Weed Pots, a Polymer Clay Project, Inspired by Alice Stroppel's Weed Pots, Adapted by Lilian Nichols

Butterfly Man

I posted this creation on Facebook.  Some of the readers wanted to know how I made it so I directed them to this blog.  As I planned this blog I realized I have learned a lot about polymer clay since I started taking classes from Lilian Nichols.  

I am doing this as a step by step. If you are interested in polymer clay there are many posts on the Internet from accomplished polymer clay artists. There are also many how-to books.  As with any craft or art, there is much to be learned in a class from a teacher in your area.

Here are the creations of the other group members.

Karen's and Lilian's pots

DeeDee's and Linda's pots

Barbara  did something entirely different with her pot.

Alice Stroppel used small glass bottles as the base form.  Lilian Nichols discovered that the empty amber medicine containers us old folks have can be used also.  The amber containers must be covered with clay before baking.  If the containers are put in the oven uncovered they will lose their shape.  They can't take the heat.

Throw away the lid. This is a small short container.

Use three quarters of a block of Premo polymer clay.  All brands are not created equal. Premo is easy for beginners to work with..

Roll the clay until it conditioned and thin enough to pass through the pasta maker at a thick setting.

Cut the clay to size and fit around the container.  Smooth the point at which the edges join with your fingers.

Fold a a length of clay to cover the threaded section of the container, the part where the lid was screwed on.

Fit to container.  

Work the clay collar into the rest of the clay covering.

Cut a circle to cover the bottom.

Attach bottom. The two gadgets at lower left can be used to release bubbles of air that may be trapped under the clay.  Both were made by members of our class.  Blend the clay with your fingers until the covering is smooth.  This step becomes easier as you become more proficient working with the clay.

Finished except for the fun part.

Finishing is easiest if you have been working with polymer clay for a while.  You will have an accumulation of left over canes from other projects.  (canes are described in some of my other blog posts and on the Internet and in polymer clay how-to books.)

I made the nose from a cone of the same clay I used to cover the container.

Bake at 275 degrees for 30 minutes.

I'm planning to use this covered container to make a companion for Butterfly Man. I will post her when I have finished her.

Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary, March 19, 2018

When Tom and I opened the van doors we heard the frogs calling for mates, another sign that spring is on its way.

Tom found the first flowers...Harbingers-of-spring.  He didn't come out with me last week when I saw the Harbingers so this was the first time he has seen them this season.  When I searched for them last week, I searched and searched before finding the first one.  Today they were sprinkled throughout the woods.  In another week there will be even more of them.  But, because each little cluster is a quarter inch or less in diameter, they still won't be easy to find unless a person is looking for them.

Just beyond the first water seep, Tom spotted a Purple Cress.  One flower was open wide.

Further on we, found a few more Purple Cress.  Most of them were still in bud but we found this one with multiple flowers.

I saw a few of one variety of Waterleaf.  The leaves were still as small as the ones I found last week.

The most noticeable flowers were the Hepatica.  Even a casual observer would see them.  There will be more and bigger clusters soon.

The pollinators were busy.  See the tiny beetle in the hepatica on the right?

Tom was surprised when he looked at the following photo.  He hadn't realized there was a honeybee in the picture, too.

As we returned to the parking lot, a bird was singing and flitting about in the trees.  Neither of us recognized its song.  Time to get out the bird song CDs.

The Brukner Nature Center Butterfly Transect, August 13, 2017

Joy and frustration. The day was hot and sunny. We saw ten species of butterflies although we didn't see many of any of them.  My biggest frustration was that this was the best picture of a butterfly that I took...A Silver-spotted Skipper.  The warmer the weather the less likely it is for a butterfly to sit quietly for a portrait.

First the joy...

Molly, who is good at identifying moths and caterpillars of both moths and butterflies walked with us today.  Because of her I saw this beautiful caterpillar.  She told me it was the caterpillar of an Eight-spotted Forester, a moth.

When Tom and I were looking at prairie flower sites last month, I took this photo of the adult Eight-spotted Forester.  It is a showy moth which flies during the day.  It has showy tufts on its forelegs.

And now the frustrations...

This is a Hackberry perched on the wall of the Interpretive Center.

A little better photo of an Eastern Tailed Swallowtail.

But then here is one of a Monarch.  We saw two.

A Summer Azure looking worn.

I drove into our drive hoping that Jim got some better photos.  On the garden phlox beside the drive was this butterfly.  I took a few photos.  Butterflies move faster when the temperatures are in the eighties (Fahrenheit) so I took a lot of photos to get these two that enabled me to identify it as a Spicebush female.  I was happy to see one more species of butterfly.

