Craft Abomination

That's me painting a display case at my Mom's booth in Laguna Beach, California. It was a sweltering day and you can see by my expression that I am not a very good hot-weather person.

After a busy week helping my Mom prepare for her art show in Laguna, I finally got back to some creative work of my own tonight. I just got a bunch of very cool rubber stamps in the mail and was eager to try them out on some polymer clay pendant designs. The first one turned out okay (a good warm-up), but the second one was a true winner in my eyes.

I made it with black clay, stamped a gorgeous asian floral in the front, shaped it into a curved triangle shape, then applied fuschia and silver mica powders on all sides to bring out the gorgeous design, I put a crystal in the middle of the flower, then embedded more crystals into the side of the pendant. I couldn't wait to bake it to see what gorgeous thing would result.

And then something went horribly wrong.

Remember the movie, 'The Fly' when Seth Brundle put a dog in one of the pods to test his new telepod system, and it came out the other pod a shrieking, slimy, quivering mass of distorted dog flesh?

Well I put my pendant in one pod (the oven), threw the switch and it came out the other pod (same oven) looking like THIS.

I only wish I had a before photo to really drive home how horribly this thing distorted. You can see one of the crystals, like a sad little eye, sitting right there in the middle.

So what my little Brundle-pendant endured was 100 degrees too much heat.

So I am disappointed, but highly amused at the same time and I'm going to keep my little Brundle-pendant to remind me to CHECK THE INSTRUCTIONS NEXT TIME.