Crazy Little Critters

These were so adorable, I just had to share. Made from polymer clay and allot of creativity. I love imagination working full force.

Tell me what you think




Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

How To Videos on Howcast | The best how to videos on the web

How to do almost anything ~

fun and funny videos for how to do lots and lots of things ...

with good instructions for many .....

I JUST HAD TO TO SHARE IT!!!


How To Videos on Howcast The best how to videos on the web

Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

Tory Hughes Polymer Clay Rings on Daily Art Muse

I always loved the wonderful work of the talented Tory Hughes, but I had never before seen her rings. I love what she does, this is an artist who really thinks outside of the box. Using her many years of experience working with polymer clay, Tory has created the most interesting and beautifuly fashionable rings that you can not even tell that they were made from clay.

Check them out!!!


high5 polymer clay: tory hughes Daily Art Muse


Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

Testing The New Pardo Jewelry Clay Products

Garie Sims does it again this time with a few great and thorough tests of the new Jewelry clay Pardo marketed by Viva Decor.

Pardo Jewelry Clay is polymer clay, that needs to bake in an convection oven at a temperature of 275 º F (120 ºC to130 º C), it contains pure natural beeswax (as a plasticiser replacing phthalates) and premium pigments, its a more eco-friendly polymer clay.

Pardo Clay is available in 69 colours, from basic to various shades and tints, The colours are well produced it's very cool, wide choices for jewelry artist and other clayer.

Testing The New Pardo Jewellery Clay Products

Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

I opened a Store - How Can I Advertise it? - Business Advice

You can sign up for Twitter and tweet about it (send a text message up to 140 characters in length, can include links) and let people who like the type of things you create know when you have new items up for sale.

Set your profile status on facebook to your store.

Advertise your store link in your signature for your emails and thus all your message posts to groups. (*General rule to keep your email signature to a maximum of three (3) lines of text). *Please note that when your posting anything to message groups and forums that everyone may have their own rules about advertising certain types of links from within your signature. Example: XYZ Clay Group on yahoo has an Official/ Dedicated supplier (one willing to give a discount off products to all members of that group in exchange for the privilege of having the groups membership base as their possible customer base) and thus you can not have links in your signature to a site or stores that may sell products of the same type as the official supplier. 

Put the link to your store online in anything you mail, or post, make some business cards and be sure to put the link on them in a font that can be easily viewed. On business cards you do not need to have the http:// part of the website address printed, just the www. DebsStore.com should work great. You can get 200 FREE business cards through Vista Print for like $1.99 and the price of shipping or something, its like cheep and they are nice cards. I have heard of other services you can get cards from online and you may find some less that are even better. I know the free ones with Vista have their logo on the very bottom of the back with their info/link. A very small price to pay for FREE cards for just the cost of shipping, but your image speaks of who you are. Your an artist and you don't use cheap materials and supplies in your art, perhaps you don't want to send a message that your cheap on your cards. Many people will not realize this or even care, but there may be few in your own mind then you may not wish to go this route. I have heard different opinions about this.

Depending on what you sell you can create specials and advertise them where those types of products would be of interest and need.

If you sell supplies you might wish to create a class where you can in turn sell the supplies needed to complete the class.

Make up starter kits of clay and tools, and maybe include a little tutorial or 2 in free with purchase, etc..

There is always a way to make your product/sale/service/idea more desirable to others.

Think of contests to win things from you that you sell that can get others to help you advertise.

Submit your site to the search engines. Most are free and there are free services out there where you can submit your site to many of them with just a few clicks of the mouse and your keyboard. *TIP* You may wish to use a separate free email account like yahoo, hotmail, or gmail so that you can register with the search engines using the email you don;t mind getting allot of email to because all those search engines will reply, as well this email account now may be used for other purposes, after all you just registered your website with many of them for free, there has to be a catch somewhere, of course they may send you notices when its time to renew your free listing etc..

Tell your friends and family.

