BLOG stands for Blooming Long Overdue Gabble!

Well, the New Year's resolution's going well isn't it. Already into April and only the second blog of the year! I write amazing blogs you know...…………...while I'm on my dog walks. I chat away to myself, I'm witty, clever, and interesting; then sit in front of the computer and all I can say is "I'm late again!".
My mother was an English teacher, I don't think I've taken after her.
Anyway, I've been doing quite a lot recently. But the first thing I have to say is...………….
I'M SO EXCITED, PEOPLE ARE MAKING PAT THE FLAT COW!!!!!!!
My Polymer Clay Adventure project went live on Easter Friday, and someone's already made her cow. I'd like to show you but it's her photo, if I get permission I'll post it. It's so strange knowing that people are watching my videos of the process of making Pat. 
If you're interested in joining the Polymer Clay adventure, the price is usually $120 for the 23 wonderful tutorials, but as it's my month to show, if you go though my link, it will only cost you £99. Not a bad price for 23 fully video'd tutorials from experienced clay artists (and me!) The link is https:gumroad.com/a/40744051   
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In February I went back to Rome, for three days of polymer clay workshops by incredible tutors. This year we had Kathleen Dustin, Fabiola Perez Ajates, and Olga Ledneva, and oh boy, what a lot we learned. I've attended Kathleen and Fabiola's workshops before, but these ladies are so talented that I could attend workshops with them for a year and would probably still not learn everything they know. I talked to David, Fabiola's son who attends with her, and he said that she spends around 8 hours a day in her workshop! Anway, these are the results of my three days. The single pendant is from Kathleen's class, the assortment of four pendants were from Fabiola's class, the two pendants with animal transfers on were from Olga's class, and I made a chicken in the style of each of the tutors. Not sure all were impressed!!! The last picture is of, from left to right, my lovely friend Judy who I met in Rome last year and have become firm friends, Fabiola (have to say my favourite tutor of all time), me, and my other lovely friend who I met last year as well, Jackie.

So, after Rome comes Polymania. It's useful that the two main clay workshops are at the beginning of the year, February and March, before the carriage driving season starts. However, we weren't banking on Corvid-19 rearing its ugly head. Cara Jane Hayward is incredible. She tried her hardest to run the event, but government recommendations dictated at the last minute that it was not to be. Donna Kato (one of the tutors) had to rush back to America, Bettina Welker was in Germany, and Sarah Shriver was in America, and neither could leave. So, we had the first 'video-linked' polymania, three days of interactive videos from the tutors with a live facebook group to ask questions. "Where there's a will there's a way" is obviously the polymer clay community's motto, especially when lead by the formidable Cara Jane. This was the set up in my house, prepared for Sarah Shriver's class, and my final efforts.

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After the excitement of the workshops, I was inspired to do something different myself. An advent for a peroskey stone popped up on my facebook feed and I was blown away by how beautiful they are. I looked on google (what did we do before google?) and found they  The Petoskey stone is fossilized pre-historic coral fossilized rugose coral found in the Michigen, USA;.

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I decided to have a go at replicating it, and resisted the temptation to see if any other polymer clay artist had already done so, as it was unlikely that they hadn't and I didn't want to be influenced in how I made it. After a couple of tries I was really pleased with the result. But more exciting than that was that Dr Ron Lehocky saw the cane and liked it. I then sent him some of the canes and he made heart out of them. For those who don't know about Dr Ron Lehocky, he is a retired children's doctor and has been working with special needs children since 1974. Sales of his unique hand-made heart brooches have raised over $100,000 for the Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies in Louisville, Kentucky. In 2016 he'd made around 33,750 pins since beginning the project 10 years before.
Each heart-shaped pin cost $10 and every penny goes to the Kide Centre. Polymer clay artist donate their spare canes and he makes the most incredible pins with them. Here are just a few of his hearts. 

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The pink and grey ones are from my canes (cue little happy dance!) Dr Ron has also made a free video demo of how he makes his hearts. I'm not quite computer savvy enough to give you the link, but if you google it, or look on youtube, you're bound to find it, it's very clever.
I was due to have a back operation in April, but that has obviously been cancelled. In preparation for it I was trying to get as many projects photographed for book number two, so that if I had to sit still for a few weeks, I'd have something to keep me going. So, the Petoskey stone photos are waiting to be made into a tutorial, along with my latest animal, the Llama.

I've done the photos for the body and coat, but now have to work out some original canes to use for the blanket and packages. Something else to do while sitting down!
I'm  going to leave you with a project that started off with a little idea, and grew into a much much larger one. For Polymania, we usually have a swap, we are given a project to make and we then 'swap' them between us, it's a great way to see other people's work and get to know them better. The swap this year was a bookmark. I decided I wanted to make a stack of cups (as you do!), so of course, instead of just making it, I took photos of it, and it will eventually end up in book 2. However, I so enjoyed the process, that I made one with cats. That went well, so I decided to go bigger and make a vase. That also went well so I moved onto a dog vase. That was a HUGE piece of work, and oddly enough didn't come out as well as the cat vase, but I learnt a lot. All they wanted was a bookmark. I made three, and two vases! Here are the photos. Bye bye, lets see if I can write the next blog in under three months!!!!