour later I attached them to earring metal parts and covered the front side with Lisa Pavelka’s Magic-glos. Few more minutes later, when UV lamp performed it’s magic, I had in front of me several pairs of finished cute mini stud earrings.

Then I realized that it is too simple and started a new bunch adding glitter and Perlex powders in Magic-glos on front side. Pure fun!
I have several ideas that I will try soon.

Few more photos just to show how mini they are:










These mini stud earrings are not something that I usually make of polymer clay. I prefer larger and unique pieces of jewelry. But I am really happy that I followed that sudden idea.

At the end I am satisfied how they turned out. I think I will experiment with them a bit more.

So what do you think?

Polymer Clay Illustration Art

Browsing through photos on Flickr I’ve stumbled upon these incredible pictures. Tammy Durham, the author, calls them polymer clay illustrations.

I’ve noticed colorful circles at first and decided to take a closer look. These polymer clay illustrations are amazing! I have never seen anything like them.

Tammy’s illustrations show diversity of techniques and themes in rich colors. How she presents people is great. I love expressions on their faces and incredible details in every picture.

These polymer clay illustrations seem to be simple. But their pure lines and common shapes also contain depth which is achieved by using textures and bold color combos. Those colorful circles I mentioned before just add a liveliness and complete pictures.

I think that Tammy’s illustrations are warm, live and they invite you to think them over, so they just provide a full pleasure to spectator.

Tammy Durham’s work can be fond on her website and Flickr gallery.

Few flower canes

I've finished these canes last night or early morning if you prefer. It was past 1 AM and I couldn't stop until they were finished and reduced.

I love them!

It’s been a while since I made flower canes with transparent background. It was a “Great flower cane virus” last year and I remember making about dozen of such canes. It seems like they last forever and I easily get bored with combining all the same canes.

Quick fix is to switch to some other polymer clay technique.

This year flowers seem to follow me from everyday life through dreams to my creations. I try not to think about it too much, just relax and go with the flow.

I’ve been enjoying and having so much fun with layering cane work technique lately. To extend the fun I’ve decided to update my flower cane collection.

The result of time spent at claying table (afternoon and evening) can be seen in the photo.

I am really happy how they turned out.

Layering cane work

I was always fascinated with this technique. I love the glassy finish that can be achieved.

When I begun my polymer clay journey , about two and a half years ago, pieces made with this technique seemed surreal and almost impossible to make.

It took me some time and a lot of reading to realize how it works. Wow! I was thrilled.
Naturally as time passed I’ve learned a lot about polymer clay by working with it. I gained some experience and my routine improved and decided to try layering cane work myself. I've immediately fell love with it.

Layering cane work is very interesting technique with lot of possibilities. It gives a chance to mix and match, combine, to add colors, glitter, foil etc. I really enjoy its versatility.

There is a catch though: if you want to achieve glassy look – you have to sand. If well sanded and buffed beads often does not need glazing.

Pictures in this post show few favorite work of mine made with this technique.
I can honestly recommend everyone to try layering cane work because it is pure fun.

New space

I have some thrilling news regarding my work space.
These photos show a current situation which you will probably consider as a complete mess.
However, I find it adorable. All I can see is my new beautiful spacious studio. This is a 24 sq meter (258 sq feet) single room irregular shaped provided with ventilation system, air conditioning, and phone, ADSL and heating appliance. It is about 4 times larger than the space I’m working in right now.
It needs some paint, new furniture and flooring to give it a nice shine. I have planned to divide it in few areas: claying, beading, buffing, photographing and jewelry display.
I am very excited and can not wait to start repairing. Since I plan to do the most things by myself I hope it will take just a month.
I’ll keep you posted.

Adorable creatures

These lovely earrings were born few days ago while having fun with mokume gane technique.

I was shaving a sheet of mokume gane and spotted two cute shapes. It crossed my mind how gorgeous faces they are.

I’ve cut them out of the sheet and placed on a sheet of black polymer clay to give them thickness. I added blue and rose Swarovski flat back crystals for eyes and rushed them into oven.

A half an hour later adorable little boy and cutest little girl were smiling on me. I am completely in loved with them.

I’ve used few grits of dry/wet sandpaper for sanding by hand. I’ve also buffed them and covered with two protective layers of gloss glaze.


Beautiful sterling silver ear wires, a gift from a friend, made them look even better and really special to me.

I am keeping these adorable creatures for sure.