I can’t draw a stick figure either, but here are a few of my acrylics:
1. Tern Bay
2. Storm over water
3. Morning
4. View of Polsbo
5. Neverbeach
6. Seven Mile beach
7. Moonlight on the Sea of Cortez
8. Lake Hollywood from the Hollywood sign
9. Grand daddy tree
10. River Night
They may not be fine art, but they make me happy.
I’m too busy lately to be really ambitious, but I’ve got: a small collection of sand dollars, glue and (finely ground glass) glitter. I think there’s a quick project there…
I’m sculpting with clay. I cheerfully admit that I’m terrible at it (can’t make the tools do what my mind sees) but I’m learning. I bought a step-by-step book on how to make various little animal sculptures and it’s teaching me some of the techniques. My next step is to attatch feet to the mouse I’m making.
It’s loads of fun. You get to get your hands all goopy and it’s like PlayDoh for grownups. Plus, you get to sound all artsy when you say, “I sculpt” when asked about your hobbies.
I want to take a class in lampworked bead making. I’d also love to take a blacksmithing class, but I’m not sure my bad shoulder is up to that kind of stress. 
Thank you for the offer! I’ll let you know if a) I end up buying the spinning wheel, and b) I need any roving. I may have a hook-up, if I have enough chocolate cake.
All the parts are there. I very discreetly attacked it without drawing attention to myself or doing a little dance of joy. And where can you get an Ashford Traditional for under $400? I was pricing spinning wheels a couple years ago, and most of what I saw was in the $800-$1200 range, which was right out of my college-student budget. My problem might have been that I ruled out anything but wood, though.
Mr. Dibble, how do you make your turnshoes? I’ve been thinking about branching out into shoe-making, but I’ve been wary of it for some (no doubt silly) reason. Any advice and/or tips?
I’m not a very crafty or artistic person when it comes to creating things with my hands… so I balked when a good friend of mine tried to get me to start working with polymer clay.
I’m now addicted. My favorite things to make are desk sets (pens, pencils, letter openers, etc), keychains, and hearts. I’ve learned how to make some fun clay canes, and several different forms of mokume gane.
I don’t think I’ll be starting a new hobby soon. I’m afraid I’ll become as addicted to it as I am to claying, and my time (not to mention my budget!) is stretched thin enough as it is! 
Anyone interested in polymer clay who’d like to ask me questions - feel free. I may not know the answer, but I’ve got good links to share that might!
I’m working on making a buckskin purse/shoulder bag. I’ve never worked with leather before. I have never made a patern for anything before this, so it took me a long time to figure it out on my own. That just adds to the satisfaction once it done IMO (if it works out that is). I’ve put in 20 hrs or more already but I’m probably only 5-10% finished. It doesn’t help that I can’t find any decent leather working tools in my area. I’m a little worried that if I mess up a piece of the deer-hide I won’t be able to find more. I bought the one I have at our local Inter-Tribal Pow-Wow last year (everyone is welcome). I went back this year to get another hide or two for future projects I have in mind, but they don’t sell them there anymore. Any deer hunters here who don’t use the hides? I’d pay for them to be tanned and shipped.
Caveat: These are USA prices. The Woolery has them for under $400, unfinished.* Add a factory finish for a little more than $100. Dunno about you, but when money’s tight, I don’t mind putting some sweat equity to save a few bucks. I put a tung oil finish on a Reeves wheel I bought long years ago, and it was pretty easy. The Traditional is all wood. Granted, some of the pieces (treadle, e.g.) are plywood, but still…
You can also get a single treadle Lendrum for less than $350 there.
Spinning is undergoing a resurgence. There’s lots more good value items than there used to be.
*No affiliation.
I’m working on making a buckskin purse/shoulder bag. I’ve never worked with leather before. I have never made a patern for anything before this, so it took me a long time to figure it out on my own. That just adds to the satisfaction once it done IMO (if it works out that is). I’ve put in 20 hrs or more already but I’m probably only 5-10% finished. It doesn’t help that I can’t find any decent leather working tools in my area. I’m a little worried that if I mess up a piece of the deer-hide I won’t be able to find more. I bought the one I have at our local Inter-Tribal Pow-Wow last year (everyone is welcome). I went back this year to get another hide or two for future projects I have in mind, but they don’t sell them there anymore. Any deer hunters here who don’t use the hides? I’d pay for them to be tanned and shipped.