If you have a restaurant, store or someone you know that wouldn't mind allowing you to put up a flyer or a business card stand (can make a neat one in clay) and leave it with them. You could have friends put their names on the back of the cards so that if someone buys something from you they can get 10% commission or 10% off anything you sell, etc... give them an incentive and you never know what you can get others to allow you do.

Craig's List and other Free to post online community classifieds. Post your link to your site and what your advertising in your message, choose the category that's appropriate and hope for the traffic to start flowing in or if you leave a number your phones are beginning to ring.

I hope these tips help you on your journey to new store ownership no matter what it is your selling Deb. I hope this can help anyone trying to open up a business of their own and market their items/products, services or whatever you wish to deal in. All basically the same principles. Advertise!!! You will get it all back at the end of the year when its time to answer to Uncle Sam.

Cre8ively Yours

Andrea "Cre8"

CDHM Miniature Forum: Live Tutorial

We have an exciting Live tutorial for you Saturday, September 19, 2009
that you will not want to miss. There is still time to gather your
materials and register for the class.

Learn To Make 1:12 Raffia Baskets
Instructor: Hanna Meronen (hannajaleijona)
Class: Sep 19, 2009 :: Time: 8pm Eastern (Eastern European Summer Time
(EEST) +0300 UTC) Finland
http://forums.cdhm.org/index.php/board,388.0.html

Check your local time conversion for this class:
http://forums.cdhm.org/index.php/topic,8884.0.html

Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

The New Craft Smart Clay 88 Cents, Save 25-50 % Off Michael's and More

Michael's Crafts This week The new clay if you wish to give it a try for yourself if only 88 cents. Its supposed to be the lowest price of the season.

Sale started today Sunday September 13th and runs through until Saturday September 19, 2009.

Crafts smart Modeling Clay

2 oz./57g Reg. $1.29

50% OFF Michaels Coupon

Also if you get the paper you may enjoy the 50% off any one Regular Prices Item (excluding sale items) coupon. If not click

http://www.mycraftcoupons.com/ and find the coupons you want and print easily print them out. No registration or downloads required.

25-40% AC Moore

Enjoy various 25%-60% off coupons* for AC Moore locations. Coupon valid Sunday, September 13, 2009 through Saturday, September 19, 2009.

40% OFF Joanne's Fabrics and Crafts

Enjoy 40% off any one regular priced item* at Joann locations. Coupon valid through Wednesday, October 7, 2009.

40% OFF Hobby Lobby

Enjoy 40% off any one regular priced item* at Hobby Lobby locations. Coupon valid Monday, September 14, 2009 through Saturday, September 19, 2009

Enjoy!!!

Cre8ively Yours

Andrea “Cre8”

Ain't That Purdy Make Your Own Tombstone - Video Tutorial

Here is my favorite You Tube entertainer Zipster as a very funny character called Loco Mama. She.. he will show you how to make these awesome looking tombstones for your Halloween decorations. Use them for your lawn, doorway or turn your home into a cool spooky house for a party.


Well with any holiday or occasion you could use these same tips to make other lawn ornaments and signs. I was thinking the stork for a new baby, baby shower. Cakes, bears and other characters for a birthday or special celebration. How about creating a complete Circus scene for someones very special day.

**WARNING**

The following video is sure to cause you extreme laughter and possible cramps or soreness in your stomach and or cheeks. Andrea "Cre8", tinycrafts.com and or our current or future sponsors or affiliates can be held liable for your liking and or becoming addicted to the creator of such entertaining comedy. May not be appropriate for all ages however I would rate it PG.

