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27 videos, step by step, beginner cane workshop
What people are saying about this tutorial.
jennifer rose
Just finished this first workshop on how to make canes, and I must say I learned so much. This is exactly what I have been looking for, someone who could explain cane making in a step by step that process that I could replicate. I watched the videos, went into my studio and began to create all of the canes Alice showed. I finally have results I can be proud of, and I say thank you so much for doing this workshop. My only question now is when do we get more workshops. If you are only going to take one online class let it be this workshop. Thank you Alice for your hard work, and your dedication to helping others learn the joys of polymer clay.  Member IPCA |
I sent out Octobers newsletter today. I know I said I wasn’t doing any pc for Halloween. I know I did…but as soon as I sent it, I was sitting in front on my black and white and gray canes and decided to make a face cane. I need the practice…. This witch was born! I had fun and that’s the point. Probably too late to sell on Etsy, but I’ll put her up anyway.
I believe that ideas are born and then float around and land on different people. It has happened to me more times than I care to think about. Here’s another one, only this time it’s someone I know through our blogs. As I mentioned in my last post (about 30 minutes ago) Dora of Dora’s Explorations posted her Zentangles on her Flickr site last week and I just had to do some. I knew I had to try my hand at canes like this. I didn’t realize that Dora was thinking the same thing. I check in on her site from time to time to see what she is up to because she posts some incredible cane tutorials. In fact, I’ve featured one of them here. When I was there the other day, she was doing home work for Color Inspirations by Lindly Haunani and Maggie Maggio. So I had no idea that she was getting ready to do a tutorial for Zentangle canes. I should have known, that is how her mind works. She always does the most complicated fabulous canes. I know her canes will be incredible and her tutorial inspiring. So go to her blog www.dorasexplorations.wordpress.com and see if she has her tutorial up yet, if she doesn’t, bookmark her site, you’ll want to check back until she gets it posted. You can see more of her fabulous Zentangles on her Flickr site.  Salt and Pepper I spent part of an evening last week searching out and emailing galleries that are close by. I emailed three and have an appointment to visit one with my work. Another road trip, that’s good news. I just wanted you to know that I am actually doing what I suggested you do in my post Selling Your Polymer Clay Artwork. I need to sell my artwork, so I’m taking my own advice. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Have you contacted any galleries or shops? Tell me about it in the comment section so others can here how you have succeeded. they’re out there just waiting for your work! Oh, and I sold two bracelets last night during our downtown artwalk. Sold them right off my wrist. That felt good for sure.  She's a Brunette Another girl bracelet going to AliceStroppel.etsy.com. I’ve been spending too much time away from my clay table. But it’s all good. Coming up . . . . . birthdays and visits and kids coming home, my mother coming to visit. Nothing could be sweeter. I’m working on my tutorial for the profile face cane, but it takes quiet and large blocks of time. I haven’t had much of either lately, but I’m not complaining. Okay, one complaint! I have all these other ideas in my head and I haven’t finished with what I’ve already started. Anyone else other there like me? Come on I know you’re there.  Blonde Profile Cuff Bracelet  Blonde Profile Cuff Bracelet Side View Why don’t we say “blonde headed girl” ? We say Red headed girl..so why not brunette headed? I swear I really don’t have too much time on my hands. I am just surrounded by these girls and now writing the directions, they are all I think about. I’m trying to make at least 4 girls a day, plus work on the instructions and video script. It’s working, but the problem is the weather has changed. Oh it’s still hot, but a cool front came through last night with a cooler one coming in a day or two. They say “cold front” I laugh and say “cool” It’s like when the stores start putting out sweaters in August to get ready for fall. I want to yell, “we are in Florida, it will be in the 80s until after Christmas.” and besides that, they take way all the shorts then too. Crazy. Okay off topic. The point is I want to just go sit by the lake and read…….  Polymer Clay Mermaid Cuff Bracelet Okay I’ve figured my time and materials and have listed my mermaid bracelet in my Etsy store, I’ve listed her for a price of $60.00. She is all clay, no other materials were used. I don’t have a metal base on the bracelet like I do on most of my other ones. However, there is much more clay used. The clay itself wouldn’t amount to very much money, maybe $4.00 or so, but the time that has been spent on the canes amounts to about 4 hours total. Plus the baking cost and spending time on the photos. Yes, I have some canes left over, but the point is, without spending that time in the first place, I wouldn’t have the canes to make my mermaid, so I’m generous in figuring the time spent. Then I add the time spent on the mermaid bracelet, about 2 hours and I come up with about 6 hours to get this bracelet to my Etsy shop. So, at the price of $60.00 minus $4.00 for the clay and $4.00 for the oven, that leaves me $52.00 for labor. Divide $52.oo by 6 hours and I will make 8.66 per hour. Hmmm. Oh I forgot, I still have to list it for $.20, then I have to package the bracelet nicely to send to my customer if it sells and drive to the post office. Then I have to pay a commission to Etsy, and one to PayPal. Plus I have to spend time on my blog, Twitter, and Facebook to make sure everyone knows I’ve posted a new item. But I still don’t have the “right ” customers linking to my blog, Twitter and Facebook. By that I mean, unfortunately, other polymerclay artists aren’t really interested in buying my polymer clay creations, they have their own. If the item doesn’t sell right away on Etsy, people suggest that you re-list your items over and over. Just figure out the right time to re-list when the most people are on the front page of Etsy and there you go. What??? I know it probably works, but I’d rather spend time making something. But I do like Etsy, I’ve had a few good sales and I’m happy. But I want to branch