New location

I've been busy and have moved over to my new blog. Hope to see you there soon!

New Cypher Necklace

This blog has moved to a new home. Click HERE to be re-directed. Hope to see you there!  

Loop dangle earrings in silvery blue

Goodbye...and hello

This will be the last official post here at Jibby and Juna as I move every thing over to my new blog.

They'll be some pretty big news over there tomorrow. 

Head on over and click to follow to get the whole scoop.

A small island...hint, hint.

Working on bits and pieces that have been waiting around to "become" something. If/when I can get the photos to turn out they'll be posted to the shop. (Hopefully later this week!) 

Thursday will be the last post on this blog and I'll be transferring over to the new blog.  

Terracycle

After reading my last post about worry over waste, my daughter suggested I contact a company called TerraCycle to see if they are able to accept baked polymer clay for recycling. Does anyone send waste through their collection programs already?

TerraCycle Symbol on a plastic container

 They recycle all manner of plastics and their mantra is "eliminate the idea of waste" so I emailed them. I'll let you know what happens.

Recycling plastics

I have to admit to suffering some guilt over working in plastic.

Its not plastic's "lowly" reputation that bothers me. And polymer clay, and what's being done with it, might actually be an excellent vehicle to help gain respect for plastics in general. Yes, someday I think plastic will be elevated to its proper status alongside other things we dig out of the earth, as gold and silver's super flexible, colorful, chameleon cousin. 

But for now...I am left with some guilt because, in addition to not quite being able to get completely away from "disposable" plastics (the bag), I like to carve already cured clay. So I am left with shavings of the kind of plastic that can't be recycled in my area yet. I've been seriously considering giving up carving because of my waste (that as you can see I save because I can't bare to throw it away). 

Then I saw Mike Biddle's  TED talk about the future of recycling and its given me new hope! Give it a listen if you have the chance. 

Movin' on up

Today's post is over at the new blog today! I'll be making a permanent switch to the new blog within a month so if you'd like to continue to follow, click over. 

Thank you! 

Spring cleaning

Its not spring YET but I am ready for it! I've start giving my studio a good cleaning and a bead de-stash is in order. I'm listing sets of beads in the shop this week. 

I'm even listing a couple carved beads which I once told someone (sorry) that I would NEVER do (sell loose carved beads that is).  

Work, work

Words are failing me today. We are into some heavy spots in our homeschooling year and days can feel a bit laborious. Its great to have a husband who takes care of dinner/clean up so I can spend evenings in the studio.

And the winner is...

... Adriana who chose the Grey Mountain earrings with second place going to Emily who will receive the Blue House earrings! I'll be in contact today to get your snail mail addresses and will ship your earrings out asap!

Above was the real draw. I didn't think about how the scrap paper was going to look in photos so we "staged" the chosen names on nice brown paper but the "closed eyes, pick a name" thing was all completely accurate and apparently so stressful and exhausting for Samuel that he had to have a second breakfast. (He says PLEASE don't be upset with him if your name wasn't chosen :-)

Winner to be announced!

Thanks to everyone who followed and commented on the Give Away! The winner will be announced next Tues. Feb. 26. 

Have a great weekend! 

Shape earrings with rivets - in the shop soon! 

Tube rivets continued

I thought you might like to see some interesting metal tube rivets.  I particularly liked these because here, tube rivets are used as design rather than a connection. The rivet becomes the focal point, almost like an industrial "gem". 

Thank you to the artist, Lorrie Mason at Masonmetaldesigns, for letting me post her rings here. She uses tube rivets is a lot of the pieces - just check out her Etsy shop. 

Rivet Copper Ring by Lorrie Mason

Don't miss the polymer mock tube rivet how-to and the GIVE AWAY on my last post ! 

It runs until Friday, Feb 21 at 1pm! 

How-to and Give away

I trained as a metalsmith so I still think in terms of metal techniques sometimes. And sometimes...this doesn't work at all but other times it does, as in the case of tube rivets.

For those who are unfamiliar, a tube rivet is a cold connection for metal - meaning no soldering required. You drill a hole into two pieces of metal that you want to connect, line up the holes and put a small piece of metal tubing into the hole. Then you hammer into the tube, flaring the edges and sandwiching the metal pieces together.  I don't NEED this technique to connect polymer but you can use it as an interesting way to finish a hole.

Materials:

- polymer clay in colors of your choice

       I'm using bright yellow and medium grey for the tube rivet as it "suggests" sterling silver                    

- large needle

- pasta machine and roller

- cutters, patterns or templates of your choice

- flexible blade

1. Condition your polymer and make a base shape, cut out with a cutter or template or, as I did, just roll a blob through the pasta machine on the thickest setting.

2. Next make very tiny balls of grey clay - these are your mock tube rivets - they can of course vary in size but mine were about the size of peppercorns.

3. Mark a whole with your needle in the flat piece of clay to mark your opening.

4. Put the small ball of clay over the hole and CAREFULLY flatten with your acrylic roller. You don't want to squish the earring,  especially if you have any texture on it, and you don't want the rivet totally imbedded in the surface. Go slowly, you can always roll a little more if you need to. You want it close but not totally flush with the surface of the earring.

5. Re-pierce the hole with your needle and widen it further by twirling the needle.

6. Bake according to package directions. 

7. Enlarge the hole even more with a drill if you'd like. (I do.) The hole should correspond in size to the rivet - the larger the rivet, the larger the hole should be. 

Optional: if you like you can distress your earring with black acrylic at this point, wiping the excess off quickly. The little bit that is left at the edge of the rivet enhances the effect even further. Still too much paint? Buff with some steel wool. 

