Chitter chatter

So, what have I been up to, clay-wise?

• I just joined 2o groups over at Flickr. A few of them have nothing to do with clay (instead being about my dogs' breeds or a few locations near to my heart), but most of them are related to it in one way or another. It seems like a good way to get to know other people who "do" clay, see some inspirational photos, and maybe even get more traffic at my own pages.
• I just finished baking a batch of beads to be featured in my "Crackled Inlay" tutorial-- if in fact we decide to stick with that name. I don't know if we'll think of another one that's better. It's hard to see exactly how they'll look when they're completely finished, but they don't look too bad right now.
• Yesterday, I typed up the tutorial itself, so now "all" I have to do is sand and buff the beads-- then photograph them and put together the tutorial and photos into the webpage tutorial format. Well, Donald'll probably fix up the photos and plug all the info into the webpage-- unless he teaches me how to do it first. ;o)
• I used up the rest of the silver mg block I made (just to get it out of the way, mainly). Those beads are finished now, all the way to buffing, even. I also sanded and buffed some/most of the "ghost image" stamped mg pendants I made. I was disappointed with how some of them turned out. A couple, because the contrast between the colors was just way too little to be impressive. A few more because somehow or other, I got little pockets of air trapped in the pendants-- probably between the decorative mg veneer and the stronger "backing" clay. So now there are unsightly little bumps where the air expanded during curing. :o( Very sad. But I guess it's part of the learning process. I'll be more careful the next time I do something like that. I haven't had that much trouble with air pockets before this, but now I see what a pain in the neck they can be.
• I salvaged a little-used bulletin board from the pantry, repainted it, and hung it in the craft room to give me a place to hang some of my finished jewelry. It's nice to have a place to put them-- rather than having twenty necklaces getting entangled while they all hang on the doorknob! (g)
• Probably more things I'm not thinking of at the moment...

So now I need to make myself get out the sandpaper and work on sanding the beads for the tutorial. I'm not really looking forward to that, but at least some of them are bigger items, which makes them easier to sand, I think. And there are only... 4 or 5?...round beads in this batch... (I hate sanding round beads!)