Tangled - but not in a nice Disney way.

Today I spent more than two hours on this silk-and-coral-chip necklace, and it was pretty...until it tangled beyond rescue. Blah.

A few things I've been working on lately

 Polymer clay sugar cookie set

 Animal print polymer clay discs

 Vintage-look pendant

 

Copper chain and pearls

 Fun, lightweight acrylic beads

Jewel-tones bracelet

Peanuts and Popcorn

For some reason, these brightly-colored striped polymer clay rounds have always been "circus beads" in my mind.

My Beading Buddy

This picture was taken before I had a designated bead room. 

Once I got my bead room, the plan was to keep all cats out in order to keep their fur out of my clay, but my devoted Scrawny wouldn't hear of it and I caved. She wants to be where I am, and that is worth digging a few hairs out of my clay.

Money vs. Art - who will win?

    I'm having a crisis of pricing. Back when I used only store-bought beads, pricing was simple. Just add up the cost of materials, add time invested, and you have a reasonable price. But now that I'm doing so much with polymer clay, it gets hugely more complicated. 
    First of all, it's a lot harder to keep track of time invested when making clay beads because there are so many different parts to the process. Mixing, forming, baking, sanding, varnishing...it doesn't all happen in a nice measurable chunk. 
    Second problem: Say I do manage to get an accurate time for a project. If I charged for my usual rate per hour, the cost would be gigantic! Sanding alone can take 5 or more hours. Then what if I put the beads in the rock-tumbler instead of sanding? That takes a lot longer, but it's not my time it's using. So do I charge for the amount of time it would have taken if I had hand-sanded the beads?
    One way to do it would be to not worry about materials or time, but evaluate the finished piece and decide what it's worth. But that kind of imprecision terrifies me! It feels like walking across a highway with my eyes closed. With my system, I always had something concrete to rest on. If someone were to ask, "why is this so expensive?" (which, come to think of it, has never actually happened), I could get out my little book of records and show them exactly why it cost that much. But if someone were to ask about a clay piece, what would I say? "Well, uh...I don't know...on the day I chose the price, I must have been in an expensive mood and I decided it was worth that much..I am as puzzled as you are at the high price. What was I thinking?"
    See what I mean? This ever-present dilemma is starting to keep me from claying and beading, which is just tragic because I love to make jewelry. The technicalities of selling are overwhelming me. I could stop selling altogether, but I already have hundreds of finished pieces and a thousand clay beads just sitting and waiting to be used. I couldn't possibly use or give away all the things I make. It would be a shame to keep them hidden away in my bead room, wishing to be appreciated.
    So, yeah. That's my issue. Money and marketing sticking their noses into my art.

Some things I've been working on lately:

Experimenting with faux-quilting. My technique still needs some fine-tuning, but I think they turn out nicely. I'm excited to try more colors and patterns.

I've been making LOTS of ornament charms in preparation for my Christmas boutique. I love the way they turn out, but working with glitter is such a pain.

I have a lot of work to do in the next week before the Christmas boutique. I wish I didn't have a final exam to steal my time.

Polymer Clay Color Recipes - Ceramic Tones

www.design-seeds.com

This is one of my favorite palettes from design-seeds.com (check it out, they have many) and I used it to formulate some polymer clay color recipes that I then used for the pebble beads above. They're not perfect - feel free to tweak them if you like - but I did my best. Enjoy!

The taupe color gave me the most trouble, as you can see by all these failed attempts, but I eventually found a color I am happy with!

 All color recipes use Premo Sculpey polymer clay. You may use these recipes in anything you make or sell, but if you post them, please link back to me at http://sleepyturtlebeads.blogspot.com. Thank you!
(from top)

Taupe                                                    Brown                                                  Dark Gray
8 parts White                                        10 parts Rhino Gray                            2 parts Black
2 parts Beige                                         2 parts Burnt Umber                           1 part White
1 1/2 parts Blush                                   1/2 part Denim                                    1 part Rhino Gray
1 part Denim
1 part Sunshine
1 part Black


                                 Light Gray                                              Beige
                                 11 parts White                                        22 parts Beige
                                 2 parts Black                                          1/2 part White
                                 1/2 part Denim                                       1/8 part Black
                                 1/2 part Blush                                        1/8 part Blush

UPDATE  It has come to my attention that Polyform has reformulated the Premo! Sculpey color "Rhino Gray" since I came up with these recipes, which throws off the color recipes for Brown and Dark Gray.  I intend to re-do those two recipes to see if I can make them right.  Until then, my apologies!