The site has many, many. lessons and projects, techniques (and ideas for variations on them), links to examples, .tools that might be used, supply sources, tips for problem-solving, and special kids+beginners page and disabilities page.

It also has information on doing polymer clay as a business (shows, auctions, teaching, etc),. seasonal ideas, mixing media with polymer clay, polymer groups, creativity & inspiration, color mixing and making color blends, etc.

Much of the information is in the form of comments made by other clayers since 1995 which I've personally found helpful, and some is mine including many of the summaries --still have many more of those to go!
(My own photos, diagrams, and even more lessons, are to come if I can manage it)

In case you wonder, I named my site "Glass" Attic because after I'd stored such huge amounts of info up in my "attic," it seemed a shame to keep it all to myself ... I wanted others to be able to see into my attic too.

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ALL PAGES at GlassAttic

(grouped by SUBJECT)
...to see categories arranged alphabetically, see the left-hand navigation bar on every page...

NOTE: the Table of Contents page may be more useful than the following groupings
....to go there, click on the Table of Contents button at the top of the alphabetical navigation bar, on left

The. BASICS

Gen. Info re polymer clay + overview .....for newbies or anyone
...(what is polymer clay?)
...what all can be done with it !!!
...cross-pollination from other crafts & media
...links to sites having many lessons
...links to some "higher end" polymer work
...animated demos ..... etc.

Clays (clay brands & types, their characteristics, etc.)
Translucent & Glow-in-the-Dark clays
Mica clays ("metallic" clays & their special effects)
Liquid clays (brands-types, techniques for using)

Conditioning clays (preparing clays for use... strength tests)
Baking (how to's, ovens, avoiding darkening, etc)

Finishing, sealing and/or glossing with clear liquids & waxes
Sanding, tumbling (smoothing baked clay before buffing)
Buffing (bringing out a sheen or glossy shine)
Glues (& Diluent-Softener)

Tools (gen tools, handles, Dremels... work surfaces, brayers, heatguns, etc.)
Cutters-Blades-Templates (cookie-type, straight blades, Shapelets,cutting tiles,etc.)
Clay Guns (extruding small ropes of clay + pushers)
.........condensed tech's & "stained glass"
Pasta machines (buying, techniques, care)

Storage (for clay + equipment)
Safety, Cleaning, Health (clays+baking "fumes," oven walls, cleaning, rashes, etc.)

Supply Sources (clays + many other items)
Books & Videos (+ magazines, TV shows, etc.)

ALL THE. REST

Kids & Beginners (stuff to make or receive + games/chess, toys, etc...+ teaching kids)
Disabilities (ergonomics, hand-arm, blindness,etc....+emotional or learning disabilities, etc.)

Color (explanations of theory, mixing color palettes, many color recipes, marbling clays)
Blends (Skinner & other color gradations)
Scraps (what all to do with them)

Canes--gen. (gen.info on making canes successfully)
Canes--reducing (making canes & their patterns smaller)
Canes--instructions (instr's for making many specific cane patterns)
....Faces (face canes only)
Old canes (how to deal with them)
......Just what are canes & millefiori?

Covering things (metal, glass, wood, plastic, other clay forms, etc.)
Pens (covering)
Eggs (real & plastic eggs + dissolving shell)
BOH (covering tiny bottles, esp for cancer patients) . . . & BOH comments

Stamping & Texturing (making impressions in clay + techniques)
Molds (making molds + using molds of various types)
Carving (shallowly +backfilling, carving 3-D items, lathe-turning clay)

Powders (metallic, pearly, embossing powd's, chalks) + metallic waxes
Leaf (metallic leaf & metallic foils)

Lettering & Inks (alphabets + inks for writing on clay + inks for tinting clay, etc.)
Paint (paints for tinting clay, painting on clay, polymer "paintings", etc.)

Sheets of pattern (sheets of slices, collage, puzzle-patched, dragged-lines, Damascus, etc.)