If the video above does not play click on the following link:
YouTube - LOCO MAMA's Ain't That Purdy "Tombstone Edition"




*Personal Disclaimer* This is an actual tutorial meant to teach the viewer how to create something useful and decorative for Halloween. The character depicted in the video is in no way mocking nuns or making fun of any gender or religious sect of people and or making a mockery out of people who may choose to have same-sex relations such as when she refers to the Home Depot as Homo Depot. The Owner of this blog believes that the tutorial itself is useful and is a great method of teaching others how to create something fun. It contains the key elements to qualify as being craft related thus belonging here on this craft blog. She believes also that the character depicted in the video is one she herself truly enjoys and highly recommends the viewing of such character and his/her additional content on YouTube, Subscribe to his channel and enjoy future videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/Zipster08


***Special note to Zipster AKA Loco Mama" Whom I came to know her him by. I love you Zipster!!! You Go GIRL!!! BOY!!! <3

Hearts, Roses & Stripes Polymer Clay Canes - Tutorial

These beautiful items shown here created by the talented Rebekah Payne of Tree Wings Studio, the bowl, picture frame and pen contains elements created with polymer clay in a beautiful compliment of colors with the red roses, the tones of greens in the leaves and wonderfully stark black in the background.

On her blog, Rebekah shows you the easiest rose and leaf cane I have ever seen made using two skinner blend bulls-eye plugs. She shows you step by step as she fashions together he own rose and leaf cane but credits hers after the wonderfully talented Leigh Ross tutorial on Polymer Clay Central's tutorial section of their website . You can find her tutorial online here .

Rebekah then shows you how she creates a beautiful striped cane, the same she used to embellish the items shown in the image above.

Click here for her version of a wonderful tutorial! I give it an AAA+

Tree Wings Studio

Hope you enjoyed this, please do comment and let me know what you think.

Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

A One-of-a-Kind Miniature Castle

As quoted from the website: http://www.dollhousecastle.com/
The Dollhouse Castle is owned by Dr. Michael Freeman and his wife Lois Freeman and is currently on loan to the Nassau Museum of Art Tee Ridder Division. It is an incredible one of a kind masterpiece valued (and officially appraised) at $1.1 million. It is a work of art unparalleled in the area of miniatures and miniature structures. It is 100% handcrafted in a 1” to 1’ scale and stands a grand 9 feet high (not including the base), is over 5 feet wide, and weighs about 800 pounds. The quality, depth, and attention to detail are so realistic that an interior photo (no matter how high quality) gives no clue that in fact, the photo is of a miniature. Each photo looks as if it is of an actual full size room. The level of detail ranks it as one of the finest miniature structures in the world today. Over 100,000 pieces are contained within its walls, that were built, commissioned, or purchased to the highest standards. It contains gold, original oil paintings, and handcrafted moldings. It must be seen in person to be believed!

Hope you enjoyed this, please comment and let me know what your thinking, what you like to see from me and more. I love to read your comments to me.

Cre8ively Yours

Andrea "Cre8"

Life-Sized (full-scale) Dollhouse by Heather Benning

Well Mary, my friend and partner in the Air Dry Clay group we founded together online on Yahoo Groups, sends me this link. I am in awe over this and just had to post about it.

Still ...Two questions remain, though: (1) what would it look like if you populated it with poseable figures and (2) how strange would it be to try and live in such an enclosure?

As a miniaturist and person who owns a few "dollhouses" of my own I was intrigued by this wonderful find online and the images that show you from inside and out on this one blog, although there are many blogs online who have posted something or another about it. I also could not find a website for the wonderful artist Heather Benning.

Life-Sized Dollhouse Design

Enjoy!!!

Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

Abney Park - Sleep Isabella - Steampunk Music

Steampunk in everything even Steampunk music.

Enjoy this Music Video, the music is wierd but nice almost Morroccan or something like that, and the costumes of the cast are certainly Steampunkish.

Enjoy!!!


Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

Multi Colored Skinner Blend - Instruction Discussion

The questions was asked in one of my polymer clay message groups, how can you cut the clay for making a multi colored skinner blend so it will fit in the pasta machine from left to right (side to side) Horizontally.

Well I just happened to have made a multi colored skinner blend the other day. I figured I would just have to cut my clay smaller to accommodate the maximum width I could achieve within the allowance of the guides in my pasta machine (Atlas Mercado). Approximately 5 + 3/4". Everyone says 6" but its really not.

