Crafting – Page 13 – A Multitude of Musings

Crafting Lately: Polymer Clay and a Bracelet

Posted on September 10, 2021September 10, 2021 by Astrid

Hi all! It’s Friday evening and it’s been thundering a bit outside. I’m scared of thunderstorms. Thankfully, they’re not too bad. To get my mind off the weather, I’m sharing some of my recent crafting endeavors with you all.

I bought a whole lot of new polymer clay supplies earlier in the week. Among them are a bead roller, which I have yet to try out, bead piercing pins to put holes in the beads I create with the bead roller, and brooch pins.

I also bought both transparent and gold Fimo Liquid. I haven’t yet decided what to do with the transparent one other than to use it to soften crumbly clay.

The gold-colored kind though, I intend to use to color in my letters that I’ve been stamping into my polymer clay pieces lately. I think I didn’t even share those pieces with you yet. I got the stamping kit a few weeks ago and love it! Below is a not-yet-colored piece.

I tried to color it with the gold Fimo Liquid this evening. First, I was unsuccessful trying it on my own, but when my staff guided my hand, it worked. Here’s the finished piece.

I also got a new pasta machine. Probably needn’t have bought it after all. I mean, I thought the old one was shredding my clay but with these particular clays, the new one was doing the same. However, I’m still grateful I got it.

A few weeks ago, I downloaded a few color recipes from Polymer Clay Loves. I didn’t have any of the four colors of Fimo Soft needed for mixing those colors, but I bought those too. Thing is, I just bought the small, two-ounce packets for three of the four colors and will likely need at least one of those for another project (which is still a secret) due to my other clay being too crumbly. You can totally see I’m still learning, eh? However, I definitely enjoy my craft!

In other crafts, I’ve also been enjoying basic beading again. The day center reopened this week and so I met some people from other homes for the first time in a long while. The staff told me one of them wore a lot of bracelets, so I immediately decided I’d make her a bracelet to add to her collection. Here it is!

As you can see, it is a simple threaded bracelet made with wooden beads on elastic wire. I personally don’t like wooden beads, as they connote child’s play beads to me, but these look pretty grown-up or so I’m told.

Have you been doing any crafting lately?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 29, 2021)

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Astrid

Hi everyone, how are you? I’m a bit late joining #WeekendCoffeeShare, as it’s already Sunday. I just had my afternoon coffee and, like I said last week, my Senseo is with my husband now. Now I’m assuming he won’t use it much, as not only is he more of a freshly-brewed coffee person, but he’s trying to cut back on his caffeine intake. That’s his decision though. Let’s have a cup of coffee (or pretend to) and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I had a good week overall. The weather’s been okay. Not as warm as I’d like it and a little windy for my liking too, but at least it’s been mostly dry.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I decided not to join Steptember, the annual cerebral palsy fundraiser, this year. I participated last year, but the pressure of having to get in 10K steps each day (or as many as I could) and raise money, was a bit too much for me.

If we were having coffee, I’d also moan about my AFO. Yes, it’s been a while, but if you’d thought that no news is good news, you would be wrong. My AFO had been with the orthopedic instrument maker, whom I’ll call AFO guy, for a few weeks, but upon return, we found out that it’s still not working well in combination with my orthopedic shoes. Now AFO guy and shoe guy were both contacted by the physical therapist and it’s up to them to figure out how to solve the issue.

If we were having coffee, I’d also whine a little about my foot pain. The physical therapist hasn’t gotten back to me about that, so I’m not sure what’s causing it. Could be my shoes, since they’re really old (the non-adaptive ones I now wear). Please pray AFO guy and shoe guy will figure out the issue with my adaptive footwear soon.

If we were having coffee, I’d ask you to pray for my niece. I didn’t ask my sister permission to share her hip dysplasia diagnosis last time, which I think now is wrong, so I won’t be sharing any more details. However, she is definitely in need of continued prayers.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’ve been really crafty over the past week again. I created some lovely polymer clay ornaments, as well as a hand cream and keychain for one of my fellow clients, who had his birthday on Wednesday. Yesterday, I encountered a lot of frustration with one of my Fimo Professional clays being very crumbly and hard. I eventually managed to restore it to health though.

How have you been?

Gratitude List (August 27, 2021) #TToT

Posted on August 27, 2021 by Astrid

Hi all! Can you believe August is almost over with already? I certainly can’t. Today I thought I’d do a gratitude list. I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT), as well as Thankful Thursday (a day late) again.

