maureenthomasdesigns.com Blog

October 2008

Fall (my favorite season) is finally here…HURRAY! As always, there are plenty of fun things to do this time of year. Please stop by my booth and say hello if you are able to attend the following events:

~The First Annual Kobra Crush Wine and Art Festival in Roseville, CA on October 18 (5-10pm). This event offers food, wine tasting, music, and the works of fifty Placer County artists and supports Placer County Tourism. Tickets are $30 prepaid or $35 at the door.

~The Mountain Mandarin Festival in Auburn, CA on November 21-22-23. The Mandarin Festival is held at the Auburn Fairgrounds and is pretty self-explanatory. If you’re mad for mandarins as I am you should have a great time discovering all the ways to use them, plus enjoying the entertainment and getting some gift shopping done at the same time!

~The Crocker Holiday Art and Craft Festival on Thanksgiving weekend at the Scottish Rite Temple. Please check out the Clayville booth. I won’t be there this year, but about 10 of the guild’s artists are participating and there are sure to be lots of fun and fabulous items.

My pasta machine, convection oven, camera, and computer have been keeping me very busy. I’ve been working hard to keep my web and Etsy sites updated with new items: bookends, wine stoppers, perfume applicators, rings, new bracelet designs, mosaic frames, ornaments, pens, and notebooks. I’m also hoping to make it into another gallery or two in the near future (I’ve been selling through Made in Tahoe at Crystal Bay on Tahoe’s north shore). Clyde is pitching in by drilling beads and making jewelry displays for the upcoming shows. Learning about paper mache at a recent Robert Dancik class reminded me that I bought a torso on eBay a while back to mold some lightweight and (hopefully) unique necklace displays.

I’ve decided that my time right now is better spent getting inventory ready for the shows rather than posting every item online as I make it (my usual policy). If you’re looking for something in particular or have any questions, please ask!

Hope to see you soon,
Maureen
http://maureenthomasdesigns.com
http://maureenthomasdesigns.etsy.com

A few years back I watched a video by Gwen Gibson on making polymer clay bracelets. I was intrigued, but I got sidetracked. I finally got around to making a few of the tools she “invented” to streamline the process a bit and got to work. I am hooked! I am adding my own touches by using lots of texture and adding a vintage button clasp to each bracelet. I have the first set listed on my website and also on Flickr.

I finally got around to trying out the perfume pen kits that I bought a while back. Posted a few on my website and I’ll also add some to my Etsy store on Friday. They are quite fun and great to tuck in your purse if you’re a perfume wearer.

I’m also working out a few technical glitches on another project. Actually, I’m waiting for a light bulb to click on as I know there’s a simple solution out there that I just haven’t figure out yet!

Have a wildfire-and-smoke-free weekend…

I found out yesterday that I juried into the Mountain Mandarin Festival, which takes place in November right here in Auburn. Artists and vendors are encouraged to incorporate mandarins into their wares, if possible. So, it’s time to look for some clip art and delve into polymer clay transfers. Wish me luck!

I just heard that my just-about-to-graduate nephew, Kyle Zoeller, won $500 and a first-place blue ribbon for a lovely ring that he made in his high school metals class. A local Michigan jeweler offered the prize to the student who designed and constructed the nicest jewelry piece and Kyle was the winner! Woo hoo, awesome, way to go Kyle!!!

I hate to be wasteful; in fact, I love to give just about any old thing a chance to become something else. This philosophy definitely applies to my art; I tend to look at the tiniest little scrap of something and I want to put it to good use (these days it’s called living green!). The downside for me is that it’s been a long while since I’ve packed up the unfinished projects and leftovers, swept off my studio worktable, and opened up some fresh new packages of clay. My natural inclination has been to move from one project to the next, relying on extra beads or beautiful scraps of clay to inspire me. The problem is that it’s not working anymore. I’ve been feeling claustrophobic in my studio, creatively stifled, and a bit bored.

This past weekend I managed to photograph every single finished piece in my inventory and to post it either on my website http://maureenthomasdesigns.com or in my Etsy store http://maureenthomasdesigns.etsy.com. I still have a bazillion polymer clay beads that I will eventually use as accents in new projects, but I am declaring myself caught up. No playing with clay until my studio is straightened up and I can make my way to the worktable without causing a landslide.

So, what’s with the fruit analogy? You know how you’d love to eat that perfectly ripe, just-the-shade-you-like-it banana in the fruit bowl, BUT there’s also that one that’s not going to make it one more day so you eat that one instead? Well, I say, go for that perfect piece of fruit…..and toss the overripe one in the freezer to use in some future nut bread (you didn’t really think I was going to suggest throwing it away, did you?). Here’s to a fresh start!!!

I received my copy of “1000 Jewelry Inspirations” by Sandra Salamony today. I couldn’t wait until July for my contributor’s copy so I ordered one from Amazon.com. As the title suggests, the book features page after page of beautiful jewelry by contemporary artists meant to inspire the reader. It is divided into chapters: beads & baubles, paper & mixed media, polymer & metal clay (that’s where my work is featured), vintage & repurposed, fibers & fabric, and wire & metal.

My local polymer clay guild, Clayville California, has so many amazing artist members. Many of them have been featured in books and articles and now I can count myself among the “published artists” too!

I’ve added a few lightswitch covers (plates) to my Maureen Thomas Designs website. They are covered with polymer clay veneers. I’ll be adding more periodically. Check them out!

http://maureenthomasdesigns.com
http://maureenthomasdesigns.etsy.com

I’m having flashbacks back to when I created my website without any experience or history with that sort of thing. I ultimately did it, but it took many hours and days of frustrating dead ends and wrong turns to get there. I don’t want to use one of the easy, straight-out-of-the-can blog templates (that would be too easy!); I want to tweak it to create a look that somewhat matches my website in color, layout, fonts, etc. After much fumbling around in unknown territory, I ordered “Word Press for Dummies” from Amazon. I hope it helps!

http://maureenthomasdesigns.com
http://maureenthomasdesigns.etsy.com

(Trying to recreate the last post from the previous blog!) Inspired by the wonderful Kathleen Dustin, I created some custom earwires for these new polymer clay earrings out of 20g sterling wire. Kathleen has been urging her students (and other jewelry artists) to consider the earwire as an extension of the overall design of the piece. In this instance, the elongated and slightly assymetrical polymer clay pieces wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if merely hung from stock earwires. In fact, they might have been downright boring because of their simple design. To me, they now seem simply elegant.

http://maureenthomasdesigns.com
http://maureenthomasdesigns.etsy.com