Thursday, November 8, 2012

Personalized Tapestry Spinner Christmas Ornament

Yes, it's been a long time coming.  I was inspired to make this ornament back in August while on a polymer clay cruise to Alaska.  Part of the cruise fun was that each participant could choose to make charms to exchange with the other participants.  This is always fun because with such a diverse group, you get samples of so many different styles of polymer clay and metal clay.  One of the charms that I received, from one of my local guild members, Annette Harris, was a "spinner" charm based on a design by Lisa Pavelka.  It had an outer circle and an inner circle which turned on an axis. 

For the past several years I've designed a new personalized ornament based on new techniques that I'd learned during the year.  When I saw the spinner charm, it set my mind to working on how that could be developed into a personalized ornament.  I could see this ornament in my minds eye, but the process of getting it out and into clay was not a smooth process.  The first few tries went into the trash can.  Then the convection oven that I used in my studio to cure clay crashed and burned - literally!  Scared the stew out of me and smoked up my house with nasty fumes! 

But finally, after many trial runs and trashed prototypes, I'm happy to introduce the Personalized Tapestry Spinner Christmas Ornament.  This ornament starts with a creamy white clay backed by a solid colored clay cut in a snowflake design, then "tapestry clay" (made using a technique learned from Tina Holden) is used to add color and sparkle.  Gold leaf is added for more richness and a tiny crystal is added to the spoke of each snowflake. 

The personalized disk rides on the center wire and spins freely to add movement to this unique ornament.  Each ornament is handmade at the time the order is placed and has the initial of your choice on the front and the year on the back banded by matching tapestry clay.  If you don't want the year on the back, I can replace that with a snowflake.  Each ornament also has my name and the date stamped on the back.  You can select the color for your back and I'll coordinate the tapestry clay with that color for a one-of-a-kind ornament. 

You can order yours by going to https://www.etsy.com/listing/114353163/personalized-tapestry-spinner-polymer or send me an email to arlene.harrison (at) gmail.com.  Deadline for Christmas delivery is December 10th so please get your order in early.