A pressing situation. . .

Over the holidays I received four new presses from Cattwalk designs. . .The graduated lentil, one inch lentil, chunky lentil and the new elongated crystal press. When I received them, I thought, "Humph! This will be a breeze!" WRONG! While the presses are absolutely wonderful, you really do have to be patient in learning to work with them. This is one of the reasons that my offerings of work have been few and far between lately. I have been trying to teach myself to work with these new tools.

One of the struggles that I am having with the presses is in trying to incorporate the techniques that I use in my current body of work. I need to stop doing tyring to emulate my current style on this new pallet and allow a new style to emerge from the learning process. The idea sounds very easy when I say it, but for some reason I'm finding extremely difficult.

Yesterday I worked with the elongated crystal press and I LOVE this new shape! I made some encased florals and even though the press kind of squished them out of form a bit. Still yet, I think they turned out beautifully so I can't wait to get back into the studio this afternoon to get a bit more familiar with what this press has to offer!

For anyone that actually reads this blog, I will be listing some beads and focals this afternoon.

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!!