I’ve already received two emails today warning me of the “coming virus” that CNN announced and MacAfee discovered.  I’m here to tell you that the warning itself is a hoax.

The postcard virus has been around for at least a year.  If you go to the snopes website, and type in “postcard virus” in the search box, you will be taken to the article that talks both about the virus and about the current hoax that is burning it’s way through many an inbox. 

If you receive one of these warnings from a well-meaning friend, coworker, or family member — please, please tell them it is a hoax and ask them to stop forwarding the warning to everyone they know.  Ask them to go back to the person who sent the warning to them, and tell them it is a hoax.  All they have to do is go to snopes to verify this. 

The irony about the whole thing is, the hoax warning contains a link to the very article I’m talking about.  But please, don’t click on the link in the email.  Never do that.  Please!  Always just type the address for snopes into your navigation bar and go there directly yourself. 

And also keep in mind that if there is a virus scare out there, generally you will hear about it from legitimate services such as snopes or your internet provider.  So try to be judicious in what you forward on to other people, as you may be an unwitting carrier of a virus yourself.

I have some new things to show you:  violet and rose canes for Fimo Nail Art, and some assorted cabochons. 

I wanted to talk about the yellow rose cane for a minute.  I had initially made this cane last Saturday at the Riverfront.  But when I reduced it yesterday, I didn’t like how it looked.  So it went back into the processor and made a really nice orange for a pumpkin cane.  Okay.  Well… I still needed a yellow rose, so I just started digging through my clay drawers for any yellow clay.  Bright, muted, translucent, it all went into the chopper.  I honestly have no idea what clay brands are in this thing;  I only know they are all old formula.  Okay, so I figured I’d already blown the plan to write down which clays I used to reproduce the cane; so I did the same thing with white… went digging for any white I had, whether it was bright or ivory or whatnot.  The ironic thing is — the clays came out absolutely beautifully, blended like a charm, and gave me 18 ounces of a yellow rose cane I’m very happy with! 

This is a slightly adjusted version of the pink rosebud cane.  I’d accidentally left my design book in the van, and Margo was using it for the evening.  So I had the website up with the pink rose for reference.  Remember how I said I wanted to adjust some of the petals to make the cane look more balanced?  I think I got a little closer with this one.  I began building from the bottom petals up, rather than the bud outward, too.  Which I think helped alot.  And the triangular shape is fairly new for me.  I didn’t want too much translucent around the design, to minimize halo effect in the nail art or cane layering, so I decided to give it a rounded triangle shape.  I’m happy with that too, it reduced much easier than I thought it would. 

If you would like some of the rose, I have it in a variety of options:  Raw Cane and Baked Fimo Nail Art Cane.  I’ve cut slices for packages and hopefully I’ll get those listed by the week’s end.  Today if everything goes well, but I’m not sure. 

The next cane is the wild violet, which I’m happy with but didn’t turn out the same as the previous one.  So I’ve named it version 2.  Similar situation to the yellow rose - I’d made the first wild violet cane with bits of this and that and have no idea what colors I used.  I’m almost out of the first cane, so when I went to make another one, I did my best to guess at colors.  I think the first one must have had a mixture of fuschia or violet in with the purple, because this one came out much more purple than the first.  I like it, though.  So I’m happy.  It looks absolutely adorable reduced to 3mm. 

Lastly in this post are the cabochons.  I’m slowly putting my beads and such back into the store here.  I used to carry quite a bit of wearable art, but when I started doing the shows all that went to show stock and I didn’t have much left for the website.  I’m trying to do better about having enough for both venues.  There are 7 different cabs in there right now - faux opal, mokume gane, and dried flower styles.  It was really hard to pick a favorite to show you, but I chose the smal mokume gane oval with terracotta base.

Beth Ackley from Destined 2 Clay is working toward weekly shipments of her Fimo Nail Art Canes.  She’d recently taken an online flower caning class from cane artist Carolyn Stearns.  So Beth is really excited about sending some new flowers, and pink daisy cane is the first of those.  Beth also created some more fruit canes to add to our collection:  cantaloupe melon, strawberry, and kiwi.   You can see all the newest canes in the sidebar to the right.

Coming from me this week will be another Wild Violet cane, a Yellow Rose, and a Christmas Bell.  The Violet is finished and ready to be added to the store.  It’s a bit more purple than the previous Violet.  The yellow rose is packed and ready for reduction, and the bell still needs to be packed with translucent.