Meeting with Lacy

Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with the talented Lacy of Catholic Icing.  Being an artist, she had wanted to "get her hands on some clay" for some time, so I was glad to show her how I make my beads.   When we realized that we lived only an hour and half away from each other and that we had the "Steubenville" connection, we decided that we needed to get together soon!

Lacy lives in a cute old farmhouse decorated Lacy-style...purple! Her house is very charming and unique, but I'd have to say her children are the most charming of all.  Our kids enjoyed playing together for half the day while Lacy and I got work makin' beads.

First I showed Lacy how to make a simple flower cane (above). Then we moved onto a more complicated rose made with blended petals using the skinner method.  The sequence of photos below shows how the skinner method is done.  This was the first time I had done this method too.  I've seen this method many times, but I don't use this method on my beads because it only makes a small amount of blended clay at one time. 

First we started with two pieces of rolled out clay- the pink and the white. After forming them into a square, we sliced them diagonally and put together a new square with each color. 

Then we rolled it through the pasta machine many times--folding it in half each time. 

After folding and rolling about ten times, it started to look like this.  We rolled the clay into a "jellyroll" to make the petals for the rose.

Here I am making the center of the rose. Lacy says I should always wear my own art- or at least some funky jewelry made by some else. I agree. My neck looks too bare- some big, chunky clay beads would really give me the eccentric artist look!

The finished rose.  It turned out very well! Lacy is a natural at cane work. Look at her work below.

Can you believe this was the first day she had ever made polymer clay beads?!  I just love her signature cupcakes at the bottom of this photo.  And her stars and stripes are so fun and patriotic! Way to go Lacy!

I think this is a start of a good friendship- and to think- we met on the Internet through our blogs! Just goes to show bloggers are REAL people- and they make great friends- on and offline.