I actually made this bird, again inspired by Christi Friesen’s new Birds book, by each stage in around 50 photos. I have a plan to animate these into a film of how it was made, but the photography wasn’t great and post production may take a while!

I’m an enormous fan of Christi’s work and have all her books which are without doubt right up there with Maureen Carlson in terms of accessible and achievable projects. Christi also has a website where she displays ideas and downloadable projects.

This particular project comes from her Under the Sea book and i had to make it after seeing a version by a 10 year old that was so good that i was completely put to shame!

I’ve since found that some of the new Studio by Sculpey colours are really spectacularly suitable for using with these projects. We sell a full range of Fimo and Sculpey at BeadMerrily and all the beads came form very simple beading kits made by The Bead Shop and Fashion Angels.

This is a Fimo and glass beads Cleopatra that i made after my 8 year old (her with the frog!) told me my original, made for a project with the kids) wasn’t good enough!

Fimo is such a great way for the family to do something together; we read a book on Cleo, then everyone had a go at modeling her. The things we talked about as we modeled assure me that the girls will remember the project for a long time!

This was created by my 8 year old daughter using a book by Christi Friesen . She really does some fabulous books, we’ve loved them.

More soon, this blog is now a top priority after the last couple of years of frantically just trying to sell Fimo to other people!

My first attempt at such things, made especially for my friend Kirsty. Enormous fun to do!

I made these green beads completely by accident, just from a random folding of 2 greens and 2 yellows together; i’d been intending to mix them completely. The mixtures gradually formed a striped band which i just cut into more or less matched rectangles, gently rounding off the cut edges a little, then gently pierced them with a cocktail stick. Threaded on to green waxed cord and interspersed with purple wooden beads, they look and feel rather lovely.

First go at doing something like this; it was immensely satisfying though and i shall be doing it again. i was away from home and only had Fimo Soft to hand, which isn’t ideal for canes, but it came out okay i thought.

I really must learn to spike heads on to cocktail sticks too as this one dropped back in the over slightly and really spoiled the effect. And when i’ve done that, i must practise faces!

Her hair is perhaps my favourite bit; thin tapes (squashed sausages) of copper fimo twisted lightly and then secured on the head. The trick is to start by putting hair stranded in from neck level, then they don’t look like they have a fimo version of a comb over.

I’m also pleased with the sunflowers and with a bit of work, i might get them back to how i really like them.

Overall, i wasn’t pleased with this particular fairy, which is why you won’t be seeing anymore of her than this, but i did like the colours and her hair and something about her shape. I didn’t sit down and make her all in one go though and she just didn’t feel quite right. Still, something to work on

I made this scene as a Secret Santa present; both of us had been obsessed with a Nintendo game called Animal Crossing and this scene features details from the game as well as all of the 5 of them doing the stuff they might do, where they trapped in the game, including Steve on the phone in the background and Sarah obsessively collecting all the golden tools so she can be the best!

I cooked the base, house and tree trunk first, having made the base out of millifliori cane segments and then added the people (in rather a hurry to meet a deadline) later. I’m pleased with it though, but would have liked to do more with the figures.