Oops. :smack: Sorry for the double post.
OK, I finally have one. I’m not a creative person, so the closest I come to arts and crafts is deciding if I want the sandals with the blue beads or the white beads.
But…I’ve just gotten a new dining set, and I love everything about it except for the cushion color. It’s black suede, and actually fits well with my decor. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit well with the table itself, a light wood. So I’m going to attempt to re-cover the cushions with another colour of suede fabric. I had a long conversation with the store salesman, who showed me exactly what to do, and even gave a tip on heating the fabric first so it will shrink after being stretched over the cusion.
Wish me luck! I can’t screw it up too badly, right?
Does polymer clay dry very quickly? That’s one of the problems I’m having with “real” clay-- it’s hard to keep it moist enough to work with if your handling it a lot.
The book I’m learning from is one that uses polymer clay in the examples. I’ve tried duplicating the same thing with real clay and I’m having cracking and crumbling issues as I’m making the shapes.
My understanding is that it stays soft until you bake it. Maybe toss some saran wrap over it.
I’ve recently gotten into boat building. I’m an experienced carpenter and live damn near on the ocean so it’s definetly convenient 
Currently I’m working on a couple canoes, plans for which can be found on this site here. http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/gsahv/index.htm Wonderful site with clear, free, instructions, most of which a monkey could follow…provided the monkey was given a Miter saw and a belt sander. 
My first project was actually a Portugese Dinghy http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/gsahv/dinghy1/simboii.htm and I can assure you, they’re fully functioning little boats that can easily accommodate two.
I spent ~$50 making the dinghy, not including power tools and a respirator so it’s not necessarily an expensive hobby 
I’d really like to take a painting class. I took a couple of pottery classes earlier this year and I never got very good at it, although I can see that I’ve improved. In a typical session, I might throw one thing that I like and everything else I try that day I discard. Then I end up frustrated. I think my problems are because I am still having trouble centering and I’m at the point where I’d like to make things nice and thin, but because of my centering difficulties, one side ends up thinner than the other. My class is over now and I need to pick up my bag of clay before they recycle it. In time, I’d like to try again but not for a while.
I also knit but I’m not making anything terribly interesting right now, just a scarf for charity. I promised a friend I’d make her socks, so I need to buy the yarn for that. I am thinking about doing a cable pattern down the side but that might take forever so I don’t know.
Mine is pretty simple, I just built a small wooden Stable for my Daughter to house her favorite Unicorn and Baby.
My son now wants a similar stable for some of his horses.
The first one took about 2 hours including letting my daughter paint it. So this second stable should be a quick fun little project.
Jim
Hey there Lissa… sorry for the delay in response - I was not on over the weekend.
Kalhoun is right, it stays fairly soft until you bake it in an oven (not a kiln)… you can wrap in cellophane, or store in a zipper-lock plastic bag until you’re ready to bake it.
It’s addictive as all get-out.
DWD…are you limited as to size? I’m under the impression you wouldn’t make anything bigger than your fist with this stuff. It’s more for miniature sculpting. True?
You can’t make big things out of solid clay. You have to have a core. The book I’m using suggests crumpling tin foil and then covering it with about 3/4 inch of clay.
I don’t sculpt with it; rather, I overlay things with the various combinations of clay.
Still, though, I would think you could sculpt larger sized items provided you used a core of some sort. And on preview, I can see that Lissa has said the same of regular clay…
The thing that you’d have to deal with in regards to size of your polymer clay object is the size of your baking oven. I use a toaster oven as my projects are small, and baking polymer clay is a very stinky process. I’ve baked in an oven on occasion, but I put my stuff in a baking pan and covered it with tinfoil so as to minimize the smell and to protect the oven from clay.
