Saturday, November 30, 2013

December Challenge: Beads, Baubles, and Balls

This month PCAGOE artists explored all things seasonal. They could create jewelry, decorations, wall hangings, anything that made them feel festive as long as the creation was 50% polymer.

 
Vote and Win!
Three lucky winners will be selected in a drawing of all non-member voters and will be able to choose a prize offered by our member shops sponsoring this month's challenge. See the list of participating sponsors and prizes. 

And the entries are:
Scroll to bottom of page to vote.


1.  Flower Garden Ornament by Linda of NKDesigns
I stamped pearlized clay onto a glass ornament and added tiny flowers and leaves for a different holiday decoration.

2.  Penguin Family Outing by Betsy of PolyClayCafe
Sculpted with Sculpey UltraLight and painted with artist's grade acrylic paints. The scene is built around a 3" diameter mirror. The scene is approximately 6" x 4" and 3" tall at the tallest trees. For more views click here www.flickr.com/photos/98189899@N07/sets/72157637886829723/

3.  New Beginnings by Becky Sue of BeckySueCreations
This bead was done as my Etsy challenge piece. it was titled New Beginnings because the women is looking to the future and moving on. It was made by making mutli-layers of translucent based on techniques learned in a Kathleen Dustin class.

4.  Holiday Teapot by Lisa of HiGirls
This teapot was inspired by vintage glass tree ornaments. Applied pearlized mica on the white clay and gold metallic on the gold clay adds a little sparkle to this piece.

5.  Roly Poly Santa by Arlene  of Ashpaints
This cute little Santa started out as a plain small clear Christmas ball. It was wrapped with green polymer clay and the individual pieces are added - arms with hands, feet, beard and mustache and hat. Small black beads are used for the eyes and a needle tool was used to add texture. This little guy can either stand on his own or hang from one of the branches of your Christmas tree.

6.  Gold and Scarlet Gingko Leaf Christmas Ornament by Susan LadyFlowersbySusan
This Christmas ornament features one of my Gingko Leaves, made from Polymer Clay in Scarlet, Gold and Bronze. The leaf is accented with small carnelian beads and Swarovski crystals. A ceramic bead carries out the color scheme. A large carnelian bead and a gold tone hanging ring complete the ornament

7.  Freddy the (Reindeer Feeder) by Cindy of ArrowdaleArtStudio
This is my elf, Freddy - Freddy the Feeder, he's called, up North. It's his responsibility to keep the reindeer happy and fed. (There's another elf who curries the reindeer. I haven't met him yet, but I'm sure I willl...

8.  Toasty Warm Bird Holiday Ornament by Marie of YoungCreative
This colorful winter bird is toasty warm in his knit red cap. I sculpted him from polymer clay over a hollow egg shell. The egg is from a well-educated chicken near my home that was raised by a university dean who moonlights as a farmer.

9.  Butterfly Ornament by Jill of Jkollmann
This ornament is based on a manufactured hollow glass lentil-shape. The back is gold, pearl and silver metallic clays extruded, shaved and coiled. The molded border is highlighted with Gilder's Paste and the three butterflies have Swarovski crystal bling.

10.  Mod Cane Ornament by Freda of FredaK
A mod cane made with the extruder.

11.  Penguin Snowglobe by  Beth of CreateMyWorld
 Poor Penguin so enjoyed catching snowflakes on the tip of his tongue and eating them that he didn't heed his older siblings' warning that he would grow a snowman inside his belly and now look at what has happened! To read more about the story behind this sculpture and to view more photos of him, please check out my blog post: createmyworlddesigns.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-holiday-tribute-to-my-brothers.html

12.  Pearl Metallic Inlaid Valet No. 136 by Susan of 11BOLDstreet
 This all-season vessel is perfect for the holidays, featuring layers of pearl, white and other metallic polymer. The copper, silver, bronze colors were stamped, inlaid and sanded smooth to reveal the mica shift. The under surface was coated with translucent (and liquid) polymer, then embedded with metallic fusible fibers and mica powders. Sterling plate wire accents three ball feet.

Handmade Christmas ornament designed to hang on the tree with a mini light bulb inside to light it up. See more views in my photostream: www.flickr.com/photos/polymer_clay_creations/

14. Christmas Lights Necklace by Line of PlaySculptLive
I chose this piece for my entry of the Beads and Baubles. I swear I've had people ask me if they light up.

Vote Here

Choose your top 3 favorites. You must select 3 different artists for your vote to count. Voting is open to the public the 1-7 of each month. Note: Please wait through the brief AD page and hit "Continue" at the top of the page, when casting your vote. Read the expanded rules here.


