TIME FOR ANOTHER GIVEAWAY!

Just on the off chance that anyone who used to enjoy and/or collect my clay art figurines still checks out this blog, I wanted to announce that I'm having another contest over on my Facebook fan page.

I haven't been creating my clay art for months because my time has been tied up with other projects, but I really miss it and I'm ready to get back to it. So in celebration, I'm giving away this little bear below:



If you'd like a chance to win this little bear, please click on this link to go to my Facebook fan page. If you're already a fan, just leave a comment and you'll be entered into the contest to win. If you're not yet a fan, become one and you'll receive two entries into the contest. If you recommend my fan page to friends who you believe will honestly enjoy my work, you'll also receive two entries. (They must leave a comment and tell me you sent them!) If you buy anything from my etsy store, you'll receive three chances to win! (there's not anything in my etsy store yet, but check back on Monday)

The contest will run until 12 a.m. Thursday night, and the winner will be announced Friday, August 13th. Who says Friday the 13th isn't lucky??

Illustration Friday

This week's theme is "Linked", and here is my entry entitled "Nice to Meet Ewe":



This little lamb and sheepdog puppy are linked by their curiosity towards each other, and of course, by the puppy's playful tug on the lamb's ear!

Created with colored polymer clay on a canvas background.

I'm having a giveaway contest! You can enter several different ways! Leave a comment here, or on my Facebook fan page. I would like to see my fan page grow a little bit, so if you recommend my fan page to a friend and they join my fan page and leave a comment mentioning you, you will receive two entries. :o) Leave a comment of your own and that will make it three entries! More chances of winning! Become a new fan yourself, and leave a comment and you'll also get two entries!

What's the prize? This cute little snowman sitting on my desk this morning. I know it, he knows it - everybody is sick of winter and snow! But he's hoping to find a loving home all the same!

I'll be taking entries from now until midnight central US time Sunday, and I will announce the winner next Monday morning. That's March 22. :o)

Here's a link to my Facebook fan page:

Designs by Ginny Baker

And here's the little snowman you could win:

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY

This week's theme is "Brave". I just completed this little astronaut guy floating above the Earth, and I think he fits that theme perfectly. I think it takes no small measure of bravery to become an astronaut!!

Created with colored polymer clay. :o)

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

My poor blog has become so neglected - yet again. I've just had a lot going on lately. It gets a little difficult to keep all the balls in the air at times. I've been given the opportunity to submit samples for a project that would be a dream come true for me - so, not surprisingly, that has my total focus at the moment.

The polymer clay group I started on Facebook is going strong. We're up to 161 members! Just incredible! It's a great group, and if you have any interest in polymer clay at all, I'd like to invite you to join us.

Designing With Polymer Clay

My Facebook fan page is growing more slowly, but then I've done nothing to promote it since I've been busy with other things. I hope to do some giveaways to generate a little interest as soon as I'm done with the samples.

Designs by Ginny Baker

Hope all is well in your world. :o)

SUNSHINE AWARD :o)

This Sunshine award was given to me by Lori Allberry of Sugarberry Sensations! If anyone I know deserves it, it's Lori. She is as sweet as the name of her business! But I'm honored that Lori decided to give the award to me as well. :o)

So, as part of the rules I must pass this award on to 12 bloggers. Here's my list:

ABCcreativity
Claykeepsakes
The Critter Company
Clay Wishes by Christina
My Tiny Treasures
Redheaded Stepchild
Tonja's Polyclay Corner
Helen's Clay Art
Saga of a Work at Home Mom
The Adventures of Mama Bear
Darbella Designs
Gourmet Felted Designs by Gerry
Here are the rules, so please pass this award along....
The rules for accepting the Sunshine Award are:
- Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
- Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
- Link the nominees within your post.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

Not much sunshine around here today. I posted about the "Perfect Snow", and this is what we woke up to this morning:



The kids in the book didn't get a snow day - but the kids in our town did. My daughter's still sleeping blissfully. LOL

CLAY ILLUSTRATION

One of the areas I love to explore when it comes to polymer clay is clay illustration. My favorite illustrator of books for children is Barbara Reid. Barbara doesn't actually work with polymer clay. She uses plasticene. But the effect is the same - stunning three dimensional illustrations.