out further and continue to find galleries and shops to take my work. Back to the money…..So now that $8.66 per hour isn’t looking very fat. (Not that it was a ton of money anyway) But that’s okay. I enjoy making my items and I really like it when other people buy them and I know they are enjoying them too. If I sell it wholesale, because I could by the way I priced it, I would divide the 8.66 in half. Leaving me with $4.33 per hour. Not even minimum wage. But I don’t have to do anything but get it to my retailer. With my items I can send them by mail and send several at a time. I’ve made the seconded mermaid bracelet, using the same canes. this bracelet took less time because I already had the canes, increasing my profit somewhat. Providing they both sell. I’m going to send this one to a gallery and see which one sells first. I’ll let you know. Part 1 Selling Your Polymer Clay Artwork My friend Alice Hansen and I took a road trip down to Matlacha, FL and Pine Island to Julia’s Arts Gallery.  Julia's Arts Julia’s Arts is featuring some of my polymer clay work, bracelets, bottle stoppers, perfume pens, and my fish mosaics. The Mermaid on the blue bottle and the new fish bracelet are living there now too.  Julia's Arts - Gallery It’s a delightful gallery with some really wonderful art by some very talented artists. I’m thrilled to be included. I love little Florida coastal towns, the “artsy” buildings are so colorful. They grab your attention and make you feel happy, lift your mood if you’re feeling glum. Get you ready to kick back, grab that drink with the umbrella and relax. You’ll find some of the most unusual art work in these cool, colorful galleries. Alice and I had a great time, we stopped in Punta Gorda to have lunch on the way home and visit some galleries there. Charming little town and they have made a great effort to come back for the devastation from hurricane Charlie several years ago. Alice has had her painting and prints at Julia’s for several years now. Alice’s work is amazing! She is famous for her marine life watercolors. Manatee and fish of all kinds fall under Alice’s spell and no color escapes her brush. She sells her original artwork as well as prints and note cards of most of her paintings. You can contact Alice through her gallery page at Highlands Art League. Or see more of her work on Julia’s Arts website. Now all I have to do is figure out how to create these wonderful gentle manatees in polymer clay. Don’t you just love the colors Alice uses?  Manatee Family - Alice Hansen  Polymer Clay Mermaid See what happens when I start thinking about merchandise for galleries on the beach. I was mixing colors and making canes for leaves and plants for my flamingos and started thinking about my fish mosaic. I ended up with a mermaid…………….. When I mix my colors, I try to mix them with the same amount of grey to get my base color and then add white and skinner blends. I am looking at the book Color Inspirations and am interested in play with the “mud” idea too. But for now I’m mixing grays with my color blends to get a muted result. Then I make different canes using the mixes and Skinner blends. When I’m ready to work on a project, I have canes that blend and go together nicely.  Polymer Clay Mermaid Close Up
I used the coral Skinner blend in each of the canes. Sometimes as the main body of the cane and sometimes as accents. Her hat was leftover bits of mixed color and Skinner blend. It didn’t make a very big cane and I only got six slices off of it, but I only needed four to make her a smashing hat. I used the other two slices on a fish bracelet I’ll show you in the next post. Watch my video Don’t Waste That Little Bit of Skinner Blend to learn how I use even scraps of Skinner blends to make usable canes. I used the same method to build this mermaid as I do for my fish mosaic except I’m layering the canes instead of butting them up next to each other. It’s less labor intensive, but doesn’t create the same level of sophistication as the mosaic work. It just depends on what effect you are trying to achieve and how much time you want to spend. To see how I do my mosaics, just sign up for my newsletter and watch a video for free. I love these blue bottles and I’m quickly running out of them. Here’s one I did for a fund raiser at Highlands Art League. It made $135 for the league. I was delighted as there was some incredible art work auctioned off that evening from some very talented artists.  Polymer Clay Wine Bottle  Perfume Pens A group of perfume pens ready to go to a shop. Below is a group of bottle stoppers. The same face cane with different hair and hats. I also sell them in my Etsy Shop.  Wine Stoppers I get my stoppers and perfume pins from Boston Clayworks. They are both fun to do even without the face canes and they make great gifts.  Polymer Clay Flamingo Top I started mixing some truly wonderful greens to make some items for a shop in South Florida. I thought I would try some flamingo things. A bracelet might be good and naturally salt and pepper shakers. I don’t know why, but flamingos have always sold well for me no matter what medium I was working in. I haven’t ever figured it out. They are so wonderfully tacky, you would think people would avoid them like a bad hair day. But I have them in my 1970 big, turquoise bathroom along with a really funky painting of mermaids my father did in the sixties, not cute but with that sixties “look”. The flamingos make me laugh, and maybe that’s the answer, they make people happy. When I say turquoise bathroom, I really mean turquoise. all the walls but one are turquoise, the whole shower, the floor, the toilet, and the sinks are turquoise, amazing. But there just isn’t anything to be done about it, so we decided to like it. That leads me to what I did today instead of making fabulous canes out of my fabulous new colors. I painted the one wall and the ceiling of my funky turquoise bathroom. and what color did I paint it you ask? I am ashamed to admit….white. ugh…..Can you believe it. My husband and I don’t seems to agree and so we don’t decide. I believe painting the wall white was not deciding. But now that it’s painted, I think just maybe, with all that turquoise, maybe white will help the mermaids from trying to leave the painting and run away from home. The good news is that it is finished and tomorrow I can work on my clay projects.  Flamingo This is a container I covered several years ago to hold cotton balls. Not a very pretty container, but as I said, the flamingo makes me laugh and it’s functional. |
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