Stop! It's Sculpey Time

If you're on the Facebook page or the Twitter feed then you're probably sick of this already, but I'm not so suck it up! Haha.

So, I had an inspiration about two months ago that I was going to make soft touch Sculpey hooks. It came out of nowhere and took me over in a way that I haven't felt in a while (that's a lie - it's exactly how I felt about the Ada Lacy Shells Top...). So, I did what I always do when I have a crafty problem that I can't fix in the shop, I rang the Bead Shop and the phone just so happened to be answered by the lovely Steph from NettyNot and she was as excited about my project as I am by all of yours. She offered for me to come to hers over the weekend and show me what to do with her own personal stash of Sculpey. We had such fun eating biscuits on a Sunday afternoon and messing around with Sculpey.


She showed me how to do canes:

 

And the Skinner blend:

And at the end of the afternoon I trundled off home with a few hooks and some stitch markers to bake. 

These hooks will be part of a giveaway. Soon. But I put them somewhere safe when I was tidying for the party and.... well... you guessed it...

It was so lovely to have that afternoon because I've tried Sculpey before and not really got anywhere. I didn't enjoy it but her hints and tips were absolutely invaluable. Mostly centered around a pasta machine which you may have seen around the shop over the last couple of months. It mostly lives at Chris's house now I've got a good stock of hooks and stitch markers.

I went the very next day to to the actual Bead Shop and picked up a rainbows worth of Sculpey and spent the next few days making and making and making.

and then I ran out of crochet hooks and had to stop. It was killing me. So I got it into my head that I could make yarn bowls! And it was great!!

The problem was, I had in my head how I would make this and the Sculpey started off like this:

Of course, I wanted a rainbow bowl. Who wouldn't? But it didn't work so I smooshed it up again. And I ended up with this:

And then obviously, that went wrong, so I ended up with the purple bowl above. Now, that's a perfectly good bowl but it's not big enough in any way for a yarn bowl. In fact, it's now an egg bowl in Chris's kitchen. I realised that I needed to make it much bigger which means a whole new approach. I came up with this:

After a lovely day spent in Chris's garden listening to podcasts. I loved it!

Lovely day. And the bowl works! It's the right size and shape. It's wonky around the edges but I know how to fix that in future (I think). The spikes! OH THE SPIKES! But it turns out they fall off. Nothing I can do, I've tried three different glues and each time they fall off. Haha. Not all of them, different ones each time but they fall off. Which means that I don't feel right about selling it (obvs) or even giving it away. So I'm retreating to rethink my yarn bowliness. I also suspect that this may be a Christmas time kind of a product, yeah?

Anyway, it was at this time that I realised that with my offcuts I should definitely be making stitch markers. I'm dead pleased with them and they've been selling like hot cakes. I've certainly had to restock a couple of times already. They mainly look like pretty coloured beads:

But on Monday I stuck a toe into making 'things' starting with a nice little sparkly poo.

Some wine bottles.

Some fruit.

 A little pig or two.

 A fish!

And finally, a Versace or two!



Which led me to make the first of my hook colourways - Versace:

Which are a beautiful combination of black, brown, ginger and white (with a little sparkle because... it's Versace...). I was so thrilled with those and the fact that I'd made notes so I can repeat it (!!!! HOW ORGANISED IS THAT!!?!?!!?) that I did another one - Rainbow Smoosh!

 

And I'm thrilled with this too (and so are the customers in the shop apparently haha).

Now, they are kind of made to order, there are some in stock in a few different sizes but if you need something that's not in stock then it may take a couple of days to get that made up for you. It's a case of bear with, not like usual with the webshop when what you buy is generally sent out same or next day.

And that's my Sculpey journey. I'm still at the beginning of it, I can see myself getting better and I've got so many ideas (and so little time). I'm also massively back into finishing. stuff. up. at the minute and it turns out you can't Sculpey and knit at the same time. I'm gonna be writing about this little burst of finishititis soon because I feel it coming to an end... I have a big idea for this summer. SO MUCH TO DO SO LITTLE TIME!

I'm gone, love,
Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx