And whew! What a day. Our sites completely crashed in the past 24 hours and we had to do some emergency maintenance! Sorry if you tried to visit any of our sites, apparently a lovely Wordpress plugin I tried to install crashed a bunch of servers, oops!

Don’t forget to visit the videos page for today’s free Polymer Clay demo, and consider submitting your story for our book! We talk to our publisher at the end of the month, there’s still time! Apply on the sidebar to the right.

I made next week’s video last night…it was very interesting. Since I have set up my studio a little differently, with a mini tripod for the camera, which is attached to the arm of my Daylight Lamp! Hopefully you’ll like the angle.

I also ordered some UV curing resin last night, an experiment from a company called Ultra Dome. I’ll let you know how it goes. I created a great little flower last week, from clay- then baked it and molded it with Amazing Mold putty, and used some of Lisa’s Magic Glos to create a really fun lightweight flower bead with glitter in it!!! But, I’m the bargain hunter, and I found the Ultra Dome on a web-quest.

Today was my last day of work with Broward Virtual University- a bittersweet day. But, now I’m on to bigger things. High School students, watch out, here I come!

This week we are talking about the Amaco bead rollers. Have you ever wanted to get your beads to be all the same size and shape? Well then these bead rollers will make your day. They make it so easy to to get uniform and perfectly shaped beads. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes there are even ones that have multiple sizes of the bead on one roller, which are perfect for making graduated sizes. Gotta love that!  They are light weight and you could even travel with these, they would give you something to do on a trip. I could totally see myself taking these with me to get ahead on my bead making.Make sure to come back Friday to hear us share ideas and discuss the bead rollers.

This week’s video is about the new Bake Shop clay by Polyform. They sent us all 12 colors and some tools to play with, thank you Iris! I gave my friend’s son, Charlie, some to play with and taught him basic mixing, blending, and even some caning- below you can see Charlie learning polymer clay, and the awesome starfish he made. It took him almost an hour to individually roll and press all the little suckers onto the starfish, isn’t it beautiful?

This Friday we have a new episode of Polymer Clay TV and we will be showing you the new Bake Shop Clay from Polyform. This clay was designed especially for children, it is quite soft and very easy to condition so children of all ages can use it. Of course with any medium people of all ages can use it but unless you like soft clay it is better suited for children. Kira shared her clay with one of her friends kids and they had a blast with it. I am going to give the clay to my 12 year old niece and see what her and her friends make with it. I will get some pictures to share when I do. Make sure to come back Friday to see some of the tools they sent us as well as the clay, there was this one gorgeous purple color that I may have to use in some of my projects.

I wanted to share with you something we have in the works. We are going to be creating a polymer clay design team to work with us at Polymer Clay Productions in creating new designs and projects to share with the community. We are hashing out all of the details at the moment but we are having a challenge that anyone can enter to possibly be chosen for the design team. There will be monetary opportunities as well as discounts and lots of exposure for your shop or website. We are not looking for any particular experience or skills but a good sense of design. We are looking for people that can come up with a new project, technique or design at least once a month.

The challenge will work like this:

1. Register by sending us an e-mail at    polymerclaypodcast@yahoo.com     with your full name, phone number,address and e-mail address

2. Everyone who enters will recieve a FREE download of some image designs.

3. You MUST use at least 3 of the images in your project.

4. Clear photos must be sent of completed project by deadline. (To be announced) We also recommend taking step by step photos

5. All entries will then be voted on by the public through an online poll.

6. The winner will be announced and featured on the Polymer Clay Productions website and will have a chance to join the design team

Design Team Benefits:

Will receive a discount on products from the Polymer Clay Productions shop.

Will be featured on Polymer Clay Productions website and its affiliates (1000’s of possible views)

Will have the opportunity to create PDF files to be sold in the Polymer Clay Productions shop (Kira can help you with this if needed)

Will have the opportunity to network and share photos and ideas with the community

Will receive a link to your website and a biography

Will receive a banner that you can add to your website stating you are a Polymer Clay Design Team member at Polymer Clay Productions

Our design team members will be the first to find out about all the new things going on and will have a chance to sample new products as well.

Does this sound like something you would enjoy? Well then make sure to send us an e-mail to enter with the above info. We will send your free download shortly so you can get those thinking caps on and start creating! Have fun!