I was trying to copy an antique Egyptian turquoise faience ring using polymer clay. It took me five or six tries before I got one that fits, but I think it turned out pretty close. These are my examples:

Here is the original:

update

I managed to get a couple of things done this weekend - in addition to the normal cleaning. It was beautiful weather, so we also got a couple of long dog walks in. It feels like spring is on the way, and even though I know it will get cold again, and likely stay cold for at least another month, it was wonderful to take a moment and feel the warmth of the sun baking though the window.

I thought I would try making red hearts for Valentine's day, using the basic recipe for elephant ears with a bit of red food coloring. The recipe is really simple: just roll out puff pastry, dusting the curface with sugar instead of flour, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the top, roll and slice. I mixed some red food coloring with the cinnamon/sugar mixture and this is what happened:

They aren't very romantic, but they taste just as good as the original. I thought they would be good Halloween cookies, since they look like bleeding hearts. Or maybe they are good Valentine hearts for those who are hurting and need some sweet consolation.

I also managed to get a few paintings completed this weekend. This one was failing, and the colors were all washed out, so I added a bit of alcohol inks on the top, and viola!

The next two were started with alcohol inks on clay board, with a coating of wax on top:

Fly trap

I bought this venus fly trap in the fall, and left it sitting on the kitchen table, fully expecting it to die like they always do. I had been reading about them, and discovered that they need to go into hybernation, and when they do, they look dead, so most people throw them out. I figured if I left it in the original container, it might have a better chance of survival, even though the container is rather tacky. To my amazement, not only did it continue to thrive, but it started to flower just before Christmas, and had flowers for about four weeks.

This is a close up of the flower.

Catching up

I know I have been very quiet, so I thought I would finally post a few images of what I have been working on for the past several weeks. These were all completed in 2010 - the new year has been such an awful series of unfortunate events that I am starting to worry about what is coming next.....

I found a couple of these sweet little baby mermaids in tiny rocking shells: and captured this brownie alive in an old candle lantern:

And I finally managed to find some display cases for the mummified dryads we collected in the late fall this year. The frames are from Ikea, and they work perfectly as specimen cases for these dimunitive creatures. Well, dead bodies really, but you know what I mean.

Acer Saccharinum Sylvanii

Populus Canescens Sylvanii

A Beautiful Day

We finally had a semi-free day, and took the dogs for a walk. Although it was still a bit chilly, we had a great time. The dogs were so excited that they pulled and strained almost the whole way, and they are so worn out from the walk and run that they spent the next few hours out cold on the couch.

Unicorn

We captured this unicorn running around in our garden last night. We didn't have a princess to lure her in, but she was hungry and walked into our trap for candy glitter.

Halloween

I had made plans to work through all the half-finished projects laying around on my worktable, but got distracted by the all Halloween projects online. I found some nice small plastic skeletons at Michael's, so I got to make a mummified elf corpse. I had tried one last year, but the skeletons available weren't very good. I think he turned out OK, although I'm not too sure I like his clothing. I may have to play with it a bit to get it to look more natural.
I also made a few blood jars. I found some battery-operated tea lights, and they look really nice and warm in these jars (although it doesn't look like it - I don't really know how to take pictures in the dark, and these lose their creepy quality in the light.