1. I am grateful for French fries. On Sunday, the staff decided to get those delivered to the care home. Of course, I had a very spicy snack called mexicano with it.

2. I am grateful the volunteer handymen came over to my room on Monday to put together the new desk I bought at Ikea two weeks ago. At first, it was a little too high (the legs are adjustable in length), but the handymen had been struggling to get the legs to cooperate. For this reason, I was hesitant to ask them to adjust them. However, once they’d figured out how to work the mechanism, it was pretty easy. I am so grateful to have my new desk now.

3. I am grateful both my assigned day activities staff and home staff are back from vacation as of this week.

4. I am grateful my CPN is back from vacation. I am glad I had a good discussion with her on Wednesday.

5. I am grateful to be making progress in my creative endeavors. I am quite perfectionistic, so have thrown a few of my polymer clay pieces in the bin, but without failing, one doesn’t learn, right? I am also grateful for all the constructive feedback I receiv in Facebook groups.

6. I am grateful my polymer clay alphabet stamping set arrived. I had had it on my wishlist for a while, ordered it on Monday and it arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, a part of it was missing. One of my staff went after it and the store just replied that they’ll send the part that is missing.

7. I am grateful for summer fruit. My day activities staff, who lives near the supermarket my care facility normally buys from, was asked to get some stuff (buttermilk, I think, yikes!) on Thursday and she asked me what else I wanted her to buy now that she was going to go get groceries for us anyway. She bought peaches and strawberries and they were delicious!

8. I am grateful to be able to put a smile onto people’s face with my handmade gifts. Like I may have mentioned, my day activities staff got a present from me. So did a fellow client, who had his birthday on Wednesday. He had the hugest smile on his face when I gave him his hand cream.

9. I am grateful to live in a free, developed country. All the news about the Taliban having taken over Afghanistan makes me so grateful that I’m not and have never been in a war zone.

10. I am grateful the government are so far not putting the country into lockdown or tightening any measures despite COVID case numbers being on the rise again.

What are you grateful for?

My Very First Polymer Clay Earrings

Posted on August 25, 2021August 25, 2021 by Astrid

Oh my, I’m really losing my blogging mojo or so it seems. Thankfully, I’m finding other creative outlets, like polymer clay.

Yesterday, I was watching a YouTube video in which the creator made some polymer clay earrings with the image of daisies on them. I wanted to recreate those, but really was pretty much clueless.

Like her, I started out with blue (well, Fimo Soft #39, “peppermint”, the closest to blue polymer clay I have). I then added little yellow dots. I still don’t have white, so used porcelain for the petals. The YouTuber hadn’t created individual petals, so neither did I. Rather, I extruded a strand of clay to go around the little dots. That was hard enough. I didn’t flatten my slab, because I feared I’d distort the design if I did. I also really liked the texture in my design.

Unfortunately, when I baked these, they stuck to the tile and got a hole in them when I pulled them off. I threw them straight into the bin, so no pics of these.

Yesterday evening though, I did create some earring pieces that were more or less a success. I used purple as the background color this time and again, yellow dots and white strands to go around them for the daisies. This time, I tried to flatten my slab using my acrylic roller, but that didn’t create an even surface. Then, I ran my slab through the pasta machine, which of course distorted the design a little. Or a lot.

I decided to bake my earring pieces anyway. I had four of them and this morning, had my staff pick the best two to be glued to the earring posts. That worked surprisingly well considering I didn’t use super glue. I had to let them dry for about three to four hours and they look and feel pretty sturdy now.

VoiceOver Recognition does say they look like boiled eggs rather than daisies. I guess it has a point.

For the photo, I attached them to a piece of blue cardstock. That will do okay as an earring card for keeping my earstuds safe while waiting for me to actually get my ears pierced.

What do you think of these?

Linking up with Party in Your PJ’s.

Crafty Endeavors #WotW

Posted on August 22, 2021 by Astrid

This week was a mixed bag emotionally. I haven’t been as motivated as I was before, but, like I said yesterday, haven’t been depressed either. I have also been quite crafty over the past week. In fact, I have been exploring more creative outlets in a single week than I’ve done in a long while. For this reason, I’m choosing “crafty endeavors” as my word of the week.

Early in the week, I created the polymer clay tricolor “rainbow” pendant I showed you on Wednesday. Like I said, at first it wouldn’t cure in the oven, but eventually it did.

