Coming soon, on a TV near you — will be ME!

Okay, well, it won't be soon, actually. Like 6-8 months after the taping. But I'm gonna be on TV!

HGTV's That's Clever will be filming in Oklahoma City next month, and they accepted my application to be on the show. I'll be demonstrating two projects: my Mailbox Desk Set and my Poker Chip Coasters. For those of you that have seen the show, the desk set is the main project, and the coasters will be the little project they stick on at the end of the show.

For those of you who haven't seen it, That's Clever profiles 3 crafters in each 30-minute show. Each crafter demonstrates a project from start to finish, with a fair helping of goofiness thrown in. And while some viewers don't care for the antics (my mom originally swore she wouldn't watch it, even if I was on!), I suspect throwing in some silly stuff will make me a little less nervous & make the 6-8 hours (!) of filming a little more fun for everyone.

The filming will be sometime between May 15th and May 29th, which gives me just under a month to fix up the house, go on a diet, get a good haircut, buy a new outfit — AND learn about things like making project step-outs and crafting in front of a camera. I'd better get busy!

I'll be posting details about the taping — and once I get info on when the show will air, I'll post that too. I'm excited and a little nervous — but it sounds like a fun adventure, and I love adventures!

Posted in: CraftyGoat.com News , That's Clever Show | TrackBacks (1)

Polymer Clay Central has announced their April 2007 Challenge theme: Textured Beads. Here's some sites to help you on your way:

Info on Texture & Beads

• Polymer Clay Web's Texturizers and Stamps has info on how to texture -- and it includes a nice list of texture ideas.
• Also check out Sarajane Helm's Textured Beads primer. I especially like the info on making and using two-part molds.
• As always, Glass Attic is an exhaustive (sometimes literally!) source of info on clay-related topics. Check out the Beads page for some texture ideas.
• While I haven't read it yet, the newly released Making Polymer Clay Beads book by Carol Blackburn looks to be a great source of inspiration. Check out Leigh Ross's review here.

Related Tutorials

• Silastone's Bubble Beads Tutorial creates gorgeous beads. She smoothed her beads out, but you could try leaving them un-smoothed if you wanted a different look with a little more texture. While you're at Silastone's blog, check out her tutorials on bumpy beads, evergreen Kissing Balls, and polymer clay raku. Lots of texture ideas!
• Sculpey's Fiorato Pendant Bead tutorial shows how to use tinted TLS on a baked polymer clay bead base to achieve a fiorato bead.
• While this isn't exactly the season for the Glow in the Dark Ghost Necklace, I like Sculpey's instructions on creating a textured tube bead.
• Polymer Clay Central offers this tutorial for textured Hollow Tube Beads. This technique is a little different -- it involves texturing the flat sheet, then making it into a bead. And the tube caps give it a nice finish.
• Finally, don't forget that many faux techniques include interesting texture ideas. Try Joann's tutorial on Making Faux Turquoise and Coral beads.

Mail your entries in by April 15, 2007, for a chance to win one of three prizes. Good luck!

Posted in: Polymer Clay

If you're using FIMO clay, you may want to double-check the temperature on those packages. The Polymer Clay People Yahoo! group has been all a-twitter the past week over new package directions showing a different baking temperature (230° F) than is listed on old packages (265° F). After various people contacted the company, the responses started trickling in... Apparently FIMO has changed their recipe and now recommends the lower baking temperature. One email from Amaco (the makers of FIMO ) states:

"We have done quality control tests here at AMACO and have found the lower temperature effective in curing all of the FIMO® clays."

So it looks like all FIMO clays -- not just the newer ones with the lower temperature listed -- will cure at 230° F. That's nice to know for folks who mix different colors of FIMO together. Course it's still tricky for folks who mix different brands together...

I haven't been able to find anything on FIMO's web site about this, which surprises me. Polymer clay artists are very cautious about temperatures, and a big change like this seems worthy of some sort of public announcement. Since there's no official site, though, thanks to Garie for sharing his email conversation with the company.

Update: The British Polymer Clay Guild posted a link to an April 2008 FIMO press release [PDF], which answers a lot of questions about the change. Here's a quote:

The optimum technical hardening temperature is 110° C. A hardening temperature of 130° C must not be exceeded.

[Conversion note: 110° C = 230° F; 130° C = 266° F]

That should help those of you who are mixing different clays together. You should be fine as long as you don't exceed 266° F.

Posted in: Polymer Clay | Comments (1)