Craft Week - Day Four

Tonight Holly taught us to make polymer clay roses. Tara, Holly, Renee, and I were joined by Thom for this class. He's really excited at the prospect of making polymer clay Christmas ornaments.

First we snacked on desserts. Since I'm on south beach, I tried to make a low-carb, sugar free dessert. Hmm, not so much.. I made a "chocolate cake". Instead of flour, the recipe called for ground pecans, so I ground pecans into a cornmeal consistency. We tried it fresh out of the oven, and it was really not so good. BUT, it was a nice attempt at the survival food that Tara and I have been studying. Not quite acorn pancakes, but hey, if there comes a time when we have no flour/sugar, at least I'll still know how to make cake! Anyway, it was much tastier the next day drizzled with strawberries/blueberries and sugar free yogurt.

On to crafting! Holly showed us some of her techniques on making roses and gave us a general idea of how polymer clay works. And, I got to try out the $3 toaster oven that I bought for crafts. I'm really looking forward to playing more with polymer clay. We'll be donating the roses to Breast Impressions, to include in the Tulsa Craft Mafia basket that will be auctioned at their event on July 3rd.

Craft Week - Tuesday

This week is the Tulsa Craft Mafia craft week. Last year, we did this in August, but seeing as one of our lovely ladies will be having a baby in August, we thought it might be better suited for June. Craft Week started when I was daydreaming one day about a craft community sometime about this time last year. I originally was inspired by my great-aunt's artist month that she hosts every October. She is a super talented artist, and has been painting her entire life. She's made wonderful artist acquaintances from all over the world and in October, she invites everyone to her house for a month/week/weekend (however long you can stay) for an intensive painting study. She does this at her home in New Mexico and everyone just paints all day and spends this amazing quality time together creating. They teach each other different techniques and experiment with new paints.. it sounds like so much fun. She doesn't charge room or board, just requires that while you are there, you are in charge of preparing meals and cleaning up for one day of your visit. I'm really hoping I can go for a week this year, but October will be busy with Indie Emporium and a visit from the inlaws. Maybe I can make it to New Mexico in between the two.

Anyway, I originally wanted craft week to be a similar project as my Aunt Floy's painting month, but since reality is that most of the people I know have to have jobs and do things to pay the bills instead of crafting all day, we made craft week a series of crafts over each night of a week.

This week is 2008 Craft Week. Lastnight was knitting night at Amby's and I totally missed it. I suck. I actually still have my knitting project on the needles from last August.. I don't know how to take it off!

Tonight we had "Build Your Business Night" at my house. Tara, Holly, Estela, Kristen, and I enjoyed some dip and then discussed ways to grow and promote our craft businesses. Not exactly our most creative night, but I do feel like the series of Build Your Business nights that we've had have inspired me to actually list things in my etsy shop and focus a bit more on the business side of things. I didn't take any pictures tonight, but I'll try to remember to the rest of the week.

(Tara posted this pic of Build Your Business Night on the TCM myspace)


Tomorrow is Mosaic night!