With a skinner blend you want to keep folding your rolled out clay up over top of itself, keeping the like colors vertically (up/down).

Like most new teachers who try to teach things in a hurry I left out the most important sample to show you by not taking a picture of the blend when it was complete.

However I did take a picture of the plug I made from the blend I had created. (See image on Left)

This is really a good way to condition many colors at once. As soon as you have made your skinner blend you can fold it like a brochure and then run it through on a thinner setting on your pasta machine to get a long strip of all the colors of clay.

You can fan fold it like I did in the image above, before creating the plug you see. You can choose to cut each colors at their end before its blend into the next color and just use the colors on their own now all conditioned for you and ready to use.

Here I just rolled out the plug above and was making it into a long snake. I later used it as a chop and toss Natasha Mix I made rainbow beads with my new bead roller sets from Poly-Tools.

I will show those off in a later blog post when I have finished polishing/sealing them.

Hope you enjoyed this demonstration!

Cre8ively Yours

Andrea "Cre8"

Movies with Steampunkish things in them to get your inspired

5 Weeks in a Balloon 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Nemo uber alles, in general)
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Air Captain and the World of Tomorrow (diesel on a quibble) Air-pirates
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Dark City
D. Gray Man
Back to the Future III - All of Doc Brown's Wild West gadgets.
Castle in the Sky
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
City of Ember
City of Lost Children - Some very steam punk tech and Props - A great French film with a lot of bazaar technology(with Ron Perlman and Brad Dourif {sp?})-
Delicatessen
The Disney Atlantis movie
Doc Savage (okay, pretty diesel)
Dr. Who/Torchwood - TV Series, available on DVD, some very steampunk planets and tech, clockwork villains, in one episode 51st century's space ship is intertwined with 18th century Versailles.
Escaflowne
Fearless Vampire Hunter
Fifth Element. The flying noodle bar And the (spelling) Monacheewa ship. Firefly: (TV SERIES) Okay, more like space cowboys meet steam technology. But the series is great and well worth a watch :D Haven't seen the movie (titled Serenity after the ship) but I hear it's good too.
First Men in the Moon
Food of the Gods
Full Metal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alcehmist: Conqueror of Shamballa
Geo-Armour (anime),
The Golden Compass
Jason and the Argonauts (just for the big metal dude)
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Any Hammer film with the word "Frankenstein" in the title Any Hammer film with the word "Dracula" in the title Hellboy - Props, Abe's office, and the clockwork villain The Holy Mountain -The weapons
Howls Moving Castle, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and Nausica: Valley of the Wind: (ANIME/MOVIES) Only Howls Moving Castle has any evidence of Victorian-era inspiration, but all of them employ technology that seems much more advance for the time. Laputa, especially, with it's air pirates and steam-powered mine trains. Nausica is almost post-steampunk, but the lives of the people are dependant on jerry-rigged technology.
Kronos: the Vampire Killer
Last Exile
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - (With Sean Connery) lots and lots of period/advance technology
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland: (ANIMATED MOVIE) Based loosely on the early 1900's newspaper comics. The beginning is set in Victorian/Edwardian era, and follows Nemo -who is NOT a fish- as he finds himself in Slumberland. It's definitely a kids movie, but there are steam trains, airships, and Victorian-styled clothing, so I think it's a good movie for the little Stempumpkins in our lives.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Kenneth Brannah
Metropolis - the Anime version, steam world.
Moulin Rouge
The Mutant Chronicles (B-movie, made for Sci-Fi)
The Mysterious Island
Mysterious Mercenaries
Naked Lunch - The typewriter
Perfect Creature
The Prestige Recent. David Bowie as Nicola Tesla!
Reanimator - And Basically Anything by Brian Yuzna
Robot Carnival a series of shorts (Anime)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (honorary)
Seven Voyages of Sinbad (just for the Minotaur)
"The Shadow (okay, pretty diesel)
Stardust
Steamboy - Anime, steampunk universe Here is a link to The Steamboy Anime if you want to take a look, you may not be able to understand it though. http://www.56.com/u84/v_MTY4OTgyNzM.html
The Time Machine Tin Man (Sci-Fi Channel)
Time After Time
US The Secret Adventures of Jules VerneValley of Gwangi (cowboys and dinosaurs, hurray!) Van Hellsing - Crap Movie, cool weapons Voyagers (Old TV series now on DVD) I know- not a movie- but the plot often involves mixing of technology across different time periods in unique ways to solve plot issues...
Warehouse 13 (TV show on Sci-Fi)
The Watchmen
The Water EngineWild West Tech - Shows cool and innovative gadget that really did exist, great inspiration.Wild, Wild West - Mad Scientist Villain set in the Wild West. Young Frankenstein

