In Celebration of St Patrick's Day, Grandmother Connolly, Shamrocks and Polymer Clay Cat Jewelry

St Patrick's Day Angel Cat hanging ornament sporting his emerald green shamrock

When I was growing up I loved to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I'd carefully choose my green outfit weeks in advance. I'd decorate the house with shamrocks and Leprechauns, play Irish music with my sister, and wear special St Patrick's Day jewelry that I'd make, myself. I was grateful that I could claim my Irish heritage from my great grandmother Connolly who had immigrated from County Cork.

A lot has changed since those days so long ago, but I still enjoy the celebration and our little town even has a St Patrick's Day parade. As part of my celebration this year I designed two St Patrick's Day additions to my Cat Collection. The first is an Angel Cat hanging ornament of emerald green and white with a shamrock dangling from his collar. The companion piece is a convertible pendant necklace/brooch.  Both are available at MelodyODesigns at Etsy

I always love to see other people's behind the scenes studio photos, so below I'm including two to share:

Kemper Heart Cutters make wonderful shamrocks. I use a syringe to more precisely place tiny appliques.

Faux Talavera Pottery Frog from Polymer Clay re-located to a Lily Pad Necklace

Several years ago I made a small faux Talavera pottery frog necklace from "Kato Liquid Polyclay" that had been inspired by a much larger authentic and very colorful Talavera pottery frog that sits on our back fence. The frog in the old necklace sat on a black speckled faux stone.

Faux Talavera pottery frog necklace pendant. 

However, though I'd tried many revisions to the piece over the years it never seemed quite "right", so I never sold it and eventually banished it to shadowy corner of my studio.  I'd more or less forgotten about the frog, (nicknamed Raulito at the time), until I happened to mention him to Chrissie,  an enthusiastic and talented new PC friend at the Delphi Polymer Clay Central Discussion Forum when she asked about making molds for use with polymer clay. Yesterday, after looking at the piece again with with fresh eyes I realized that perhaps he just needed a different kind of perch, perhaps a lily pad. Meet the new and improved Sr. Raulito Rana de Talavera who sleepily sits upon his bright green lily pad throne, majestically surveying his domain. 

He is currently for sale at MelodyODesigns at Etsy

To read the blog post about the making the FIRST polymer clay frog on the rock please click here:Faux Talavera Pottery Frog
 
Changes, adjustments, corrections, evolution,............this week as I gave my studio a spring cleaning I spent some pleasant time looking at the 15 years worth of poly clay prototypes tacked up on the 5 large midnight blue velvet covered bulletin boards that make up my display area. I found it interesting to re-visit my older pieces and note the evolution of style and the changes that have occurred to some of my designs over the years. I'm sometimes frustrated because I can have an annoying tendency to be quite resistant to change (especially so, when the changes involve polymer clay companies making changes to their formulas!). Yet, one's reaction to change and the act of creatively working out solutions is how life lessons are learned. The polymer clay learning curve,............... a metaphor for life.