I've been a fan of Barbara's for years and own every book she's ever produced. It's just so much fun to see clay "come to life" in this way. Her illustrations bring such character and personality to the words in the books she illustrates.

Her latest, Perfect Snow, has just such amazing illustrations. You can almost feel the cool, crisp air, and hear the snow crunching beneath your boots when you look at the pictures. It's a really cute, fun book!


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Barbara also has a YouTube channel with videos showing how she creates her phenomenal clay illustrations.

She's just a very gracious, very talented lady. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when she so kindly told me my own clay illustrations were "Very beautiful"!!! There are few bigger thrills then receiving praise from someone you so greatly admire. :o) I hope you'll check out Barbara's fabulous work. I know you'll enjoy it.

COOKIE CUTTER ORNAMENTS

Since people are always looking for quick and easy ornaments to make, editors are always looking for quick and easy ornament projects. I came up with an idea to use a 2" gingerbread man cookie cutter I had to make a variety of Christmas characters that I could put onto glass ball ornaments. This was a project I did for the January 2001 issue of "Great American Crafts" magazine:



The snowman was made using the 2" cookie cutter, the gingerbread boy and girl were made using a 1" gingerbread man cutter.

The Santa Claus below uses the same 2" gingerbread man cut-out as a base, only this time, I cut the piece out of red clay, and then added the other elements to turn it into a Santa.



I attached the unbaked pieces to the glass balls using super glue and then baked them. They've held up for 9 years with no problems, but if you don't want to put super glue in the oven, you could always attach the unbaked clay pieces to the glass ball, bake them, then gently pop them off, and reattach them with glue. I've never had any problems with baking super glue. It is flammable, but not at the low temps polymer clay bakes at. I was not the first person who tried this! LOL I took my cue from many other clay artists who have baked super glue with polymer clay.

This makes a cute and very simple project that could easily be personalized.

HANDMADE CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS

One of the things I love so much about Christmas is putting up our tree every year. Our tree is traditional, full of ornaments I've made, or my kids have made, or that were purchased because they bring back memories of happy times in our lives, or special places we've been, or some were treasured gifts from friends or family.

I first worked with polymer clay over 30 years ago, but it wasn't until I met my friend, Laurie, who I worked with at a veterinary clinic about 20 years ago, that I really got started selling my work.

Laurie and I started doing craft shows, and we came up with a rather "nutty" idea at the time. We created tiny polymer clay scenes inside of walnut halves. I had seen an ornament that was made of resin and was an imitation walnut with a tiny scene, and Laurie and I decided to try to do our own little scenes inside walnuts with clay. We used the halves at first, but then after a while, my husband, Ron, started hollowing out the shells with a Dremel tool, so that we had a little more of the shell to work with! We sold these quite well at craft shows in Albuquerque, NM, where I was living at the time. The one below, was given to me by Laurie, and it's a wonderful memento of both her and my family's time in New Mexico. My husband was born in Espanola, New Mexico and grew up in Santa Fe. Yup, Laurie and I were crazy enough to do little adobe houses like this one, complete with hanging ristras near the door, tiny ladders, and for this one, Laurie even added a howling coyote and a tiny yucca plant!



Our line also included tiny walnuts filled with Santas, woodland creatures, and anything else our imaginations could fit into a walnut. Like this little Mrs. Santa I did:



Her shell is broken at the top now, so I can't hang her anymore, but she held up for 18 years on my own Christmas tree. Laurie's little adobe house walnut is hanging on my tree again this year, for the 19th year. :o)

Tomorrow, I'll share more ornaments.

CREATING A POLYMER CLAY SNOWMAN VIDEO

Well my video editing skills definitely need work, but considering it's my first attempt at editing together a series of clips, it's not too bad. I just wish it were as clear as it was before I uploaded it to YouTube. Anyway, I hope you will enjoy checking it out. Listening to that music, while I was working on the video, brought back so many great memories. My brothers and I grew up listening to those Christmas classics, which my parents would play every Christmas season. Both of my parents are gone now, so those memories, while wonderful, were also bittersweet. That music also helped put me in the mood to create more holiday themed items.