Not a movie but something to see now:
Check out this Bridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smaller.JPG

Here is a video of a Steampunk Fair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b75vrsoT8qM

California Steampunk Convention 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5dJ1YLNC64

True Steampunk - Images of Steampunkish things
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkpfU2DRE-E

Steampunk Final Fantasy Anime Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2YIUdhhkYY

Abney Park - She last Exile - Anime Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCDd8_4Wz6g&feature=related

Steampunk 0001 - Video showing lots of steampunk things
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vpacKQG-IE

Steampunk Trailer - Video of making of Game - Shows lots of Steampunk - Ruggid Functional hard Edged weapons, vehicles and more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn8BXzGJQ8M

Here is a cool video of a game called Cogs, which are the gears in the workings of a clock:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZzWVkJ5fZk



Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"

"How can I make even strips of clay for weaving a basket?"

Okay the question was asked, "how can I make even strips of clay for weaving a basket?"





One of my answers was that if you had the added attachment that may have come with your pasta machine you could roll the clay out on the pasta machine and then run it through the added fettuccine attachment and get nice even strips of clay all the same width, and thickness. Length depends on how long you roll the clay out. You can make it as wide as your pasta machine and then run it through the attachment.





I had never before used this attachment. When I did though there was a little streaking of rust, but very little. Only warning those of you who might like to try this to run some scrap clay through it a few times to help clean yours up a bit.





Now I did this example/test with polymer clay because I did not want to mix up a batch of ADC just for this. None the less it worked amazingly well and I believe it would work for most other clays you would put through your pasta machine that at least had a nice dough consistency. Now I did not use talc or cornstarch or anything, just put it through the machine after a bit of conditioning and a few passes to make a flat sheet of clay through the pasta machine. If you have a clay that feels a bit sticky or tacky you may wish to give it a generous coating of talc or corn starch before running it through to ensure it does not get stuck in the slits of the attachment. It appears that there is not real way to clean it out if it should.









I then took the strips of clay and weaved them into the basket weave. Up, under, Up, Under, etc.. and then I cut it out using my large square cookie cutter as shown the collage above. It was a quick few passes with the clay to make the flat sheet and some of the strips of clay I used were not really straight so I decided to draw some lines on it with my needle tool and I think it looks pretty neat. Would make a nice piece as earrings, a ring, pendant, background for a cabochon, etc.. So may things I can see myself covering with these. There is an even smaller attachment on the other side of the fettuccine cutter side I need to try to see what it will cut. Have to wait till I have a bit more time on my hands. Still am late on my August baby challenge baby.

Other methods suggested was to use a paper guillotine, a clay gun with the ribbon disc or just measure, mark and cut with a straight edged tool of some kind.

Cre8ively Yours

Andrea "Cre8"

New September Edition AIM Miniatures Magazine FREE Online Edition

No matter what craft your into, most are into miniatures or should be...so here is a little something to infect you all with the miniature bug if you have not already been bitten =-)



September edition (Issue 15) of the FREE AIM miniatures magazine is now
available to enjoy online at (http://www.artisans inminiature. com/)

Enjoy!
Cre8ively Yours
Andrea "Cre8"