I also created the multicolor, layered heart I posted yesterday. Since my mother-in-law brought me a packet of sanding papers, I have been trying to sand this one a little. I only used grits 120 and 400 to get rid of the worst unevenness, since with it being multilayered, I don’t know how to sand the top two layers.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I have been busy with soap and skincare product making. I made a lavender and clary sage massage oil. Unfortunately, I used up all my lavender essential oil, so I’ve put that on my wishlist to buy when I feel I am allowed to spend money again.

I also created a lavender and rose hand cream and melt and pour soap. In the soap, I used real dried lavender and rose petals.

I found the recipe here and, though I felt the use of crushed almonds was a bit strange, I just skipped that step. I really liked the soap.

Then yesterday, I showed it in a melt and pour soap making group on Facebook and was told by all of the commenters that most dried herbs and flowers will mold in melt and pour soap. I seriously had no idea! In fact, just a few days earlier, I’d seen another blogger post a recipe for calendula soap. That one is the one herb that won’t mold, but this blogger also included lemongrass. I’ve also seen tons of recipes for melt and pour soap that do include all kinds of dried herbs and flowers, so my next question obviously is how to sift through all the information out there online. In any case, some of the commenters on Facebook said I’m now officially a soaper for having made the same mistake 99% of melt and pour soapers make.

Then on to polymer clay again. On Friday evening, I made a flower. Then I saw an interesting video on YouTube on making polymer clay earrings and wanted to try it. Unfortunately, one of the colors of Fimo I used was way too brittle for in my extruder, so I decided to mix up the two colors. I’d used blossom rose and porcelain. The shade I got was a very light pink which was lovely. Unfortunately, I only had a tiny bit of it.

This evening, I may try more polymer clay, as I haven’t baked the flower yet and want it baked by tomorrow, but I don’t want to run the oven for just one piece.

Overall, despite this week not feeling as good as the past few weeks, I’ve done really well.

How would you sum up your week?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 20, 2021)

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Astrid

Hi everyone! Today is a mixed bag weather-wise. We’ve had some rain and some sunshine and the temperature rose to 20°C. It’s okay given that I’ve resigned to the idea that summer is over already.

Today I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. Of course, being that it’s past 8PM, I’ve already had all my coffee for the day. My Senseo coffee maker’s loose parts are also in the dishwasher and I won’t be able to make you a Senseo anymore from now on. More on that later. The staff will probably make you one if you ask though.

If we were having coffee (or any other drink), I’d share that indeed, like I shared earlier, my mood seems to have deflated a little, but I can’t quite say I’m depressed or sad. I just feel a little less inspired and motivated and a little more irritable and anxious than I was over the past couple of weeks. It’s okay though. I’m pretty sure that even this little low won’t mean all my elation over the past month or so was for nothing.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’ve still managed to be quite creative over the past week. Early in the week and today, I did some polymer clay. I created the “rainbow” pendant I showed you all on Wednesday, as well as a pretty useless layered heart.

I say it is useless because it has neither a hole for a jumpring or ribbon in it, nor an eyepin attached. It is also too large for an earring. I might be able to make a brooch out of it someday.

I have also been doing some soap and skincare product making over the past few days.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that yesterday when making some soap, the microwave I normally use for melting my soap and other skincare ingredients, malfunctioned. This microwave used to be used by the sleeping shift, who had their room next to the entrance to my care home. However, they no longer use this, so the microwave won’t be replaced.

I’ve had a microwave for my room on my wishlist for several months, but was going to delay actually buying one for a while still. Until this one failed, that is. My husband tried talking me out of buying a microwave and that’s where the Senseo comes in. He said I don’t have space for a microwave in my room, but I will if I do away with the coffee maker. So he proposed he give me the microwave from Lobith, since he hardly uses it, and I give him my Senseo. I’m fine with that, since I rarely if ever actually use the Senseo. In fact, I just discovered that the unopened packet of coffee pods I had in my kitchen drawer had an expiration date of July 2020. I hereby apologize for having virtually poisoned all my Coffee Share guests with moldy coffee. The Senseo, I’m hoping, is still in pretty good condition.

How have you been?

Polymer Clay Fantasy Tricolor “Rainbow” Pendant

Posted on August 18, 2021 by Astrid

I haven’t written a blog post or anything at all in the past few days. I haven’t been too inspired. It looks like my elated mood of the past few weeks is diminishing a little. That being said, I still find my creative juices haven’t dried up completely, far from it in fact. Over the past couple of days, I have finished several things. I don’t really call them “projects”, as they’re relatively simple, but that’s beside the point. One such crafty thing I finished is my polymer clay fantasy tricolor “rainbow” pendant.