Here's a link to the video:

Creating a Polymer Clay Snowman

WHIMSICAL CHARACTERS

Before I started doing primarily dog items, I used to sell whimsical characters at shows and on ebay for many years. In fact, it was those whimsical characters that led to me being asked by well known craft book publisher, Design Originals, to create a how-to book on creating clay Christmas ornaments, and to publishing numerous how-to projects in other collaborative books, and magazines.

I always enjoyed creating charming seasonal characters, especially snowmen. So I recently taped a video of myself creating an adorable little snowman. I was all set to edit it with Windows Movie Maker, and found out to my dismay, that the format my camera saves video files in is not supported by WMM! So now I'm in the process of upgrading my QuickTime software to QuickTime Pro, and hope I will be able to post this cute little video on YouTube and here, sometime in the next couple of days.

These little characters are currently listed on ebay, along with a few others. You can access my ebay seller page by clicking on the ebay widget on the right side of the page.

It was always so funny to me to be creating snowmen in Vegas when it was 70+ degrees outside! Last winter, our last in Vegas, we actually experienced a record snowfall on Dec. 17th. It was the first time the school district closed school because of snow in 30 years!! I'm so glad we were there for that, after living in Vegas for 17 1/2 years. It was such a fun day! It put everybody in such a festive mood, just before Christmas. :o)

Soon enough I won't be lacking for real life inspiration when the first snowfall hits my new MO hometown. So I'm enjoying creating these little snow guys and some seasonal dog items this week.

I hope to be able to share my little snowman video by Tues. or Wed. of this week.

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

I haven't done a Worktable Wednesday post in so long that I thought I would today. On my worktable today are some Halloween miniature scenes featuring dogs. Here are two quick pics I took on my stove top of an Old English Sheepdog and a Schnauzer when they were fresh from the oven. :o) They'll be up on ebay, along with several other breeds later this week. With better pics of course. ;o)

BACK TO MY ROOTS FOR A BIT

Well I've been sidetracked from doggies for a while to participate in a swap with my clay buddies. Our group is made up of some of the best makers of adorable, whimsical polymer clay characters you'll ever find. Some of them, like myself, have published polymer clay how-to books, magazine projects, etc. Most of them have been selling at shows, and via ebay for years. I feel very fortunate to call these talented ladies my clay buds!

For our swaps, we always pick a theme, be it snowmen, gingerbread men, scarecrows, whatever, and then we make one for every member of the group, including ourselves. Then we mail them off to the person who is acting as swapmeister (hostess), who divides them up, and sends a full set back to each of us, so that we have one piece by each of the participants, along with the one we made ourselves. There are usually a dozen of us participating at any given time. Our most recent swap was a bunny swap, and here's my contribution. I actually did 12 though only 11 are pictured below. My new home town just had their 30th annual Old Tyme Apple Festival, so my bunnies are apple-themed in honor of that:

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

Last week I showed the beginnings of a Halloween jar I was working on. Well here's the finished jar. It turned out much differently than how I had originally envisioned it but I'm quite pleased with it all the same:


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WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

Sometimes I get these great ideas, and I'm all excited to create them - until I sit down to actually DO it and remember that what I planned to do presents a bunch of challenges! For example, I purchased these really cute and inexpensive pumpkin-shaped treat jars from Wal-Mart with the intention of covering them with clay, and then creating bas relief Halloween scenes around the center of the jar. It's been a while since I took on one of these projects, so of course while all caught up with thinking about the darling designs I wanted to sculpt on these jars, I completely forgot what a royal PAIN it is to cover curved surfaces like this! Especially when the piece is narrower in some places then others. UGH.

