Finished with 2 pre-conference workshops' clay conditioning and one conference workshop.  Next one wants a large package each of white and of black.  The white takes a lot of beating to get somewhat ready to condition.  I think the black takes less, but only time will tell!  It sure is mindless activity - kind of relaxing, actually, since I'm using an electric motor on my pasta machine.

Here's something I worked on for the Etsy PCAGOE team challenge:

She's sort of a butterfly goddess - the challenges was for critters with wings.  But I'd made so much butterfly wing cane that I decided to use it up making butterfly cane.  Thus:

This will become a clock called 'Butterflies and Marigolds'.  This is the 'before sanding and buffing - just out of the oven' stage of the project.  I also got a half dozen bookmarks out of the rest of this sheet of clay.  Now to work on other uses for these butterflies!

My foot is healing reasonably well - I'm off the walker and able to drive, but have to wrap my foot in a plastic bag to go out of doors since it's snowing and all I'm allowed to wear on it is this silly sandel thing.

So I had bunion surgery last Friday.  Today went back to the Doctor, got a new dressing, stitches coming out next week.  I get this funny little open-toe shoe to walk around in (Hey - it's WINTER here, Doc!  Snow and stuff!), but I'm not supposed to get the dressing wet.  But I CAN drive, now!!  So the walker can go back down to the garage.  And I can sit at the computer for an hour or so at a time.

I've been conditioning clay for Cabin Fever Clay Fest - about an hour at a time over the past 3 days or so.  I've finished all the clay for 1 of the pre-conference workshops and about half the clay for a second.  Maybe I'm 1/4th of the way through all the clay that needs to be conditioned.  Still have to collect all the tools and stuff over the next 3 weeks.  AND catch up on all my email and snail mail that's accumulated over the past week.  And start getting income tax stuff together.

So nice to have loads of free time...

So I created a new Etsy listing:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/66376535/butterfly-goddess

Considering all the work that went into her, I'm not really happy with the expression on her face...  Nor with my photography.  It's a learning curve, I guess, but a long and slow one for me.  Maybe if I spent more time working with the polymer clay - AND with my photography - I'd be happier with my Etsy shop.  As it is, I've signed up for a digital photography course through Phipps Conservatory, so I'll be taking pictures of flowers, I suppose, rather than of polymer clay items for sale.  Sigh...

In September.  Traveled from Barcelona to Madrid to Seville to Costa del Sol.  And I have some photos from that trip if I dare try to upload them.  But First - here are some of the polymer clay items I was trying to put into my previous blog.  We have a clown figure, my MSOE December challenge entry (beaked toads), a detail of the frog pond clock, another view of the beaked toads, and a 'stars and posies' clock hung on a wall.

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Oops - the Spain pictures are on the laptop.  They'll have to wait for another entry...

So what happened to all the text I already wrote?

I can't seem to change my theme, insert photos where I expect them to be (i.e., below my text) or even insert all the photos I plan on putting in.  No wonder I haven't bothered with Xanga for several months!  And HELP is just a forum with no organization to the questions and answers.  

So, anyway, the photo above is a clock I call "Frog Pond Clock".  It's listed on my etsy site:   www.marcympc.etsy.com.  Polymer clay over wood - a frog hunting insects as you can see.  

I'm not sure about going back to photos to see if I can insert another picture, especially since this wasn't supposed to be the picture I was inserting in the first place.  

In other news, the craft fair season is over.  I was going to insert pictures of my booth, some items I've made this year, etc.

We're getting geared up for family coming into town for the holidays - very complicated scheduling this year.  Eric got married in August - his stepsons spend Christmas Day with their Dad, so he doesn't get here until Dec. 26th.  We'll have 2 present-opening days this season!  Dan and family get here on Dec. 22nd, we visit with Anne & family on 22nd and 23rd because they leave for Ithaca and other relatives on the 24th.  Dan's group goes to stay with Karen's dad for a few days on the 24th, leaving Tom and me alone on the 25th.  So we're going to a friend's house for dinner on Christmas Day!!  It all gets very confusing - but I think I've got it straight for the moment.  And everyone will be gone on Dec. 30th.  That I am sure of.

It's been a quiet summer.  I've not been in the garden very often and it looks it.  Black-eyed-Susans and balloon flower have taken over.  Right now I've got a second bloom on both due to having cut them back after the main flowering had faded - so I guess I've done something!  But I've surely not been weeding like most summers.  Most of my "native plants" (which, in my garden, seems to mean 'invasive' or 'used to be called weeds until someone decided the flower was interesting') are out of control and moving in on all their neighbors.  I could just let the whole thing go and call it a 'wildflower garden' I suppose.