Over the weekend, I had been looking at making polymer clay earrings. I am not yet good enough with plain slabs to make those, but one of the ideas I saw was a rainbow. I checked my colors and found that I have some clay at least remotely resembling each color except for indigo. I might be able to mix indigo myself, but then again making an actual, seven-color rainbow would use up so much clay and what if it was a massive fail? For this reason, I decided to make a tricolor “rainbow”.

I also shied away from mixing my own colors, because I have none of the classic primaries. I mean, I do have a shade of red, yellow and blue, but I didn’t know what these shades would do together. So I asked my staff for feedback on colors that looked good together and that’s how I came up with the three colors of clay I used for the “rainbow”: Fimo Professional #6 (purple), Fimo Soft #42 (tangerine) and Fimo Soft #39 (peppermint).

I made the three layers of the “rainbow” using a half-round disc in my extruder. Oh, I haven’t even told you all yet that the same staff who brought me a pasta machine a few weeks back, brought me an extruder last Saturday. I’m so totally over the moon about it!

I also decided at the last minute to try to insert the eyepin. That way, I will be able to make a pendant out of this. With this particular piece, my staff did the actual inserting of the eye pin. However, I have been practising doing this myself and can now do this too.

I baked my piece on a tile yesterday. Unfortunately, since I’d used a glass oven dish lid to cover the piece, the first time it wouldn’t cure. The second time around, I decided not to cover my piece and it turned out pretty nice. It is slightly shiny at the back, but well, that’s okay. And best of all, the eye pin didn’t fall out!

What do you think of this piece?

Linking up with Party in Your PJ’s.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 14, 2021)

Posted on August 14, 2021 by Astrid

Hi everyone on this beautiful Saturday! The weather is much better than I’d expected yesterday that it’d be. It’s partly cloudy but warm and dry. I like it.

Today, I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. I just had my afternoon coffee, as seems common when I write these posts. However, I’m pretty sure there’s still some coffee left. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, firstly I’d share that I finally went to Lobith last weekend. It was good being there. As I mentioned yesterday, we got pizza (takeout). Other than that, we just chillaxed. Is that even a word?

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I texted my sister on Monday. She’d called me last week because her daughter had been referred to the orthopedic doctor for a leg length difference (her left leg is shorter than her right leg). Apparently, my niece also used her left leg less than her right. My sister wanted to know about the reasons I wear (or should wear) an AFO. I explained about the fact that I had a brain bleed and it’s from that, without mentioning cerebral palsy of course as my parents never mentioned that to me even though I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s called.

As it turns out, my niece has mild hip dysplasia and will be seen by a child orthopedic specialist in Amsterdam someday. Please all pray that the wait won’t be too long. My niece is nearly two-years-old, so it’s pretty late for corrective wear or so I’ve been told.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’ve been doing quite well over the past week. I have mostly felt able to cope with my current situation okay. On Thursday, a fellow client was screaming for almost an hour on end. She does this every once in a while, yet for the first time I didn’t have an impulse to run away. I did get a little threatening towards the client, but the staff were able to calm me down.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I have been rather crafty of late again. I didn’t finish many projects, but I did practise polymer clay a lot. I also did make a melt and pour soap and massage oil for my friend who lives a few care homes down the road from me. It was her birthday yesterday. I came by at around 10:30AM to give her her presents and was invited to sit down in her garden for coffee and apple crumble. This was really nice.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that tomorrow, I’m going to Ikea with my one-on-one to buy some new furniture for my room. My dining/crafting table is rather wobbly on its legs, so I want a new one. I also want a new second chair for my staff. My staff currently sit on a very clunky office chair with armrests, which for this reason can’t be pushed under the table. I want one similar to my own chair. I’m pretty sure I’ll be successful at finding both a desk or table and a chair. I’m also going to look at a mini fridge, as you may remember I wanted to buy one for in my room too. I don’t intend on actually buying it at Ikea, but I want to take a look at what it’s like so that I know if I have the right picture in my mind. Then I want to order it online next month when I get some extra money with my benefits.

How have you been?

Gratitude List (August 13, 2021) #TToT

Posted on August 13, 2021August 13, 2021 by Astrid

Hi everyone on this beautiful Friday the thirteenth. I am not particularly superstitious about this date, even though I used to have really bad superstitions related to other dates.

This day is going quite well, so I thought I’d do a gratitude list. Of course, it doesn’t have to go well to do one, but well. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). I am also joining Thankful Thursday a day late, since the linky is still open.

1. I am grateful to have been able to see my husband again over the weekend. I was finally able to go to Lobith after over a month of not going there for various reasons.