Our Second Trip to Cedar Bog This Year...June 12, 2017

After our half hour visit to Cedar Bog on May 31, we decided we wanted to go back when the Grass Pink Orchids were blooming.  We invited our friend, John to come with us.  The tree we are looking at is a Yellow Maple.  It marks the "Y" in the circular trail.

At the "Y" we turned to the right.

The Tuberous Indian Plantain (Cacalia tuberosa) was beginning to be showy.  There will be larger flower heads.

A little further down the trail, I found this Milkweed (Asclepias)  One of the experts from the Ohio Wildflower Facebook site told me it was Poke Milkweed (Asclepias exaltata) one of two species of woodland milkweeds in Ohio.

Meanwhile, Tom was taking photos of a Damselfly, an Ebony Jewelwing male (Calopteryx maculata).  Damselflies usually sit with wings folded upright while Dragonflies usually sit with wings spread.

At the Sedge Meadow, Tom found the Showy Lady's Slippers still blooming.

Showy Lady's Slippers (Cypripedium reginae)

In the same sedge meadow, he found the first Grass Pink (Calopogon pulchellus)  We saw more further from the boardwalk and also more in the next section of Sedge Meadow that the boardwalk passed through.

In the second section of Sedge Meadow we found the Round-leafed Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia).  We knew where to find them because years ago we went on a guided walk.  The plants are very tiny, only a little bigger than the lid on a small jar of bread and butter pickles.  They are fascinating to me because they are very tiny, yet are a carnivorous plant.

Round-leafed Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia)

Far out in the sedge meadow, we saw this plant.  Fortunately, Tom has a camera that could take the distant shot.

I posted this photo on Ohio Wildflowers and learned that it was Phlox maculata.

In this same meadow, Shrubby Cinquefoil were beginning to bloom.

Shrubby Cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa)

Below is a plant I find interesting.  I first saw it years ago when I was exploring with a park naturalist off the trail at Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary.  It was a rare oportunity to go into the usually unseen parts of the woods.  He explained that it was believed to have been called Nein bark by early German settlers because the bark peels off the branches.  The name, over time, has become Ninebark.  The flowers are not at their most beautiful showy selves in this photo.

Here is a crop of the photo above showing the long curving branches on which the old bark peels off in layers.

This is a photo that Tom took when we visited the bog last June 11 when the flowers were showy.

Ninebark (Rubus odoratus) a member of the Rose family.


There were a lot of Tall Meadow Rue Plants.  It is a species in which there are male and female plants are on different plants.

Tall Meadow Rue (Thalictrum polygamum) with male flowers.

Tall Meadow Rue with female flowers.

All along the trail we saw butterflies but none of them stayed around long enough for Tom or me to get a picture.

We were finishing our walk when Tom found this Red Admiral.  It was down in the grasses so interested in whatever was there that it stayed for a bit longer than the other butterflies.

Red Admiral ( Vanessa atalanta rubria)

Cedar Bog, May 31, 2017

We had plans for the day.  We would go to Cedar Bog after making a quick stop at Key Mobility in Xenia to have Kyle adjust the power chair lift in the van.  The lift turned out to be problematic.  Eventually, Kyle decided there was something wrong with the lift that he had never come across.  He put a loaner lift in the van and promised to work on our lift.

By the time he had tried everything he knew and called the lift help line several times, we had only a short time to visit at Cedar Bog.  We decided to go anyway because wildflower enthusiasts were posting pictures of the Showy Lady's Slippers.  We saw them several years ago at the end of their blooming season and Tom wanted to get photos of the flowers at their peak.

He found them.

It was late in the day and mostly overcast so the lighting was easy to work with.  I finally was able to get a good photo of the map of the trails.

Because it was late we took a very short walk, only went down the boardwalk to the right to the first opening  because the Showy Lady's slippers close to the trail there.

I was surprised at the number of other things we saw on our walk.

We saw this snake slither across the boardwalk.  Neither of us knew what kind it was.  It didn't have the pattern of the Massasauga  which was pictured on the sign near the beginning of the trail.  Nevertheless, we waited for it to move off into the foliage before we moved on.

There was a variety of butterflies.  This one sat long enough for Tom to take its picture.

The large broad leaves of Skunk Cabbage covered much of the forest floor.

One of the prettiest flowers was this one.  I think it is Flowering Spurge.    There were masses of it in the old field meadow before we entered the woods.

As we were leaving, Tom took one last photo...

Southern Blue Flag Iris.

I had never seen these irises here so I had a bonus on this half hour walk.