Roly Poly Cat Keyrings (b.6 October 2009)

This was a bit a departure for me, and one I'm planning to take further. I want to experiment with keyrings and mobile phone charms (the loops are on order), and I'm pleased with the way these have turned out.

They are about 2.5cm in diameter, and by using thick clay for the ears and liquid polymer clay, not to mention a couple of coats of satin varnish, they are pretty robust. I'll have a go at making Wee Pigling Keyrings, and I think the Wee Owls lend themselves very well to charms and keyrings too.

More Rainbow Cats (b.30 September 2009)

I had another rainbow day, and I experimented with creating a rainbow cane. I started off making a bull's eye cane, with the purple at the core, and the rest of the rainbow colours wrapped round in successive layers. It looked really good as a cane! However, it didn't translate quite so well on the cats.

I think part of the problem may have been that I was using orange Fimo classic, which was pretty old (about 8 years, I think), and the colour has changed on baking. Still, I perservered and made these three kittens. I think they look pretty manic - the spots look like amoebas rather than cute rainbow circles...

And yet, it I hadn't gone ahead with the kittens, I wouldn't have come up with my next idea, which was to cut the rainbow cane in half lengthwise and blend the resultant half-hoop rainbows onto another cat! And I LOVE how this turned out!

I cut out tiny flowers from white clay and pushed them together to form clouds. Cutting the cane slices thin enough to avoid too much distortion was a bit tricky but overall, I think it worked out well. I would have loved a cat like this when I was young! 

And to finish off the Day of Rainbows (which also involved making another 16 Rainbow Cards - more on that story later), I gathered up the scrap clay and made another couple of Ultimate Rainbow Cats!

Rainbow Cats Galore! (b.29 September 2009)

I spent the whole day making Rainbow Cats! I just had a blast - seeing what I could come up with next was just great fun!

I focused primarily on reds and citrus colours, and played around with dots and hearts. By rolling out the 'dot' colour very thinly, this helps to avoid distorting the shape when it's applied to the clay core.

You'll notice a few more Roly Poly Rainbow Cats - these wee balls of cuteness are just lovely, and I like having three different sizes of Rainbow Cat. I also made eight standard Rainbow Cats (bottom right picture) - after the Owls of the day before, it was like coming home!

Rainbow Cats (b.14 September 2009)

After spending nearly a week on making cards (somehow I managed to produce nearly 60 cards!), today I returned to all things feline. I got up at 7am, and after assembling a few of the abstract blue cards, I got stuck in. I'm off to Canada on 16 September for just over a week, so I wanted to get as much crafting in as possible before I went.

I started off with making up a heart cane, with a pale pink heart with a darker pink surround. After making this, I let it rest whilst I had a go at a new shape - the Roly Poly Rainbow Cat! These wee mites are a bit smaller than the Small Rainbow Cats (they measure 2.5cm tall and wide) and are completely round in shape. They are reminiscent of the first Wee Cat I made back in July, but have much more of what has become my standard 'Rainbow Cat' look. They're fun to make, and I'll add them to the range on offer at the upcoming craft fairs.

Next up, I mixed up some colours and came up with some rather luscious icecream-coloured Small Rainbow Cats. I love that they each have their own expression!

I also added to the standard Rainbow Cat range, focusing more on greens, blues and purples. There are now 11 colours from the rainbow spectrum, and I think they all look very sweet together! I recently got some gorgeous new colours from the Sculpey III range (on sale from Craftwise in Leeds - it's a great shop), so when I get back from Canada, I'll be making more on the red/orange side.