I contemplated taking them back, but I really wanted to use them. I just didn't want to spend hours working on them driving myself over the edge into insanity (a short drive I admit) while doing so. So I altered my plans a bit. Instead of covering the entire center of the jar with one continuous piece of clay, or having to seam several pieces together to create the background for the scenes I wanted to create, I decided I would do little vignettes instead. I have a large square cookie cutter with a decorative edge and I decided I would do 4 squares with little scenes in them instead. I did however cover the entire lid of the pumpkin with orange clay. I have to say that after trying a brand of clay that shall remain nameless to cover that lid and having nothing but problems with air bubbles, stickiness, etc. I decided to try Studio by Sculpey clay. I had a bunch of it on hand that Polyform Products had graciously sent me to try. It worked FANTASTICALLY! It was a dream to roll out, no air bubbles, and the seams blended smoothly. I know this stuff is controversial in the clay community for reasons I won't go into here, but I have to say it was wonderful to work with for covering the glass jars. This clay has an interesting feel to it, almost powdery. It's hard to describe. It's soft right out of the package but not overly so. It bakes to what the company calls a suede-like finish. It doesn't really feel like suede but it does feel different from other polymer clays when baked. It was a pleasure to work with. :o)

This shows one of the jars in progress:


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WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

I just love creating items for the holiday seasons, though for some reason, I never seem to do much in spring for Easter! Don't really know why that is. I guess Halloween and Christmas just bring back such happy memories from my childhood. Easter wasn't as big a deal I guess, just going to church, and having the Easter basket. I have to get myself in bunny mode really quick here though because I have some due for a swap I'm in. I've been fortunate enough to be part of a wonderful swap group for quite a few years now. Some of the best creators of darling whimsical clay critters are in this group - several of whom have authored some of those adorable clay books by Hot off the Press and Design Originals, most of whom are well known on ebay for their wonderful creations. They are an awesomely talented, sweet, fun group of gals and I'm thrilled to be part of such a talented group!

So here's what's on my worktable at the moment. I'm working on an ornament featuring an Irish Setter I sculpted recently. On the tile I'm working on you can see my three absolute favorite tools. These are the tools that I cannot seem to work without. The purple one is a knitting needle that my husband cut in half and then ground the one end into kind of a rounded triangle to help me shape the clay. Then the flat half moon shaped one is a potter's rib. This tool has a myriad of uses such as getting under unbaked pieces and lifting them up without distortion, or popping baked pieces off the tile carefully, or cutting pieces of clay - much safer than a blade! Then the last tool is the needle tool which I use a lot for adding detail. I have a ton of tools but these are the three I usually use. I also like to use small cutters to help measure out pieces so they're uniform, and also use Kemper cutters for detail pieces like hearts or stars. I like to buy ornaments like the one here on the tile on clearance from the craft store. They make wonderful bases for clay ornaments and when they're on sale or clearance you can get them really cheap, like 20 cents each.



I use the little square cutter to make my "sort of" holly leaves. They obviously don't look exactly like holly leaves but they give enough of an impression of holly that it works. I use the little Kemper heart cutters or circle cutters, whatever's handy, to cut out small pieces that I will roll into holly berries. This makes it very easy to keep them all uniform in size. So the idea is to put the "holly leaves" all around the sides of the ornament with the dog in the center. Sort of like the English Springer ornament pictured. Not sure this is how this Irish Setter ornament is going to end up, but that's one of the things I've been playing around with today.


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WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

As I mentioned last week, I've been doing some refurbishing of some pieces lately. So that's what I'm still doing today, but I thought it might be fun to actually show you in a short video. My friend Michele and I have been talking lately about how great it would be to be able to offer tutorials in video format, rather than in pdf or something like that. How much better if we could actually show, step by step, how we create a piece? So knowing my digital camera also has video capabilities I decided to play around a bit today and I came up with this dorky little video showing how I go about refurbishing a pin.



I attach all the elements of my pieces very well, so they're not going to break during normal wear and tear, but as I say in the video, I have just learned over time how to carefully and gently pry pieces off and I can usually do so without damaging the original piece. I then use a little bit of liquid clay to attach the new elements I want to add and I have a new, and very sturdy piece.

Hope you enjoy the little video. I'm hoping to be able to do more in the future. Unfortunately my digital camera does not have a ton of space on the memory card so I can only do short little videos using it. My camcorder is as old as my youngest child which is now 16 1/2 yrs. old. So I'm not too sure about using it either. But doing videos is something I definitely want to play around with some more. :o)

WORKTABLE WEDNESDAY

One of the things I love so much about polymer clay is it's adaptability. Even after a piece has been cured in the oven, you can make some changes to it. You can add more clay to a piece and bake it again, or put the piece on a background, etc.