The craft show season has started.  I've got some new kinds of polymer clay items for sale - wall plaques (or maybe refrigerator magnets if I get around to gluing on magnets - didn't think of it until someone suggested it at the first show of the season last weekend) and figurines.  I'd include a photo, but it uploaded sideways and I can't figure out how to get it right side up.  It's OK on my computer, just not on Xanga.  Strange.

Bell's palsy is easing up - I feel like I spent a month in limbo what with pain and feeling generally foggy.  The pain has pretty much gone, but I'm still having trouble getting motivated again.  Haven't done much gardening or polymer clay, although a polymer workshop was inspirational in doing sort of mystical figures.  Maybe I'll post some photos if I ever make any.  Anyway, here's a picture of my table at a recent crafts fair:


I've decided not to do any more crafts fairs until Fall, if then. 

So now I've got Bell's Palsy which means the left side of my face doesn't work any more.  And the Doctor says 3 to 6 months like that.  Maybe a year.  And it hurts.  And it's been over a week already.  But saying 'Peter Pepper picks a peck of pickled peppers' is a true challenge now.  Not to mention that it's funny looking.  The major real problem is that my eye doesn't close completely and tends to dry out so I have to keep eyedrops with me all the time and use a patch at night.

I ran across a wonderful blog just now on - well, I guess it's on getting started.  Here's the link: http://makegreatstuff.com/did-you-get-a-timer-yet/ 

I don't know whether I'll actually do it, but I've got enough "ick" places in my life right now that I just might go ahead and try 20 minutes a day of doing the stuff I'm stuck on.  Like opening mail - mostly snail mail, but some emails, too.  Doing the bookkeeping to keep track of expenses.  Starting a polymer clay project.  I got back from the Cabin Fever Clay Fest (CFCF) with about 10 new ideas, of which I've done exactly one.  Made channel bracelets.  Which have not sold yet (2 craft fairs down and 2 to go this spring so far).  So I donated one for the silent auction at my next craft fair.

Then there's the optical illusion cane that I learned in one class.  But I keep telling myself that I've got to use up the old canes before I make any more new ones.  I do have a plethora of old canes, and some of them have even been treated with plasticizer to help get them conditioned again.  But - another ick point - I'm not doing anything with them at the moment.  Perhaps I should start just selling (new) canes instead of expecting to use them.  I really do like making up canes. 

At the moment, my Etsy site has been being neglected by me on a daily basis.  (www.marcympc.etsy.com)  The 'ick' point there is taking pictures of new items - like my bracelets that I learned at CFCF.  Another ick point is finishing 2 clocks that are "almost" ready, but need some tweaking before the clockworks can be added.  Not to mention the clocks on which I discovered that the glue on the backs of clock number sets reacts poorly with polymer clay (it seems to turn to watery oil instead of adhesive).  So I need to take off the numbers, clean up the clock faces and then use an epoxy glue to re-apply the digits. 

And I'm supposed to be active in my 2 Etsy groups - PCAOE (Polymer Clay Artists of Etsy) and MSOE (Mad Scientists of Etsy).  But without a computer that works properly, and with all my attention on trying to fix matters, I've not done much.  Good intentions don't really count. 

Still another ick is just getting started on a polymer clay project.  Any project.  That's why the 20-minute thing sounds so good.

I kept having computer troubles from about the beginning of February until this past Monday.  Now all I have to do is finish getting various softwares (is that really a word?) onto this new computer.  So most of February and March were spent fighting with computers.  For about 10 days I had 2 computers in the house, one that worked poorly and had all my files, but was no longer connected to the internet because I couldn't find the password for our home network, and the newer one that was connected to the internet by direct cable, but had none of my files.  And the new one is Windows 7 where I'd been using Windows XP.  The user interface is quite different.  Even when I used a portable hard drive to move data files, I didn't quite know how to efficiently put them on the new computer.  Finally, Monday, I decided to call (and pay) for help.  A nice young man came to the house, gave the network a new password, copied files from one computer to the other, set up my email program, and generally solved many of the problems.  Now I've got piles and piles of paper, unopened mail, and who knows what else to wade through to catch up.  I'm feeling overwhelmed!

Maybe the snow will melt someday.  So far it's very slowly melting - which is good considering that we have 3 rivers here in Pittsburgh.  At least I'm no longer living just above a creek on its floodplain!