#2015PCChallenge , Week 25 : Calla lilies

Hi !

Whew , its finally the fourth week of my floral month.I love flowers , I really do , but this was a very tough week. I normally make imaginary flowers, realism is not really what I do , so trying to keep the 'real' part was tough.

To add to everything , my oven is slightly mad this week. I burned everything for two days.Now it seems ok , but I am going to listen to the advice I got and get it checked up as soon as possible.

Primary Piece : Simple floral danglers

And the secondary piece : Simple floral pendant

I am not too happy how this week turned out , I did not learn as much as I planned to.Hopefully next month is better.
Thanks for reading , and have a great day!

#2015PCChallenge: Week 24 : Hibiscus cane

Hi !

I am so glad this is the third week ! Every week of this monthly floral challenge is tougher than the last.I expected it to be easier as the month wore on ( as it normally happens with me) , but this was a tough week.

I decided that this week my attention would be turned towards hibiscus flowers.

Hibiscus flowers are commonly known as shoe flowers .I normally call it  Chemparathi , which is the  Malayalam word for it.Until I moved out of Kerala, I never realized how much I missed the dash of color this flower always brings , it just about grows in every garden and quite abundantly in the wild too.There many varieties and colors , mostly due to cross pollination. The most commonly found are the bright red shoe flowers , along with the pastel pinks and yellows.

Chemparathis in my memory are all tangled up with my memories of my Grandma.One thing I remember, she used to always make sherbets out of the red ones which grew in abundant profusion in our house.It was a trick of hers to give them to visitors and when they oohed and aahed oved the taste and finally when asked where to buy them from,she would tell them she made it and everyone would be surprised. Our regular visitors always had some at their home , she was not stingy about giving it away.

She  used to add the flowers to her  hair oil  , and added them for me as well when she would send me some. My grandma had thick , jet black,  beautiful curls  and hardly any grey hair well into her seventies.Now that she is no more, I buy a version from the Ayurvedic shops , but they are no match for my grandmas recipe.Eventually I hope I can make them myself.

Even though this was a tough challenge , it was a nice one as well. I always forget how amazing my grandmothers are , all three of them , and this week as I was working on this , I was pleasantly reminded of it again and again.

I was unable to make any pieces of jewelry this time. So I am submitting two hibiscus canes. These were quite difficult for me to make as I had to visualize the flower and make it. I did see some canes , but they were single colored or dual colored , but I wanted the beauty of the colors to shine through.

I am a novice at cane making , especially floral canes . While I am satisfied with the way they turned out for trial 1 & 2 ,I now know how to improve it. I will probably go back to them and give it a try later.

Primary piece ( cane ) : Red hibiscus.

This was the first hibiscus cane I made. Took me around 5 hours. It was longer than I anticipated , and I didn't get it right. The stamen along with the pollen did not look right at all. Not to mention the green color just looked strange,
So I made the next one.

Secondary piece ( cane ) : Pink & yellow hibiscus

This took me about an hour from start to finish. Even though the other  cane didn't turn out so well , it helped me a lot with what to look out for in this cane.
This cane also has issues , such as the petals look squished and the pink area looks like the background rather than part of the petal itself.On the upside ,I am quite certain how to improve these particular issues , but I am sure the next cane will teach me some more.

Hibiscus flower

I still don't know what to make with these , so I am putting them away for now. Hopefully the tube light would come on soon and when it does , I shall update the post .

Thank you so much for reading. Have a great day :)


Update !

I just saw that the polymer clay group 52 weekly clay projects have some amazing hibiscus canes ! I unfortunately did not see these canes before I attempted mine. I sure feel stupid , because I am infact part of that group on FB.I could have saved oodles of time !
I saw a group pic upload on Pinterest and there is an indentical pink and yellow hibiscus cane right on top ! I dont know who made it ,  I would love to know :)
The canes look quite similar , but I am going to try making those to see where lie the differences.

#2015PCChallenge , Week 23 : Marigolds in Polymer Clay

Hi !

For this week , I thought I should try my take on the only flowering plant I have ever been able to grow , a marigold.In case you are interested, they are ridiculously easy to grow where I live.

They deck wedding halls , they sometimes form part of the Pooja plates in temples, they are used to make garlands for weddings and other functions, they are used to make the wreaths for the dead. If you pass market areas early in the morning, say around 4-6 am , you can see huge coils of these flowers , wound about and kept ready for sale.When you travel in the train , some areas are blanketed with vibrant shades of yellow; these are marigold fields.

Their colors range from a pale , almost white yellow to a  deep blood red , with a yellow band on the outside of the petal.

The heavily petaled ones would have looked liked an orange colored giant Allium by the time I was done,so I chose to make my interpretation on the simple, home style marigold.

It was tougher going than I expected. I knew exactly how it looked , and I was growing increasingly frustrated that I was not able to make the exact miniature , perfect in details.

It took me quite a few efforts before I realized that I actually liked the style it had morphed to somewhere during the process.I used that style to make  a few pendants , a bangle & a pair of earrings.

Primary piece : Marigold bangle

Secondary Piece : Marigold buds Jhumka

I am quite happy about how this experiment turned out. But no more oranges for a while at least.


Thank you for reading :) Have a great day.

#2015 PCChallenge , Week 22 : Alliums in polymer clay

Hi !


For the month of June , I have decided to go the floral way. I am going to select a flower for a week and try to make my take on it.
This is  week 22 for the #2015PCChallenge.  I have chosen " Giant Alliums" for the week.

I have seen pictures of these beauties , but I never knew that were part of  the Allium family , which also have onions , garlic , scallions & shallots on their list.

So here they are : Premo! used with mica powder & chalk.Cotton cord & glass beads used as well.

1.Primary piece : Giant pendant with sliding knot

2. Secondary piece : Three part necklace with glass beads & sliding knot.

Both of them have a few remaining touch ups to be done . The first piece is a slight bit crooked so I will not be putting it for sale.

I am planning on making a few more of these as a collection for my store.Some earrings , a few pendants are in the works and hopefully a few cuffs too.

I would love to hear your feed back .

Thanks for reading & have a good day !

Shilpa :)