So one thing I have learned to do over the years is to reconstruct pieces that either did not sell or did not turn out the way I had originally intended. This quality really endears this material to artists who are not independently wealthy! All is not lost if a piece was not successful in its first form! I have taken pins and turned them into pendants, ornaments, placques, etc. that have then sold successfully. Or taken a pin and added a little something to it, and then it sold, etc.

For example, I did some pins like this Westie, just sweet and simple with a little ladybug on their noses in a variety of breeds:



But I guess they were a bit too simple and plain because only a few of them sold. So I decided to take the ones that didn't and refurbish them a bit. And this is what I came up with:



These sold very well. Some things of course you can't change once they've been cured, but as long as you are happy with the overall piece you can learn to make simple changes and renovate a piece into something that will sell better, or that you're happier with. On this Westie it was just little changes in detail because I was very happy with how the Westie itself had turned out.

So that's what I'm working on this week. Taking some simple pins I did and turning them into pendants and ornaments. I'll have pics of those next week. :o)

I've Been Tagged

Lou of Hunters Designs (which I will be blogging about sometime in the next couple days) tagged me.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as their blogs.

Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Fact #1 - I used to be very shy and quiet, to the point that I barely spoke to anyone at school, etc. I'm the total opposite these days.

Fact #2 - I'm a shrimp - 5'2". These days I seem to be growing horizontally rather than vertically. :oP

Fact #3 - I once took Wilton cake decorating classes. I LOVE the "Ace of Cakes" show, and still think sculpting with fondant is very similar to sculpting with polymer clay.

Fact #4 - I secretly (well not anymore I guess) lust after Jake Gyllenhaal, who is not a whole lot older than my son. But then again I was a child bride the first time around. ;o) But can you blame me? Look at him!



Besides, I believe age is just a number and a state of mind and I'm all for May/December romances. (I believe that more and more with each passing year. LOL) Pretty bad though when your (at the time, she's 16 now) 12 year old daughter's friend offers to cut pics of Jake out of her teen magazine to give to you. Which leads me to fact #5....

Fact #5 - I don't intend to age gracefully. I love rock, alternative rock, some heavy metal, etc. I intend to be like Tina Turner and still be rocking well into my 60's. :o) (I've got quite a few years to go til I'm there though!) So far, thank goodness people always seem to think I'm too young to have kids the ages they are. The day they don't blink an eye when I say their ages is the day I worry. LOL

Fact #6 - I believe in the Law of Attraction. I could tell you some amazing stories.

Fact #7 - I have a major thing for Scottish and Irish accents - though I don't think accent is the right word. Must be my Irish/Scottish bloodlines. :o)

OK my turn to tag 7 people:

1. Kind Clay
2. Chickie Girl
3. Stormy Designs
4. DivaDea
5. Chicki
6. LucyBlueStudio
7. Tina T

Ever Evolving, Expanding, Improving

As an artist, I am always learning. Despite the fact that I have now been working with polymer clay for well over 20 years, there is always something to learn. I find my work is ever evolving, techniques are always being refined, which keeps things always interesting.

Lately I have been drawn to sculpting one of a kind figurines that are more realistic, and I am finding the process both fascinating and challenging. I absolutely LOVE sculpting with Super Sculpey clay, which is different from the colored clays I usually work with in creating my pins, and other whimsical pieces. The SS is wonderfully easy to blend, and rework. Very user-friendly! This is the clay I created my earliest figurines with as a teen years ago.

From this:



To this:



To finally this:



It is always an interesting, sometimes frustrating - especially since I have no formal art training - journey!

Creating art in clay is for me always an exercise in persistence. As I said, I've had no formal art training. I've never taken any classes in sculpting whatsoever. When I first wanted to learn to sculpt dogs, I found that there were no books available, no classes I could take, or videos I could watch. So in teaching myself to sculpt, I've learned the most important thing is persistence. Many times I have wanted to wad up the clay and throw it against the wall! But something inside of me has kept me coming back again and again. This is how I know that creating in clay is what I'm meant to do. :o) I believe it is not really me teaching myself, but that part of God I believe He puts into each one of us working with me.

Okay enough philosophizing for one afternoon. ;o)