So here I've used this idea with some of my Shape earrings - I'm sure you can modify it to suit your purposes and style.

top: Grey Mountain earrings
bottom: Blue House earrings

The give away is now closed! Thanks to everyone who followed and commented. The winner will be announced Tuesday, Feb. 26!

I'm no longer posting to this blog but you can follow my new blog here...

How-to postponed

Feeling under the weather (cough, cough, cough...)

and the how-to I'm working on didn't get finished. I'll post  - How I make mock tube rivets with polymer - next Tuesday along with a give away for one of the pairs of earrings I made using the technique. Have a good weekend! 

Special Delivery

Happy belated birthday to me! I received some money for my birthday and decided to buy something I had wanted since I first saw it...a Bookhou Smock Apron.

Its wonderfully made, the linen is a gorgeous dark inky blue (one of my favorite colors) and 

the pocket is perfect, big and deep.

Creativity in other places

Considering the quantity of time I spend on the internet its bizarre to come upon things, good things, good sites that I've never heard of - proof of just how MUCH is out there I guess. Thats what I thought when I found "101 Cookbooks - a recipe journal". Its full of great recipes 

accompanied by gorgeous photos.

This brussel sprout recipe for instance will please my gang who are all sprout fans. 

I am stepping away from the computer a little this month and giving attention and time to family and some other projects that have been on the back burner for a while. My Etsy shop will stay open but I won't re-list items as often and I'll let old designs expire. I'll keep posting here though, shooting for twice a week. 

Thanks for the follows on my new blog! I'll be shifting things over there sometime soon so if you'd like to keep following you can head over there and "click". 

Nothing comes from nothing

I love when something new comes from going back to an old design or just looking at something from a different perspective.

My Small Polygon earrings (shown in grey) are just made by tracing the top part of a longer Shape earring (shown in aubergine).

Update on The Book!

I was recently taking care of some legal permission-y, copyright sort of stuff for the upcoming polymer clay book by Cynthia Tinapple. We now have a tentative title and a bit of an idea of what the cover might look like and its starting to feel...real. 

Diamond shaped inside out beads from Claire Maunsell (Sorry folks, these are sold. Aren't they great though?)

One thing I really find exciting is that beyond the 13  featured artists (of which I am one) and their projects there will be work from 125 artists from around the world featured gallery style. Sounds like it will surely appeal to us visual types who like books heavy on pictures!

His name is my name too.

Shape series earrings in progress

Someone apparently already has my name as their username on Etsy because apparently...they have the same name. (I'm trying to find the humor here and find myself humming "John Jacob Jinglehimmer Schmidt, His name is my name too!" Do you know it? Hum along...) So although there is no Etsy shop called Genevieve Williamson, I can't use it as a shop name either.

So for now the best solution seems to be to leave well enough alone, continue with Jibby and Juna on Etsy and just link from my new website. So my business name will be Genevieve Williamson, and Jibby and Juna will just be my Etsy shop. Does that make sense?   Sometime in the next couple weeks/month I'll be switching over to my new blog - you can head over there now and click to follow if you'd like. 

Admiration

Here is some of my newly found and admired wearable art from my Pinterest board. I think the winter landscape is influencing my sensibilities perhaps as I really feel drawn to black and white pieces. 

The artist's names are links so you can click through to see more of their work.

Luca Tipaldi

Pilar Cotter

Eriad

Quench Metalworks

Securing post earrings - how I do it

Although I've never had a problem with backs coming off of post earrings, I know cyanoacrylate
 glue (Super Glue) can break down with time. So I decided to start covering/securing posts by enclosing them with another thin layer of polymer clay. This is the process I've come up with. 

(Sorry for the blue photos - dang this winter light!) 

First, I glue the earring back in place with cyanoacrylate glue and allow to dry. This will hold the post in place still while I work.

My materials are...the earrings, small piece of scrap computer paper, small lump of clay the same color as the back of the earrings, tiny needle, tiniest circle Kemper cutter, blade and Genesis medium (you could use liquid polymer but the Genesis is thicker and does ooze as much). 

 I roll the clay very thin (second to the thinest setting on my pasta machine) and cut 2 circles with the Kemper cutter. 

I put a small dot, just as a marker really, in each of the circles of clay using a small needle. And I put a hole in the paper using the same needle. 

Next I put a thin layer of Genesis medium on the back of the earring.

 I put one of the circles onto the earring back and push it all the way down to the base. 

Then I put the paper right over the post, all the way down to the clay circle. I've shown it here in one hand but I actually use both hands, pinching with thumb and forefinger, pushing the paper down, turning the earring as I go, making the clay circle flatter and flatter to the earring. Pull the paper up, check the clay, push flatter if you need to. Until it looks like this... 

This is what they look like when they're finished, just about perfect circles, no texture, smooth against the ear. (I've already darkened the earrings so that the circles that I just made show up but normally I would do my finial finish with acrylic after they are cured.) It really doesn't take very long at all to do this extra step and I think it will increase the strength and longevity of my earrings going forward.

And I'm all about going forward.  

Connecting

I'm experimenting with ear wires and with hoop earrings in general.

This carved hoop hangs but is still technically a post earring. I'm wondering if it would be better with the wire coming directly out of the back of the polymer (which might be a logistical issue, getting the wire embedded, but not something I can't solve).

Let me know what you think... and have a great weekend!

What's in a name

After careful consideration, I've decided to change my business name. As important as using Jibby and Juna (the names of my childhood, imaginary friends) was to me when I opened my Etsy shop in 2008, using my full name for business purposes is, as one wise friend said, better for the long haul.

Willow carved necklace

Maybe I was short sighted,  maybe I needed to dream bigger. And I think now is the time to make the shift. I'm a little scared though.

I'll start the process sometime in the next couple of weeks.