Darleen Bellan’s Unique Ornaments and Mementos

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Christmas, Christmas decorations, Christmas Ornaments, Holidays, Philadelphia Polymer Clay Guild, Polymer Clay retail, Polymer Clay Retreats, , , 3 Comments on Darleen Bellan’s Unique Ornaments and Mementos

I met Darleen Bellan this summer at Clay ConneCTion, the semi-annual retreat of the Southern Connecticut Polymer Clay Guild and  fell in love with her quirky and inspired polymer clay figurines and ornaments. When she agreed to do an interview with fellow sculptor Sherman Oberson for the Philadelphia Area Polymer Clay Guild’s YouTube Channel, I grabbed my equipment, met them in a quiet hallway and we did the interview on the spot.

Darleen’s an animal lover and her ornaments are lots of fun (Chicken ala King anyone?) But Darleen doesn’t restrict herself to ornaments and figurines; she crafts made-to-order pieces memorializing  departed pets and gives each one a unique twist  that gives it  personal meaning.  So what’s the unique twist?   Go to the Philadelphia Area Polymer Clay Guild’s Blog and watch  the video to  find out.

Most of Darleen’s  work is  one of a kind and she welcomes commissions.  If you are interested in buying or commissioning her work, go to her web site or her etsy shop.    Here are some pictures.

Sherman also has some great ornaments for sale in his etsy shop.  His style is different from Darleen’s but

his work is charming and will make you laugh.

Here’s one I bought

and here are some more!

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Season’s Greetings!

By: ornamento.blog
Christmas, Christmas decorations, Christmas Gifts, Christmas Ornaments, City Street Scene, Philadelphia, , , Leave a Comment on Season’s Greetings!

Plumpton agreed to help with this week’s post but as you can see, he is not very happy about it.  Not to worry.  He has some turkey in his future that will wipe out all memories of this Yuletide ignominy. If you want to check out holiday posts from years past, press here and here.

More Christmas Ornament Ideas

By: ornamento.blog
Art, art, creativity, crafts, inspiration, caning, Christmas decorations, Christmas Gifts, Christmas Ornaments, Felting, Feltmakers, Hand Made, Holidays, inspiration, Materials, Polymer Clay, Polymer clay new techniques, problem solving, Seasonal decorations, YouTube, , , , , 1 Comment on More Christmas Ornament Ideas

It’s the time of the year for Santa’s workshop to be in full swing.  I am making ornaments again, and this year I am incorporating felting with the polymer clay.  I could use some elves to do the needle work for me, but I find needle felting very relaxing (when I don’t stab myself with the needles-thankfully not too often) and mixing the different yarns and color of roving reminds me of painting.

The ornaments here are mostly needle felted over styrofoam balls.  I wet felted one base and decided that needle felting worked better for me.  The embellishments are pom poms, additional yarn and roving, and polymer clay canes and beads.

The Internet is full of sites offering free felting directions. Feltmakers List FAQ is a good place to start.  YouTube has lots of videos and some are quite good.  And since crafters  have diverse ways of doing the same thing,  it’s always helpful to read a few sets of instruction and watch a few different videos.

New Ideas for Christmas Ornaments

By: ornamento.blog
Art, Christmas, Christmas decorations, Christmas Gifts, Christmas Ornaments, Materials, Polymer Clay, recycling, repurposing, repurposing and christmas ornaments, , , , , , Leave a Comment on New Ideas for Christmas Ornaments

Santa’s Workshop is in full swing again this year, but I’m falling behind. I hoped to have all the new ornaments done by tonight, but as you can see, some are still baking.

The glass ornament with the tassel is a recycle. I found it in the trash, but the bottom part was broken. I cut it off and replaced it with a beaded tassel (I bought a box of them years ago at an “After Christmas” sale) and tied some fancy ribbon to the top.

The rest are glass balls covered with polymer clay. I like to collect interesting yarns, fibers and ribbons and I think they make nice tassels for the ornaments. One of the tassels has big metal and ceramic beads tied into the yarn.









Centsationalgirl.com has a post with great ideas for making ornaments, and links to more than one hundred other pages with ornament ideas and tutorials. Now you have no excuse not to deck the halls. Get down with your bad elf!

Some pictures of more finished ornaments

Happy Holidays South Philly Style

By: ornamento.blog
art, creativity, crafts, inspiration, Christmas, Christmas decorations, Christmas Gifts, Christmas Ornaments, Holidays, Light, Lighting, Personal History, Philadelphia, problem solving, South Philadelphia, South Philly, Uncategorized, Urban Artifacts, Urban Landscape4 Comments on Happy Holidays South Philly Style

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People live in rowhouses in South Philadelphia and they decorate their front windows and doors when someone has a baby, someone gets married, someone graduates, someone gets paroled or the Flyers win the Stanley Cup.  In other words,  people here don’t need much of an excuse to decorate.  You can keep your fancy suburbs with your large expanse of lawns, triple car garages and gabled roofs.  We’re just fine with our flat roofs, front stoops and double parking.  The constraints just make for more creativity, as you can see from the pictures I took on one frozen night. Heathen’s Greetings.