Party Heart-y

One of my coworkers loves hearts, so for her birthday, I decided to challenge myself. I don't make hearts very often, unless by request. Here's what I came up with:

Big, colorful, chunky beads! I really wanted to do mismatched beads.



And made this bracelet:

It was flippin' HUGE!



I've seen resin pendants with candy sprinkles in them, and I've always been fascinated by resin with things embedded in them since I was a kid; I always thought it looked so magical. It was time to make my own magic:

Not bad for a first try!

My coworker really liked her stuff! The bracelet may have been a bit chunky for her, though.

I loved working with the resin, and look forward to doing more with it! I found out that it can be baked at polymer clay temps (once cured!), so I can make polymer clay bezels and bake the whole piece! Yay!

Painting Fool

Painting has been wonderfully theraputic for me lately. It's immediate: I can pick it up whenever I want to and get a few minutes of painting in; and unlike working with clay, I don't have to wash my hands a million times and hermetically seal my work area against dust. :)


Besides, paint has been on sale at my favorite craft stores!


Here is a wooden rocket birdhouse I found and fell in love with. I mean, a rocket! I just had to paint it in girly colors:


It resides happily in my office now.




This is a statue I found in Target's dollar section (even though it was $2.50). It was a brownish-black color, so I brightened him up a bit:

I made his belly shiny so I can rub it for luck!


I am an absolute sucker for good perfume, especially well-made perfume oils (see here and here and here). I am so addicted to these perfumes that I decided I needed to store them in something pretty. I had to make a little treasure box to store my perfumes in.


I took a bottle of perfume with me to the craft store to see if it would fit in the boxes. The one below was a winner, and at the time, I liked the handle. Not so sure now, but I'm working with it. I wanted to do some kind of theme at first, like painting it sky blue and doing grass, flowers, and a picket fence around the sides. I wanted to paint it all white, with pink flowers all over, and do either green felt or polymer clay grass on the lid, and place tiny flowers on it. Then I wanted to do glitter "grass" on the lid.

I knew I wanted some kind of plushy interior, but my usual felt box lining just wouldn't do in this case. When I was a kid, I liked to take things apart, and one of the things I took apart once was a jewelry box. I observed that the cushy lining was actually a piece of cardboard with some kind of spongy filler, and covered in satin and slapped on the insides of the box. Perfect! I had some fiberfill languishing in my work area, and I had some cardboard.

Now for the fabric. One place I go to has all kinds of great fat quarters; awesome patterns. It's hard not to just keep your mind on a specific project when looking at these: I can never come out of there with just one! There are always "future projects" to think about!

As I was looking through the fat quarters, I happened upon a small glimpse of yellow buried in a row of purple. I took a look at the fabric, and was immediately transported to my childhood. It reminded me of something I'd seen as a kid, and I fell in love with it. Right then I decided I had to have it and imagined a "shabby chic" kind of box to go with it. I like SOME shabby chic, and I don't think I've ever made anything shabby, but I was willing to try. The shabby theme was the only thing to go with this fabric!

Now I'm almost done with the box; trying to figure out if I should antique it or not. Pics soon!

First Post!

Hi! My name is Sharon, and I'm a middle child from Southern California, currently living in Austin, TX. I love to paint, work with various clays, and play with beads. I am addicted to glitter.

This blog will be used for posting pictures of my work, as well as various musings.

The pictures below are things that I have made for my mom and little sister, so far my biggest customers!

Sugar skulls: I made these a few years ago from polymer clay. the "icing" is hand-rolled. Note the penny in the foreground. Soo fun to make!

The pins below were made for my little sister and brother-in-law's 10th wedding anniversary. They collect historical costumes, and are currently pirating around Southern California. The bracelet features individually hand-sculpted, hand-painted skulls made with glow-in-the-dark clay.

This is a clock I painted for a silent auction at work. I wish I had a picture of the clock before it got painted!

I know the holly on the sides is crooked! The platform that the clock hangs above is coated in glitter.

The mirror is something I painted for my little sister for her birthday. The skulls are hand-sculpted from polymer clay. I am really hooked on these mirrors! Keep your eyes peeled for more of these!

This is a wooden pedestal that I painted for my mom's birthday. I especially had fun with all of the different pumpkin faces. I spent a lot of time drawing different jack-o-lantern faces, and this is the result. I'd like to do more stuff with these faces on them!