Luna's Baublebilities

What a week we had last week! Bry has been working on taping the ceiling panels in our livingroom (remember that living room makeover we started last spring break?) and I've been working on scarves and inventory updates and we've both been cleaning up after a sick kid so the house is in serious disarray this morning.






I hope to get the living room clean and tidy, the laundry folded and maybe put away, Maxx's toddler toys cleaned out of his room so some of his bigger boy toys can go in, get the dishes washed and the kitchen cleaned up as well as spend at least half an hour with the treadmill, keep the fire burning and keep Molly on task with homeschool.

I'm not ambitious at all today.



But first I wanted to show off my new scarves and show you who I found lurking in the lair when I cleaned my studio a couple of weeks ago.








Here are some photos of my new scarves - they are already on their way to their new owners.







I'm in love with the purple moon scarf. I need to get my stretcher back out later this week and experiment with those funky color combinations some more.










These are among my simpler dragons and certainly are not my best ever but they are cute.

The Phoenix is wonderful. It was an exciting design challenge and I had fun blending the colors and creating the plumage. I've listed them all over at GoblinsMarket. They are not getting the attention they deserve hiding away in the mess of my studio.






I haven't worked with polymer clay for a while so these are probably over a year old. I'm torn about working with polymer anymore. I really like making dragons - I love the intricacy that I can develop with color and embellishments and I am addicted to all things fairy tale. BUT - the last time I worked with the clay, I had some very troubling reactions. . . . . .

It had been a few years since I had had time and inclination to get the stuff out - mostly because my old pasta machine was shot - it just took too long to condition the clay and get a good color blend with the old machine. There was a sale on PM's at Joanne Fabric on day so I rushed out to grab a new one and got my clay out again. I made lots of dragons and some mokumo game beads over the course of a couple of weeks and then my hormones hit me. PMS was terrifying that month - I was an emotional wreck (worse than my usual wreckage) weeping and then raging uncontrollably, close to suicidal a couple of times, horribly painful breasts and the night before my cycle began, I had bouts of shaking, chills and sweating. I was seriously considering a trip to the ER.

After decompressing for a few days, I realized that my horible hormones were probably a reaction to contact with the polymer clay. I bought some hand lotion that forms a barrier on your skin to prevent absorption of chemicals. The next month PMS was bad, but not as bad as the previous month. I quit using the Polymer Clay and my system stabilized to its normal level of insanity after a few cycles. I haven't worked with the clay since and can't decide on what course of action to take.

Do I use up what I have left? Do I chuck it all out? Do I try to continue to work with the stuff wearing gloves as much as possible? I was very frustrated to have developed a profitable and fulfilling new product line (dragons) only to discover thatthe process makes me sick. And I'm in a quandry about supporting an art form that obviously has serious health and likely environmental implications. Polymer Clay advocates and manufacturers insist that the stuff is safe, it cannot case cancer or other disease and is manufactured in an environmentally sound manner.

Really? Who do I trust? My body or those who make money selling me the stuff? How closely linked is my early Ploymer Clay use to my secondary infertility and endometriosis problems?

I will never know.

What I do know is that I have these beautiful things sitting around and stuff to make more ofthem and I don't know what to do with it all.