If you give a beadmaker a medium....

...she'll make beads! I don't know if you know the children's book, If You give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff but if you are, you'll get the joke.

The reason I played with the title of the children's book is because I'm frozen out of my studio. It's unheated as I've complained about for years now but we won't be remodeling it soon. I need to make beads, I need to use my hands and when I'm frozen out, I start to bite my nails as a substitute. When that happens, I troll around my office for what I can do at the coffee table and I found it, my stash of poly clay.





I know normally, we don't refer to a "stash" of any medium but it applies here. I add to it every so often and don't make much with it. But lately, I've been drawing out some ideas for the bronze clay and thought I'd try to work them out in polymer first.

Sometimes, I just want to get my hands into a medium as opposed to working the medium with tools like with glass. I love glass but you can't touch it to work it. There's something very satisfying about manipulating the polymer with your hands.

I played with the ideas I have drawn out and technique as well - things like do I prefer to insert an eyepin or do I prefer to make a beadhole? I cured my experiments and snapped a quick photo to post.



Making these prototypes by getting my hands into the work, satisfied my need to create beads. Guess cold weather isn't all bad, huh?