beware the dragon… muhahaha

some time ago I went to DragonCon… one of the venders had a necklace with a pendant that I just had to have…

it is a little hard to see in this photo, but it is a dragon in a circle… I would love to learn how to make something similar…

lol… I told you all my horrible first attempts at working with polymer clay… who knew that overcooked clay will blacken and grow, looking like large lumps of clay-coal… very frightening… and the smoke/fumes… omg… I am just happy that I thought ahead and started my project in the garage…

so here is my first successful attempt at making my own little dragon…

lol… I love him… but I would have used different colors if I knew that it would work this time… or maybe tried to have him in a different position… frankly, I thought I would end up with another clay-coal-rock… but now I just need to coat him in a clear resin to make him sturdier… but I think I will keep him for myself, not making him into a pendant … 😛 kinda like pinning my first dollar on the wall… woo who… later guys, tracey

making lumps of coal…

Help Me! I’m burning… HEEEEELLLP !!! Okay, not me, but my poor polymer clay… I don’t have a picture of the results of my foray into the world of polymer clay, but trust me… it was spectacular… and not in a good way…

I worked the clay, molded it, and managed to make what I thought was a cute dragon pendant… the only thing left was to pop it into the oven… (toaster oven)… setting the temperature and the timer, I went off to work on my next piece… happy as a clam… … … and this is the part where you hear the horror music…

I went out to check the oven (which was set up in the garage so that the fumes didn’t bother anyone) and upon opening the oven door, I started to gag and chock… omg, the smoke… my poor little dragon was a disfigured, charcoaled lump of coal… really… what the heck… the figurine doubled in size and apparently caught fire…

I definitely need  some practice…

but I wasn’t deterred (yet) … I decided to try again with my second figurine… it was supposed to look like a jaguar, but turned out looking like a pug with a very long tail… lol…

I checked and double checked the temperature recommendations, and crossed my fingers… when I checked on the little cat/dog I found a half charred pendant… well hell… I guess that’s better than completely ruined… lol… I think I need to watch a few more tutorials before I try again.. but please, please, pleassssseeee…. if you have any insight, send it my way… 😛 night peeps… Tracey Clark

MS Shirts… support

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My aunt talked me into participating in the Multiple Sclerosis Walk one year… and in my typical OCD fashion, I decided to make our team shirts instead of buying them… I got out my crayons and sketched a design… then I went to Walmart and bought some iron-on sheets… they are in the craft section…

they are easy to use… you can either go to the Avery website and pick a design or if you have a scanner/printer/copier you can make your own, like me… you can put the sheets in the copier and hit print… then you just iron them one… this could be a fun family idea for those with small kids… I even ironed the design for the front pocket of the shirts onto a hat…

making the shirts wasn’t necessary but it sure was a lot of fun… on the sad side, I wasn’t able to walk even half way around the park, but those of us in team clark decided to get together and go out to eat, wearing our team shirts… we went to an Irish pub and one of the guys that wore kilts agreed to take a picture with us… and the food was delicious… lol…

rocking the booklets

a booklet is like to wonderful artistic activities coming together and having a baby… lol… I love these little things

so far I have made 150 of the little things… they hold the first two chapters of my novel, Shocking Finds and a few excerpts… there is the cover picture, my author photo, and the blurb… and if that isn’t enough, they also house my book and author links… that is a lot of info to cram into nine small pieces of paper – no more than a quarter of a sheet… you can send off to have someone else do all the work for you, but I love tackling new art projects…

I need at least 250 swag gifts for the Rebels and Readers book signing in November… and that is just the swag I needed to donate to the free goodie bags… getting your swag ready for one of these events is a job all on its own… but I don’t want to just make booklets… I already have some bookmarks and bookmark ideas, and maybe some bracelets… and recently I have been thinking about making keychains or charms… and best of all, Clark jr bars, with a sticker on the back showing one of my novels… man, I have never loved my last name more… lol… 😛