BluPrint November 2011 Polymer Clay Canes, Beads and Jewelry

Volume 8 Issue 11, November 2011

What's New in November?

Banana Bread! - Ok, this is a bit different than my usual post, but I have to share this wonderfully easy and moist bread/cake recipe. All you really need is a couple overripe bananas.

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed

• 1/3 cup melted butter

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 egg, beaten

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• pinch of salt

• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

This recipe is really easy—smash your bananas with a wooden spoon, pour the melted butter in and stir it well. Beat the egg with a fork before pouring it into the mix, add sugar and vanilla and mix well. Sprinkle the salt and baking soda over the mixture and mix again. Then add all your flour and mix completely. Pour into a buttered loaf pan and bake for one hour at 350.

This bread is moist and light and great with a winter cup of coffee. So, don’t toss out overripe bananas, it only takes a couple minutes to mix up this great bread.

Recipe borrowed from a recipe site.

Now, on to beads and canes.

Flower Canes - I am getting ready to mix up another batch of fun flowers. I have been working on new designs and have cannot wait to get started. I had to set up a new work bench in my little cabin rental in order to work on my flowers. Otherwise, the flowers were threatening to take over my kitchen table and then where would I put my laptop? :)

Artfire—In an effort to conserve space, accommodate my regular customers and to take advantage of a great handmade site, I have consolidated all my websites into one at Artfire. All of my other sites are still updated and used, you can still access your customer information and your order history, I am just using Artfire to save space and make it convenient for my customers.

You will find Blue Morning Expressions, X-Stitch-Patterns, The Seed Bead Pattern Store, and Clipon Earrings Boutique. If you are interested, you can find me at http://www.artfire.com/users/bluemorningexpressions

Writing—I have spent the last month writing full-time and I must confess, I have sorely neglected all my canes and polymer clay items. I did over 250 web articles and one feature article for a local newsmagazine. All of these things were fun to do, but very time consuming and my clay suffered. I had quite a few sales of canes and over half of my inventory went out in boxes this last month. That is good for clearing space for me, but bad for providing a great selection of canes for you!

Beads—I am working on new focal beads and doing a few necklaces with the penguins that I did last year for Christmas. I have six focal beads ready go and will get those necklaces done soon. The next sets of focal beads will be ready in the next couple of weeks. You can find both the beads and the finished necklaces on www.bluemorningexpressions.com or at my Artfire store http://www.artfire.com/users/bluemorningexpressions

As always, thank you for all your support and emails.

www.bluemorningexpressions.com     

Until next month,

Julie & Blu

Earrings—These are all created from my bead sets, I used both floral rounds, heart swirl lentils, and full size 20mm pillow beads to create 30 new sets of earrings. Each set is under $4—I wanted to create an affordable set of earrings for gifts that can be easily purchased in groups. They make great stocking stuffers and can be converted to pierced look earrings if you like.