Wyvern Designs

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Welcome To My World

Welcome to the wonderful, marvelous world of Wyvern Designs! My name is Nancy and I am the owner, creator, and mastermind of all that you shall see.

Okay now that that's over with, let me introduce myself. As I said above, I'm Nancy and I can be found all over the web as Wyvern Designs.

Wyvern Designs on Art Fire where I sell my jewelry.

Ancient Pagan Goddess Pendant

Bohemian Beaded Batik Beach Bracelet

Etsy where I sell my hand made wool felted pincushions and sewing accessories.

Miniature Recycled Bottle Cap Pincushion

Miniature Strawberry Sewing Pins Set Of 5

Meylah where I am currently in the process of listing my knits and crochet items.

Summer Leaf Scarf and/or Belt

Skull Design Boot Toppers

Goodsmiths which contains my doggy related items, inspired by my Lab mis, Finn.

Finn's Favorite Patriotic Pull Toy

Finn's Favorite Bandana

Finn's my model for all my dog items. He hates it but just barely tolerates having his picture taken.

I have been creating things for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I would sit by my mother and sister while they sewed. They would give me bits of cloth, lace and beads and button to play with. I don't remember exactly what I made with these treasures but I do know that my artistic ability grew from those happy shared times with my family.

I've always drawn, painted, and sculpted. My mom taught me to knit and crochet. In the last few years, I've resumed knitting and crocheting, making fingerless gloves, scarves and belts. I taught myself several new techniques in the knitting arena, such as knitting gloves and mittens on two circular needles, intarsia, and double knitting. I even wrote some blog posts about my adventures in knitting, learning these new techniques. They can be found here if your interesting in reading them: Adventure 1
Adventure 2 Adventure 3

Once upon a time, I was listing all my stuff on Art Fire. As time went by, I didn't like the look of my shop. It had become a chaotic mess, with my jewelry, knit, crochet, sewing supplies like wool felted pincushion, and items inspired by my Lab mix called Finn. I decided to split everything up into separate shops. As I was already signed up to sell at all the above places, I've been in the process of moving items around to my different shops. I don't know if it's a good plan or not, yet, only time will tell.

I live in Central Massachusetts, about 45 miles from Boston. I have a wonderful husband who supports me in all I do, three grown children , one grandchild and, of course, my loving and enthusiastic dog, Finn.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Wyvern Designs Apparel and Toys For The Fashionable Dog

I'm launching a new on line shop. Well, it's not really new, I've had this shop open for a while but I'm going in a new direction.

I have a shop on Art Fire called Wyvern Designs. In it I have all manner of different hand made items. Recently, I decided that my Art Fire shop looked too chaotic and decided that I should streamline it. I'm in the process of removing everything not jewelry related and listing those things in my other shops. The one I'm writing about today is Wyvern Designs on Goodsmiths.

I have a rescued Lab mix that I love making things for, especially toys and doggy bandanas.

Here's Finn with his favorite toy.

I've started listing items on Goodsmiths as of a few days ago and I'd like to get the word out about my new shop.

Goodsmiths is a relatively new venue and while it doesn't get the views that Art Fire or Etsy does, I think it's up and coming. Right now I have a free shop which means that I can list up to 25 items. They also have a paid plan for $5.00 a month with unlimited listings along with other benefits, but for right now I'm sticking with the freebie. Like Art Fire, you have to go out and get people to come to your shop with good photos and detailed descriptions. I'm used to that and hope to make a going concern of this shop in the near future.

My items include tug toys, doggy bandanas and pet related ornaments. I will soon also have polymer clay dog tags and some cat related items.

Feel free to visit my new shop. While right now I only have a few items. I will be listing more soon.

Finn modeling his new bandana

Wyvern Designs is also on Etsy where I sell hand made wool and other material pincushions and sewing items, such as buttons and the like, and Wyvern Designs on Meylah, where I highlight my knitted and crocheted items.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Ways To Rejuvenate Old Polymer Clay - Sit On It!

Like most polymer clay artists, I always make way too much of custom colors when I'm making one of my pieces. I'm always afraid I'm going to run out before I'm finished. Consequently, I usually find that I have lots left over. I'll wrap the left overs in plastic wrap, put them in my stash, which is a large plastic tote bag and forget about them.

Then, sometimes months later, I'll find them again and get an inspiration for a new piece. Unfortunately, the balls of polymer clay have dried out and are hard and crumbly and basically unusable. I'm always bummed out when this happens and I'm way too unorganized to have written down the recipe of how I made this particular color.

I've picked up a few tips on how to rejuvenate these sad lumps of clay:

Tip 1: Sit on it! I've found that if I put the hard clay on my chair and sit on it for a while, the warmth of my body will help soften it enough so that it eventually becomes pliable enough to knead with my hands.

This is usually a long and tedious process but it does work, sometimes. Just be sure you wrap the clay in plastic wrap before planting your butt on it, otherwise you might end up with polymer clay smears all over your favorite pair of jeans and/or your chair!

Tip 2: If your not planning to sit for any length of time, wrap the polymer clay in plastic wrap and put it in your pocket. Same theory as the method above, but you'll be mobile and won't have to sit in your chair.

Tip 3: Add some liquid polymer clay to the mix. I use Sculpey Translucent Liquid Polymer Clay because I bought several bottles of it years ago and haven't used it up yet. It's still good and I'm too cheap to go out and buy some more.

This method can get messy, though. I use it when the clay is a bit pliable but cracks when it's run through my clay pasta machine. You can roll out a sheet of the semi-workable clay, spread some liquid polymer clay on it, then fold it, trying to seal the edges and run it through the pasta machine. The liquid clay usually squirts out the sides and gets all over everything, but it does work. Another method is to knead the clay with some liquid clay mixed in with your hands until it's pliable enough to work with. Either method is quite messy, so be prepared to have liquid clay all over your hands and quite possibly your entire work space!

Tip 5: This one's not for rejuvenating the clay but is an alternative on how to use that dried up ball of clay. Grate it! Use an old cheese grater (one that you don't mind delegating to the exclusive use with polymer clay) and grate up the mummified clay. The subsequent shavings can be used as an inclusion in fresher clay. This method can be used to make simulated turquoise or any other type of stone or material that has inclusions in it.

Well, that's it for today. I've been sitting on a hard lump of polymer clay (wrapped in plastic, of course) and now it's time to see if I can work with it. Hope these tips help you out in your polymer clay journey!

Friday, February 14, 2014

Catch The Crazy Train Gilruth Designs 2/24/14-2/17/14

The current Crazy Train Rider is Gilruth Designs who offers elegant handmade designs for the independent woman. check out her shop on Art Fire.

Collection created and curated by Andrea Designs

COLLECTIN: GILRUT...