I made next week’s video last night…it was very interesting. Since I have set up my studio a little differently, with a mini tripod for the camera, which is attached to the arm of my Daylight Lamp! Hopefully you’ll like the angle.

I also ordered some UV curing resin last night, an experiment from a company called Ultra Dome. I’ll let you know how it goes. I created a great little flower last week, from clay- then baked it and molded it with Amazing Mold putty, and used some of Lisa’s Magic Glos to create a really fun lightweight flower bead with glitter in it!!! But, I’m the bargain hunter, and I found the Ultra Dome on a web-quest.

Today was my last day of work with Broward Virtual University- a bittersweet day. But, now I’m on to bigger things. High School students, watch out, here I come!

This week we are talking about the Amaco bead rollers. Have you ever wanted to get your beads to be all the same size and shape? Well then these bead rollers will make your day. They make it so easy to to get uniform and perfectly shaped beads. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes there are even ones that have multiple sizes of the bead on one roller, which are perfect for making graduated sizes. Gotta love that!  They are light weight and you could even travel with these, they would give you something to do on a trip. I could totally see myself taking these with me to get ahead on my bead making.Make sure to come back Friday to hear us share ideas and discuss the bead rollers.

This week’s video is about the new Bake Shop clay by Polyform. They sent us all 12 colors and some tools to play with, thank you Iris! I gave my friend’s son, Charlie, some to play with and taught him basic mixing, blending, and even some caning- below you can see Charlie learning polymer clay, and the awesome starfish he made. It took him almost an hour to individually roll and press all the little suckers onto the starfish, isn’t it beautiful?

This Friday we have a new episode of Polymer Clay TV and we will be showing you the new Bake Shop Clay from Polyform. This clay was designed especially for children, it is quite soft and very easy to condition so children of all ages can use it. Of course with any medium people of all ages can use it but unless you like soft clay it is better suited for children. Kira shared her clay with one of her friends kids and they had a blast with it. I am going to give the clay to my 12 year old niece and see what her and her friends make with it. I will get some pictures to share when I do. Make sure to come back Friday to see some of the tools they sent us as well as the clay, there was this one gorgeous purple color that I may have to use in some of my projects.

I wanted to share with you something we have in the works. We are going to be creating a polymer clay design team to work with us at Polymer Clay Productions in creating new designs and projects to share with the community. We are hashing out all of the details at the moment but we are having a challenge that anyone can enter to possibly be chosen for the design team. There will be monetary opportunities as well as discounts and lots of exposure for your shop or website. We are not looking for any particular experience or skills but a good sense of design. We are looking for people that can come up with a new project, technique or design at least once a month.

The challenge will work like this:

1. Register by sending us an e-mail at    polymerclaypodcast@yahoo.com     with your full name, phone number,address and e-mail address

2. Everyone who enters will recieve a FREE download of some image designs.

3. You MUST use at least 3 of the images in your project.

4. Clear photos must be sent of completed project by deadline. (To be announced) We also recommend taking step by step photos

5. All entries will then be voted on by the public through an online poll.

6. The winner will be announced and featured on the Polymer Clay Productions website and will have a chance to join the design team

Design Team Benefits:

Will receive a discount on products from the Polymer Clay Productions shop.

Will be featured on Polymer Clay Productions website and its affiliates (1000’s of possible views)

Will have the opportunity to create PDF files to be sold in the Polymer Clay Productions shop (Kira can help you with this if needed)

Will have the opportunity to network and share photos and ideas with the community

Will receive a link to your website and a biography

Will receive a banner that you can add to your website stating you are a Polymer Clay Design Team member at Polymer Clay Productions

Our design team members will be the first to find out about all the new things going on and will have a chance to sample new products as well.

Does this sound like something you would enjoy? Well then make sure to send us an e-mail to enter with the above info. We will send your free download shortly so you can get those thinking caps on and start creating! Have fun!

A while back, we had an extra prize package to give away. We asked for you to tell us what you like about the show, in exchange for an entry to win. We had some really nice comments made, and we would like to share a few of these testimonials with you.

Thanks everyone, for the kind words- it gives us some satisfaction knowing how much you continue to enjoy, and learn from, Polymer clay Podcast and Polymer Clay TV.

“I am convelescing after hip replacement.  I have enjoyed watching all of your podcasts while being forced to sit still.  Probably the first time in my life I have had nothing else to do but watch and recover.  I have learned so much but my new favorite has got to be silkscreening”.Cynthia

“Even though a year has gone by since 2008 BOH challenge at CHA in Anaheim, CA, this is a good opportunity for me to thank you for your filming of the event.

