A new slant on an old design

I'm getting ready for tomorrow's set up at Festival in the Park in Charlotte, NC. We've been looking forward to returning to Charlotte since Art & Soul of South End in April. For the first time, I've sent out postcards, inviting people to come to the show, and offering them 20% off their purchase. I can't wait to see how many people bring one or mention having received one.

I'll also be showing a new clock design. This photo isn't the best, but I think you can see the raised clay leaves on the tile face, which is my newest innovation in clock faces. I've done the leaf design on single mirrors before, as well as on footstools, back in the day. Putting the leaf design on a 12"x12" clock occurred to me about a month ago, while washing dishes (I don't question the muse's timing or location for bestowing inspiration!). The history of the design is that I don't throw anything away. I'd been doing paste papers (HGTV has a good tutorial here), and had scraps left over from the boxes I'd covered with them. During a rare 'play day,' I began cutting it into shapes, and arranging them onto a solid color paper. The proverbial light bulb went off when I cut and arranged leaf like shapes--a new design was born. The ability to use different sections of the colored paste papers to create the shimmering leaves was exciting, and it worked well on the mirrors and footstools.
For the new, large clocks, I've taken it one step further by cutting the same leaf shapes out of polymer clay, texturing them, and placing them in a similar design on the polymer clay clock faces. Once baked, I applied acrylic paints over the texture, to create more depth and sheen. The result is a raised, textured leaf design which echoes the paper leaf design around it. Done in earth-toned, fall colors, I hope it will appeal to this weekend's customers--we'll see.
We're leaving early tomorrow morning, and I'll be without computer access until Monday, so I wish you all a good rest of the week, and a lovely weekend. Show details to come....