2. I am grateful for pizza. My husband and I went to New York Pizza, which appears to be a Dutch-only pizza company that supposedly serves NY-style pizzas. I am pretty sure people from New York would laugh at it, but I loved my Tex Mex chicken pizza. Oh, I guess people from Texas and Mexico would laugh at that one too.

3. I am grateful for a proper delivery of the polymer clay things I ordered from someone on Facebook last Friday. I have so far only used the cookie cutters, but they’re great.

4. I am grateful the package from Facebook contained black and dolphin grey clay. With luck, I may be able to combine these to make an actual tabby cat, like Barry, my husband’s and my cat.

5. I am grateful for my staff’s Atlas pasta machine. The staff gave it to me at least to use for as long as I want. I did tell her she won’t be able to make pasta with it anymore now that I’ve used it for polymer clay, but that was okay. The thing works pretty well. She already gave it to me last week, but I am so grateful I got to properly work it this past week.

6. I am grateful I ordered five different sizes of ziploc bags in one package rather than several separately, because I never considered that I’d in fact need the largest size for my bigger packages of polymer clay. I am still able to use the smaller sizes for jewelry-making supplies.

7. I am grateful my creative juices are still flowing steadily. I haven’t actually finished any projects in the past week, but I am making progress. That’s a win and something to be thankful for as well. Oh, now that I’m thinking of it, I did finish a soap, but that was an easy-peasy one.

8. I am grateful the weather has been quite good over the past week. It’s been mostly dry, warm and sunny with a few clouds. I am so thankful it is still summer clothes weather.

9. I am grateful my foot is allowing me to go on slightly longer walks again. It still hurts, but not as bad as it used to.

10. I am grateful for a holiday greeting card from my day activities staff. So thoughtful!

What have you been grateful for?

Hyper #WotW

Posted on August 7, 2021 by Astrid

Hi everyone! I haven’t felt like writing over the past few days because I’ve been perseverating on polymer clay. Today, I thought I’d write a post after all to sum up my week and my word for this week is “Hyper”. After all, I’ve not just been perseverating on a special interest, but it’s been costing me my sleep too. I was almost going to choose “Manic”, but that would be appropriating the bipolar community, as I doubt my episodes are bad enough to qualify even as hypomanic. They’re more like autistic or ADHD (not that I have that last diagnosis either) hyperfocus. So yeah, hyper.

I’ve been literally working with polymer clay for hours everyday except today for the past week. I’m improving, but not as fast as I’d like.

And it’s not even that I’ve created anything worth mentioning really. I mean, yesterday I decided to bake a project, but it didn’t turn out as good as I’d hoped.

Okay, I did create a purple cat on Wednesday, because my husband had been asking for it everyday for a week. Purple because it’s the least ugly color for a cat out of the ones I currently own. My husband said it was pretty well-proportioned except for its whiskers, but then again that’d be practically impossible to do with actual polymer clay. I didn’t bake this figurine though.

Yesterday, like I said, I did bake something, but I was quite disappointed in its outcome. For this reason, I was up late ruminating about how to prevent it from getting ugly again. As you might see, it is a multi-layered star, so I figured if I baked the bottom layer first and then attached the unbaked second layer, baked again and so forth, it should work. I also figured I’d create my piece directly on the baking surface as to not have to move it too much. Well, there I made a mistake, because the baking surface I normally use is an oven dish normally also used for food. I until now figured it wouldn’t be a problem since I lay parchment paper under my polymer clay. Until today, that is. So now I promised my staff a new oven dish.

After this happened, I decided to give up polymer clay until I can go to the hardware store to get myself a tile to bake on.

In addition to hyperfocusing, I’ve also been spending more money than may be considered sensible. I mean, like I said a few times before, I won’t go broke anytime soon with my current spending habits, but with the fact that my special interests tend to be short-lived, it may not have been wise. On Thursday, I ordered some cookie cutters and an alphabet clay stamp set at an online store, only to be told yesterday that not everything is in stock and hence my order would probably be processed a week later. Then in the evening, I impulsively bought a whole lot of polymer clay supplies, including cookie cutters, from someone on Facebook. It seems to have gone alright, both the paying and the actual supplies being on their way. I decided to cancel my store order that evening. I might order the stamp set separately later.

Overall, though my perseverating might be a little worrisome, I’m trying to reason that I’m not getting into trouble yet and won’t in the foreseeable future even if my state of hyperfocus continues for a while. And it most likely won’t. The only thing I can hope for is that I won’t give up on the craft entirely then.