Well, after about 4 years of promising myself, and my husband's continual nagging (!) I have finally managed to open an Etsy shop. I have chosen the name PolyOriginals, as it sort of sums up what I do, and will exclusively feature my polymer clay creations. It will be first time I have been able to offer a broad range of all my Polymer work for sale, as previously shops and galleries have only had a limited selection, depending on their own needs.

If you get a chance to pop on over and see what I am selling, that would be wonderful - you know me, never any pressure to buy, but if you felt at all able to like my shop, or an individual item, I would be extremely grateful.

​Etsy is a huge market place, and any form of support will go a long way to being able to raise my head above a very large parapet!! 

​I will endeavour to get up to date with all the modern marketing tools, and link my shop to other mediums, but anyone able to share anything to do with my shop, please do. I will hopefully begin posting here more regularly too, but of course I do still need time to create as well, or I think I would go very slightly mad !!

​Below is a Tiger face Cane Brooch, available from my shop.

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Had a great afternoon at Castlethorpe Village Hall on 27th September, as I had a stand at their Cookies and Crumbs fundraising event for MacMillan. Instead of a Friday Coffee morning, they did Sunday afternoon Tea, with lots of scrumptious home made cakes.

I had my local scenes both as prints, and for the first time as greetings cards, and they were really popular.

Now I am off to make more Elephant Necklaces, (see photo) and to try and get everything organised for the South Northamptonshire Arts Trail, 10th - 18th Oct.

A helping Hand.

People often ask me why I bother volunteering to man stalls and do demonstrations for the Polymer Clay Guild and other organisations for free. My answer is simple – because I thoroughly enjoy it. Sometimes however you can get a bit more than you bargained for, which happened to me at the Guild stand at the NEC in November.

On the 3rd day (the Saturday) I was talking to a very nice gentleman and lady about Polymer Clay and the techniques I was demonstrating. They showed a lot of interest and left their contact details. On the Sunday the gentleman came back and mentioned that he was also demonstrating, and that he was a sculptor, and would I like to see him doing a demonstration. Of course I would have loved to, but we discovered that I wouldn’t finish until after his last demo for the show was done.

To my delight, he came back to the stand later and said if I was now free, he would do a quick demo for me. I was delighted, but a few minutes later was absolutely floored when on seeing his stand, and the sculptures displayed there, I realised that the man next to me was none other than Andrew Sinclair ARBS who is, as far as I am concerned, one of the best sculptors in the UK, and I am a huge fan of his work. True to his word, he gave me a brief demonstration in sculpting the human hand, and his teaching technique made so much sense to me as a Polymer artist, that as soon as I could when I got home I made the armature of a hand, and was then just itching to cover it in Polymer.

It took me several weeks to finish all the jobs I had on, and then a lot of time to complete my hand sculpture as I was using scrap polymer clay, which was years old so it took ages to re-condition. I was originally planning to do only the underneath of the hand in scrap, and then cover it with a ‘coloured’ layer, but I fell in love with the muddy greens and browns of the scrap clay so did it all in that.

It is by no means perfect, I have a huge amount to learn, but it has given me so much pleasure to do, and I am doubly lucky that Andrew teaches workshops in Devon, so at some stage during the year I am planning to sign onto a course and learn much more.

It just goes to show, sometimes doing something for nothing, just for the pure love of it, can take you down a new path of discovery you never imagined. Thank you Andrew Sinclair.

I have been sadly lax in writing blogs, will try and improve in 2015! Here is my first.

In September 2014, I was lucky enough to go to Polydays, run by Alison Gallant, who, along with guest tutors Loretta Lam and Christine Dumont gave us 3 glorious days of workshops. I wrote a review for PolyNews, but sadly, probably because it was too long, I can be a bit verbose when I am passionate about something, it didn't make it into the issue. So, as it was already written I thought I'd publish it here, hopefully the phrase 'better late than never' applies. As you can see, I had a fantastic time and would love to go again. 

Bead Me Magazine

I have just been informed that my Poinsettia Bead instructions, originally published in Bead Magazine's Issue 34, has now been added into their free online publication Bead Me Magazine. It is in Issue no.4, page 10/11.

So if you want to download the instructions for free, follow this link;

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bead-me-magazine/id694656630?mt=8

I wish you all a very Happy Festive Season.

Having had such fun making dragons earlier in the year, I have now done a commission for a family of four!! They are so nice to make, and each seems to develop its own character as it is created. Adding 2 grown up - or nearly grown up daughters was interesting to do, especially to try and fit into a family tableau. My only concern now is that they have to be shipped abroad, and even with them being made from Premo, I am a little worried about how they will survive through the post . So I have sent Mama B first, well padded with loads of stuffing, will see how she fairs and will then send the rest of the family one by one - a good way of checking out the postal system, and also not putting all my eggs in one basket - Ooooooh Dragons eggs in a basket, now there's a thought......... I'll let you know how the posting goes - keep fingers crossed for me!!
Fiona

I am stunned, but so elated to have been featured in Polymer Clay Daily, (PCD) and am so thank full for all the comments and feedback people have given on all the different pages and formats. As I said on PCD, I am a little lost for words as a result, but so inspired to go on and do more! 

I was then further amazed to see that I was mentioned in the Polymer Arts Magazine Blog, on 26th January, discussing how to decide whether or not to keep working on a piece to further a technique.  Wow!!

I have always found the Polymer Clay community to be wonderfully generous in the way people share and detail techniques and ideas, and now I find they are equally kind in providing comments. I have also been very lucky to have been in contact with Sue Heaser since I finished my initial Box Lid, and again, she has been ultra generous in giving suggestions for getting improved results for the initial box shape and structure, so a huge thank you to Sue, and all of you for all the help, inspiration, and comments you have given. 
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