Carving a Cameo

Well, I have been slacking! I haven't posted in a while, but it feels like just yesterday! I have been working on my favorite, cameos. Doing a lot of new stuff, but I haven't been finishing them! The colors aren't right, I'm not liking the beads, or my sculpting isn't making me happy. Do any of you other crafters get that sometime?

I don't like to craft just to make a buck. I like to put my heart and thought into it, every time. It takes time to create and come up with new ideas. I went to Vegas a few weeks ago. Didn't know when to stop gambling and lost a few hundred dollars. Yikes! But I love Vegas and came back inspired. By the way, I am addicted to Roulette! I always play number 8.

I moved my work station around, too. Not really a good thing. I condensed things down and I like to work with everything on top if my desk. But It was pretty bad. My key board was on a mountain of beads and I wasn't being very productive.

I purchased an octopus cameo setting and I had a very pretty cameo to add to it. But I realized that it wasn't going to be unique if I glued two designs from other artists together, right? I had to design my own cabochon to put into this setting if I wanted to keep on my toes.

Anyway, I noticed my clay had dried up quite a bit. My friend Espi of Fairy Tales and Rebel Yells gave me some fresh clay to play with. I got this itch to start carving and sculpting small designs. I had a plastic mold setting, (in pic below), that I used as a guide to keep my cabochon at a 40x30 mm size. So I started doing a water theme first. After I was happy enough with my work, I froze it for a few hours to make it easy to pop out of the plastic mold frame to bake in the oven. I wanted to create a hard copy of my carving so I made a silicone mold of the oven baked cab.



My mold is sturdy and reusable so I start making clay replicas and below I show one that I painted. I add it in my octopus cameo setting that I purchased a while back. I love it! I will need to sand down the edges and do some other changes, but I do like my design. :0) Would you like a cabochon to play with? What color would you make it? Hmm, I should do a giveaway!



I was still on a rampage to crave and sculpt. So I decided to do the beautiful genie from the TV show, 'I Dream of Jeannie.' The middle one I was happy with, (pic below), so in the oven she goes. Except, my honey made hash browns in the oven during the time I was carving, and didn't realize the temperature of the oven was at 450 degrees! I'm so silly, I just assumed it was still at 250 and didn't even check. The house started to get smokey and I quickly checked my cameo and it was burnt to a crisp! Her leg even bubbled up! Yikes! But I'm crafty as heck, I will fix it. ;) I'll have her available soon as well.



Anyway. I'll have a giveaway for some sea cabochons for you crafty girls to play with. If anyone would like to purchase one, check here. Thank you for dropping by! xoxo Razz