An update on the slowly drying brown puppet woman!

My slowly drying brown puppet woman is finally fired today! It has been quite a process slowly and carefully making sure that her parts don't crack. Fortunately, the clay that I chose to use which is a terracotta with mica flecks, holds water like a sponge! I originally stopped working with water based clay because I got so frustrated with it drying fast and collapsing or cracking. This terracotta clay is fantastic though! It is great for sculpture because it has ' grog' or big bits of sand that make it more like bricks( ie stronger). I also think that I appreciate water based clay a lot more now so it makes me able to be more patient.
Here are some photos of her drying and when I have photos of what she looks like fired I will post them. Thanks so much for all of your interest in her!
Also, here are a couple of pics of some other work in progress that are going to be in shadow boxes I think...

New custom box! sheep theme

I've been working on my first custom box for my fabulous client Tamara. Its been a lot of fun finding the textures and images for the theme of sheep. That's whats fun about a custom box, it pushes you past your own images to think of something else. I have a big box of images cut out from magazines so I sorted out my mess--I hadn't looked in there for ages and I couldn't find what I wanted at first. Once I'd organized my images into people,patterns,and objects ( I used big ziplock bags cause that's all I had)then I could find what I wanted. Ziplock bags are actually okay for this use I think, but if you didn't want the corners bent it might be a problem. Also these bags have those areas to write in which was handy.

some more new pics of my cool new box and sculpey jewelry

The first blog I shot out didn't have enough detail so here is a better look at the new work....

most recents boxes and jewelry for Valentines' Day

Here are my newest collage boxes and sculpey jewelry...

Samples from my etsy shop

absorbing information

One of my new years' resolutions is to blog more often...but there is so much other information that I am trying to implement to improve my etsy shop. Here is the address if anyone reads this:http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5894609
I've been following Timothy Adams blogs which have been very useful and interesting so far but I've got a long way to go. I'm still learning how to take stylish pics of my collage boxes and painted boxes not to mention how to link this blog to my etsy shop and other stuff.
I am also experimenting with crochet circle bags and some jewelry that combines collaging and super sculpey. I want to have my pieces to be beautifully made and seem related, not a weird jumble of objects. My ultimate goal is to make a living off of my handmade art.