I so much never thought that I’d win anything.   I sent my entry in late due to an illness.   I sent a note with it saying something to the effect that I knew it wouldn’t be entered but I wanted it to go to the children  with the other bottles.  I saw you filming at the event but had  not met you nor had knowledge that the film would be available for the world to see.

Then I won the award for Best Expression of Hope!  It took days before that sank in!  And then I told some friends about it,  and because of your filming I was able to share some of that moment of my life with them.  That was a true gift for me.  Thank You!”

Sincerely,
Myra

“Hi, love watchingyour pod casts.  I have learned a lot from them.  Keep up the great work. V

I love the show because it gives me so much useful information and gives beginning as well as experienced artists a place to get exposure to the rest of the community….THANKS to you all!!!”
~Rita

“Hello polymer people….
What I have loved about Polymer Clay Productions is Episode 1, I have learned so much from the video’s but the first one won my heart. I started with the first one back in august and I was hooked!!!!! Thank you for making the videos. ”
~JoAnn

“Lots of beautiful things to make from information on this site.  Just watching you will get your mind going and try new things.”

Happy claying,
Mickey

Hope everyone had a great weekend, Kira and I had a meeting yesterday and hashed out a lot of our upcoming projects and endeavors, we always have something brewing. You can check out one of our upcoming projects at http://www.polymerclayvideos.com

All of our Polymer Clay Classroom videos will be available on the site as well as courses, DVD’s and downloadable videos that we film with other artists. Kira has been working on editing the DVD we filmed with Jane Zhao and that should be available shortly. Jane showed how to create 2 beautiful rose canes and her famous lily cane.  We are really excited about this and the direction we are going with it. The site is in the setting up stage but you can see what Kira has done with it, I love the way she used polymer clay to design the site.

This Friday on Polymer Clay Podcast we will be discussing the new Bake Shop Clay from Polyform, it was made especially for children. There are also stamping tools that go with the line and you will get to see some of the clay and stamps on Polymer Clay TV next week. So much clay and so little time.lol

We are still accepting submissions to the book so if you want to put in a submission there is still time. You can fill out the submission form on the right hand side of the website. We look forward to seeing your submissions!

I had a brilliant, humid, sunny day here in South Florida today. So I was finally able to do the demo! Can’t do it without the sun, because you need uv light and I don’t have a lamp. So the sun needs to cooperate. I made a really nice looking piece that has a small dried rose inside, with some glitter.

Magic Glos is so much fun, I can think of lots of things to do with it. Fairy windows, perhaps?

Don’t forget to view it on the videos page. Also- this week, I tried something new- I uploaded a gorgeous looking video to itunes, which is our main video server. But that video is quite large at 46mb, it can’t go to youtube or many of the other places which have file size limits. So I uploaded a much “smaller” version to all the other places. If you would like to see the clearer, nicer video, there is a second link on the video page to see that one. Because it is bigger, it will take a moment to load. Have fun!

Well its hard to believe that 2 years ago today Kira and I launched Polymer Clay Productions and 1 year ago today we started Crafted Online http://www.craftedonline.com  Boy does time fly when you are having fun! We wanted to thank everyone for all your support and we plan to continue to bring you lots of fun content for years to come. If there is ever something you want to see on the show you are always welcome to contact us at polymerclaypodcast@yahoo.com We love hearing from you!  

This Friday Kira will be showing you a product from Lisa Pavelka’s line in conjunction with JHB called Magic Glos. It is a UV resin which has to be cured with ultra violet light. Living in Florida thats easy for us we can just stick it outside for a few minutes. Kira embedded a dry flower in the resin and added polymer clay to it. Make sure to come back Friday to see what she has done and to get ideas for how you can use the Magic Glos. You can also check out our past Polymer Clay Video episode #69 where Lisa did a demo using the Magic Glos for us.

But, I’ll show you the ones I already have made. Both of these feature a dried flower encased within two layers of Magic Glos Resin from Lisa Pavelka.

I really liked this stuff- living in S. Florida it’s terribly easy to use, just pour it out and put it in the sun, and it cures in about 15 minutes. I have yet to try it on a cloudy day, which has been happening more recently due to rain, so I’ll give that a try this weekend when I film PCTV.

Be sure to check out the Podcast page for this week’s show, and for any others you might have missed!