Recent Creative Projects

So, yeah, it's been quite a while...  we got to talk to Emily on Christmas Day, and she reprimanded me for not keeping up the blog and posting pictures of the fun stuff I've been doing -- not that missionaries can read blogs anyway -- and even though she's my baby sister, and I'm the one that's always right, I had to admit she's got a point.  ;)  I've had other friends asking when I'd be updating the blog, too, so here come lots of pictures of the fun I've been having lately with clay -- and since I don't have the time or desire tonight to figure out how to create a slide show...  I'll post them as small pics, but I'm pretty sure if you click on them, you can see a full size version if you'd like.

These first two are the front and back of a little pin I made for Emily to put on her scriptures or something.  I was thinking kind of like a guardian angel, but I'm not that fond of those little winged figures, and besides, a missionary is an angel, right?  So there's the "Oh, that I were an angel..." scripture reference on the back, and her name and mission.  She wrote and said she really liked it and would keep it pinned to her scripture case for her whole mission, which naturally made me feel happy and appreciated.  :)  I think she's doing a wonderful job, and I miss her.

Here's a little elf man I made with movable arms and legs and his head swivels around.  I need to make him a little girlfriend but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  He sits on my desk at work and makes me smile.

I introduced my friend Brianne to clay, and she took off with it.  She made herself a set of mini-ornaments for a Halloween tree that she had, and then our other friend at work, Randa, wanted a set too.  Brianne made her one, but when Randa went to the craft store to buy the tree itself they were out.  So I volunteered to try to make a tree.  Here it is with Brianne's ornaments decorating it.  It's got a rock in the bottom for stability, and the limbs are all foil wrapped wire under the clay.  This isn't the best picture, but hopefully you can see it okay.  The eyes I did with glow-in-the-dark clay -- ooooo, spooky!  ;)

Randa's birthday was at the first of this month and she really loves giraffes, so I made this picture frame for her.  The pictures really aren't the best (kinda blurry), which is a shame because I put gold clay in the mix, and each orange spot has a strip of more gold around it, and the mica in the gold clay gives it some cool depth.  I thought the giraffe had a sweet expression, and Randa was thrilled with it, which made me really happy.  The photo inside the frame is all her friends at work just being silly.

I wanted to bring a little greenery to my desk at work, so I made this pot (vase?) for some lucky bamboo.  I did the basket weaving and the flowers both out of clay, right onto the glass, and baked it glass and all.  You can't really tell from the picture but the flattened marbles inside that hold the bamboo are colored ranging from clear to lilac to dark purple.  I was pretty pleased with the end result, and it looks nice on my desk.

And finally, my Aunt Linda remembered the hand bound journals I used to make and decided she wanted to get some for her family for Thanksgiving for gratitude journals, hoping that keeping a gratitude journal would help improve everyone's mood and attitude.  She thought that a personalized, hand made journal would encourage everyone to actually use them.  Apparently they were a big hit -- she ordered 3 more for Christmas presents for friends.  These pictures are only of the front covers so you can't really see the stitching on the spines, but all the names on the front are done in clay.  I've wanted to try combining clay with the books, and this was the perfect opportunity (not to mention some much needed extra spending money for Christmas).  :)

 

In other news, Christmas was great because it was really nice to spend time with family and talk to Emily on the phone.  My newest nephew, Stanley Sanders Lund (picture below) was just born on Dec 20th and he's absolutely adorable, of course.  Christmas was also miserable because I got a stupid sinus infection and now I have to take the most disgusting, bitter tasting pills until they're gone so it won't come back.  Blech.  But, I did get a Wii! Yay!  I'll be able to do some boxing and sword fighting and tennis to exercise.  I'm very much looking forward to that -- I start as soon as the infection is really gone.  The doctor advised I should probably wait until at least Monday.  Hopefully I'll be able to get into some kind of better shape this year -- the family is planning a cruise when Em gets off her mission, so I've got approximately 14 months to get myself ready to go.  It's a race with the clock, and I think it will be a lot of fun, too.  :)

Here's my sweet nephew!