Full Name (required for voter prize notification):
Email Address (Required for voter prize notification, you will not be sent other e-mails unless you sign up for our e-mail list):
For current Dues-Paying PCAGOE Members: What is Your Etsy Shop Name?
Please select your 1st choice: (2nd & 3rd choice must be different from your 1st.)
Please select your 2nd choice: (2nd choice must be different from your 1st and 3rd.)
Please select your 3rd choice: (3rd choice must be different from your 1st and 2nd.)
How did you hear about the PCAGOE challenge?
Would you like to join our email list? (former Newsletter subscribers already included!) monthly reminder to VOTE in our Challenges, along with important Guild announcements. Please add pcagoe@gmail.com and pcagoe.news@gmail.com to your approved senders. I already signed up
yes
no
Our members love comments! Please comment here on the entries and/or the challenge in general.

Put a website form like this on your site.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Featured Artist Peggy of Peggers Polymer Clay Creations


Featured Artist Peggy Reichenbach
Meet Peggy Reichenbach of Peggers Polymer Clay Creations and Peggers Pockets, PCAGOE feature artist from November 25th through December 8th. Her work will be showcased on our Facebook page for the next two weeks

Peggy has been working with polymer for over 10 years, since 2001… and loving it! She has been an Etsyian since 2006 and last year began doing her art full time. Peggy also teaches polymer clay classes and enjoys learning from her students. She doesn't like to talk about herself much, but she is passionate about creating. In her own words, "Designing with polymer is my passion! I love (creating) special requests… It is always a challenge to create something special and keeps my creative juices flowing." If you browse Peggy's store you will indeed see her love of creating, as each piece is full off her fun spirit. Her Peggers Polymer Clay Creations store is filled with seasonal themed sculptures and home decor items. Her Peggers pockets store features more polymer fun, including jewelry and more. Find Peggy at these locations on the web:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Peggers

http://www.etsy.com/shop/peggerspockets

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peggers-Polymer-Clay-Creations/277100943491

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Featured Artist Line Labrecque

 
Line Labrecque of Play Sculpt Live

 
Meet Line Labrecque of Play Sculpt Live - PCAGOE Feature Artist from November 11th through November 24th. Her work will be featured on our Facebook page throughout this time period.
 
Line is a self-taught polymer clay artist, living in Ottawa Ontario Canada. She loves finding beauty in many places and enjoys exploring the versatility of polymer, especially creating faux finishes. Line has a special way with giving character to her signature sculpted faces, which you may have noticed in more than one of our challenges.

She chose the name of her business, Play Sculpt Live, to reflect her fundamental philosophy on life. In her own words, "You need a balance of play and work (which for me is the sculpting, or is that the play part???) to have a well lived life. Striving for balance may not always be easy, but it should always be fun."

Find Line at these locations:

http://playsculptlive.etsy.com/
http://playsculptlive.blogspot.com/
http://facebook.com/playsculptlive
http://www.flickr.com/photos/playsculplive/

Saturday, November 9, 2013

November Challenge Winners

And the winners of the November Challenge are:

Public Vote





1st place 
Midnight Ocean by by Jill of Jkollmann



2nd place -TIE
Midnight Ocean by by Jill of Jkollmann



2nd place TIE
Sailing Away by Becky of BeckySueCreations



Drawing Winners: 

Carolyn Lawson
Jennifer James
Christie Makuck 
They get to pick a prize from one of our lovely participating sponsor shop owners.

Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you to everyone who voted and supports our challenges each month.

A sampling of comments left by voters:

- Great entries - it was really difficult to choose 3 of them. Thanks
- Love these shakers!
- Tough to decide this month I needed a fourth place for 12. Like all of them hard to narrow down.
- Awesome shakers!
- The Feed your Geek set was so clever and well done !
- The creativity in these entries warms my heart, inspires my heart and curls my toes.
- You all are such an inspiration! I just purchased my first blocks of polymer clay and came to Etsy to look at canes. I am amazed by your amazing skill and talent levels. I hope one day to be among you on Etsy!
- It keeps getting harder and harder to choose. Wonderful collection.
- cool theme!
- I love the creative things that these artists are able to do with polymer!
- I'm new to polymer clay - and love seeing all the great artists featured on the site. I liked all the entries - it was hard to choose. You all inspire me!
- Amazed at the variety of styles and what each artist did. So creative.
- The geek in me voted !
- As a glass artist I have tons of respect and appreciation to all the clay workers out there. Incredible patterns keep up the awesome work.
-This was a terrific subject/challenge this month. So interesting to see all the ways something as simple as a salt and pepper shaker can be perceived by others. Kudos.
- Thank you so much to the members who find the time to continually meet the challenges each month with such beauty and variety. I enjoy seeing the differences between the public's choices and the member's choices each month –
- This was a fun challenge that got several of us out of usual creative "box". I love to see the variety and imagination of our members.
- These are all great examples--but I have to give the nod to the out of the box old fashioned salt and pepper cellars.
- That Feed Your Geek set is truly inspired!
- Being a Geek myself, I adore the "Feed your Geek" shakers. Made my day to see those.
- So many original interpretations...so tough to choose only 3. Could have voted for originality, could have voted for level of technique difficulty but opted for the entries that struck my personal fancy at the moment of voting (which could change the next moment!) Great work everyone!