CraziBeautiful

Whether you live in Utah or elsewhere, this is a fun blog to visit. www.crazibeautiful.com They recently posted a feature on my work under Business Savvy



Speaking of crazy beautiful, my goal is to feature more student work on my blog and website because I get to see fantastic pieces from students that needs to be celebrated. This crocheted bracelet was made by Jeannie Thorn who took my crocheted bracelet class at Art Unraveled this summer. Jeannie Thorn Silver Crocheted BraceletCheck out Jeannie’s site and also Adorn Me, which is a brand new jewelry making venue from Art Unraveled. The classes are up now!



I have about 800 other things to post, but for now here is a picture of bronze and copper clay beads. I have been testing and trying to refine the process for making bronze and copper beads. Copper and bronze clay is challenging enough, and so beads are extra hard to make successfully. I found one method for using slip that is so easy. I will publish this idea soon.



and lastly, I hope to catch as many of you as possible about an etching update. If you use a paint pen as a resist for etching, it helps to heat set it with an embossing heat gun prior to etching. It makes a huge difference and the paint holds up under electrical etching without flaking off! I am so excited about this development, since drawing on metal is a great way to make original designs to etch.

Martha Radio Show - Polymer Clay Ponytails

I was a guest on the Martha Stewart morning radio show yesterday while I was in San Diego (6AM PST). The topic was back to school and so I described the how-tos over the air for how to make these easy polymer clay ponytail holders. They are made by simply covering metal upholstery button blanks with a sheet of decorated polymer clay and then attaching a hair elastic to finish. Complete instructions can be found in my new book, “Clay So Cute”. First time ever teaching a technique at that early hour!

My New Book

My new book, “Clay So Cute” was released today. The book contains projects for tweens and kids but I suspect some adults will find it inspiring too. My history with polymer clay goes way back, it was my medium of choice for making jewelry and miniatures. Very few people even knew what it was back then. It’s been almost 20 years since my sister and I wrote our first book together, titled “The Incredible Clay Book”, it turned out to be one of the best selling kids crafts books on the market and is still in print today. It was the book that launched both of our careers. The “kids” that remember the first book are now in their mid-30s and its a bit weird to hear adults tell me they had the book when they were young-how is that possible? I am very excited to have a new book in print for a whole new generation of crafty kids. My favorite projects are the claybots and of course- candy bracelets.

Summer Bead Shows 2009

Summer has been a busy time with our new store and line of products. Our crew went to exhibit at the Bead and Button Show for the first time. This is a picture of Camille at our neat and tidy booth ready for customers.




The girls worked so hard at the Bead and Button show. The booth was quite busy with demonstrations on Image Tranfer and our E3 Etch controller. Customers got to scratch off ITS images and we had fun giveaways. All 3 lost their voices at the end of each day and I’m sure were exhausted. thank you to everyone who stopped by and said hi at the show!



In July we attended the PSBF in Tacoma, WA. I love the northwest and it makes me homesick every time we go up there. One class that was very fun to teach was the Pandora style silver metal clay beads. These are metal clay beads you can make yourself for the popular interchangeable bracelets (they are popular in the East and Europe, the West is a little slow to catch on). The students in this class were so excited, a few didn’t sleep the night before. I love their creativity with the beads, with so many design options available. I will be teaching this again in the future and hopefully the bracelets will catch on here.



While in Seattle visiting my daughter Michelle, we ran into this sculpture of JP Patches. This brings back childhood memories and I just had to take several pictures. I remember my dad working as an audio engineer back in the 70s for the show, I got to be on TV a few times. I love this moment frozen in time for all to admire. It’s in the Freemont district by the UW.

Glass Enameling on Silver and Copper Class

Preparing a brand new class to teach is always a challenge but worth the effort. I taught glass enameling this weekend. We made silver metal clay pieces for Champleve with transparent enamels for the first project and then we switched over to copper and torch fired opaque enamels. It was interesting to see the difference in kiln firing vs. torch firing, each has it’s own advantages. I think I speak for all of us that the little Beehive Kiln we used was especially convenient for enameling, but the torch firing was also very fun.



A few things we learned, I had grabbed pieces that I thought were copper but they were copper plated only and therefore did not work. Poor Senta had her glass pop off twice until we finally figured out that it was another metal underneith. I should have known better when she cleaned the piece and it didn’t look right. The piece pictured above is her Champleve piece which turned out perfect! We also learned that glass takes no prisoners and so patience is required. I was very impressed with everyone’s creativity. AND a big thank you to Rena for her advice to explore torch firing, I think I am going to keep playing with fire now, her pieces took advantage of using firescale as part of the design. Jane and Kelly were new to metal clay, and so the class was a lot to tackle but they made fabulous pieces too.



Glass and metal are really fun to combine, I for one am going to pursue more techniques, well at least that’s the plan anyway.

Electroforming Twigs

Dan completed the process for using our E3 Etch controller to do elecroforming. I made these copper coated twigs with it. This is accomplished by using an adapter with our controller, that will be available for a minimal cost. I can’t wait to try this to plate gold onto copper and bronze. We will have a tutorial and supplies up on our website and shop by next week www.sherrihaab.com along with a bunch of other new items.

The puget sound bead festival is coming up fast, so if you are looking for a class in the Northwest this summer I will be there. We will be teaching green methods of etching on metal, even silver! (same controller that does the electroforming) and also a new class I am excited about- making your own Pandora style beads. Here is the direct link to sign up for classes:

http://www.pugetsoundbeadfestival.com/store/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=33

Copper Clay

I love copper clay! This is a sneak preview of a bracelet I made using copper clay for my upcoming book. It was textured using etched copper plates I made using Dan’s E3 Etch.

A bunch of people have etching questions from the Bead and Button Show. Here is the link to my site for the information page http://www.sherrihaab.com/etch/ And Dan is trying to carve out time to build a new model which will do multiple etchings at one time!