A while back, I decided I wanted to try sculpting small morel mushrooms.  I thought they would make really neat jewelry.  I did pretty well on one size, but when I tried a smaller version, it turned out much more difficult.  Here is a photo of the larger version.  (You can click the photos to get larger versions.)

Since I had such trouble with the small ones, I thought it would be a great idea to have some sort of texture sheet that I could press them in to get the holes.  The best thing I could think of was to use course salt.  Actually, someone gave me the idea.  And it seemed like a good one!  But, it just didn’t work out the way I had hoped.  It was not a lost venture, though, as it still turned out a good texture sheet.  Just not for what I had intended.

The first thing I learned is that “course salt” on the package does not always mean “course” salt.

Here, I took some scrap polymer clay, pressed salt into it, and then added some liquid clay, so the salt would stay put. The upper piece has the small pieces, and the lower has larger pieces that I picked out.

This is what they looked like after baking.

So, even though I’ll have to make my mushrooms the hard way, this experiment did turn out a pretty cool texture!

Hi there!  Thank you so much for stopping by!  This is a brand new site for me, so it’s pretty empty, but I will be filling it up as time goes by.

I’m a wife, mom, and artist, just to name a few things.  LOL  I will be sharing news on projects I’m working on, links where you can buy them, and tidbits about what’s going on at home.  I’ll also be talking about online friends, sites I like, and things I find interesting.  I hope you’ll find all this interesting, as well!

As for my art, I make things with polymer clay.  Usually it’s Art Dolls, but sometimes I make jewelry or small sculptures.  I really LOVE Art Dolls!  Not just my own, but lots of others made by some really wonderful artists!  I follow lots of blogs by doll artists, other artists, not to mention moms and other great folks.  What can I say, I love reading blogs!

As you might have guessed, I live in West Virginia.  I was born here, and I figure I’ll die here.  To me, it’s a beautiful place and the people are known to be some of the friendliest around!  Wild, Wonderful West Virginia is our motto, and it really describes this state very well.  It seems like Country Roads by John Denver is our unofficial state song, because most of our inhabitants feel the same as the lyrics.  “Country roads take me home to the place I belong, West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home country roads.”

And now that you have that song stuck in your head, I’ll leave you, and talk to you again soon!

Shannon

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