Transfers (transferring images to clay)
Mokume Gane (a special layering-then-shaving technique)
Mosaics (making tiles, chips + micromosaics +mortars + other kinds of inlay)
Onlay (putting clay on clay dimensionally + bargello + CDshards)

Inclusions (herbs,spices,powders,shavings,fragrance)
Faux --many types (simulating jade,amber,pearls,metals,glass,water,etc)
Faux--Ivory (just simulating ivory)
Faux--Turquoise & Wood (simulating turq. + wood, bark/corks)

Jewelry (necklaces,bracelets,earrings pins, barrettes, misc + thinner cords)
Pendants & Cording (pendants, hanging, hinges...heavier cords)
Beads (many --gen.info making...covering cores...individual types & shapes...bead rollers)
..... Bead holes (tech's for holes before & after baking)
Buttons

Sculpting-gen (main sculpting pg... clays, fingerprints, white clay clean, tips, many examples in Websites)
Sculpting--bodies & tools (body parts + abstract figures/amulets, dangle figures + "clothing" + tools)
Heads & Masks (sculpting heads/faces, skin tones + making masks)
Armatures-permanent (added strength for larger items --wire, alum.foil, mesh, PVC pipe, etc.)
......Armatures-temporary (removable armatures... dissolvable,etc.)
Miniatures (foods,flowers,furniture,figures,misc..)

Vessels (boxes, bowls, trays, etc.)
"Rock" vessels (container pendants-inro + larger containers)
Structures, Houses (structures.. landscaping...gingerbread houses... candies)

Frames + Mirrors + Decorative Tiles (small and large)
Books (minibooks, notebook/journal covers, bookmarks, etc.
Cards (greeting cards + postcards + scrapbooking)
Kaleidoscopes (+ oil wands)
Outdoor, snowglobes, fountains (effects of sun+water, snowglobes, outdoor items, etc)
Gift ideas (for men, teachers... themes...showers... general gifts)
Quilt (not yet available)

Christmas (ornaments & other decorations, ideas + Solstice, Hanukkah)
Halloween & other holidays (Halloween + Dia de los Muertos + Thanksgiving + Valentines +other)

Mixing Media (using clay w/ other materials --paper,fabric,seedbeads,postage stamps, etc.)
Wire (types, making basic wire shapes, uses & ideas) ........Wire class (for kids & others)
Other Materials (2 pt resins, more plastics, magnets, etc.)

Misc. (sewing clay + purses,wearables +Zen gardens + making gummed notepads + melting, softening, shrinking plastics + marbles, glass pebbles, aquarium beads + marbling with inks,etc.... + putting your photos online

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Photography (photographing clay items, or scanning them + types of cameras + making lightboxes, etc.)

BUSINESS & TEACHING
Business (gen.info, pricing, eBay, wholesale, taxes,etc.)
Starting a Business
Shows (+ displays, booths, behavior, etc.)
Demos (demonstrating clay)
Teaching (good teaching + classes at shops or home + finding students)
....(also see copyrights below)

POLYMER GROUPS
Online groups (message boards, mailing lists + chats)
Guilds (local & national)
Finding people + Creating interest in clay (+starting a guild)
Retreats, conferences
Online swaps

CREATIVITY ...INSPIRATION, IDEAS.... "ART"
What is Creativity? ....Where to find Inspiration.... What is "art" anyway?
Themes for Exploration + other experiments in creativity
Clay Ideas list (old)
"Owning" + Copyrights, etc.

MISCELLANEOUS
Boxes & envelopes (folding/origami)
Funny & Musical Polymer

SITE INFO
Overview
...definition, polymer-uses list, cross-pollination, links + more (..for newbies or anyone)
About Site
...history & purpose
...formatting conventions, etc.
Problem links, dead links
... re individual websites, photo-sharing sites, etc.

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NON-POLYMER pages

Quilting (& foundation piecing)
Photograpy & Trick photography (to be separated later)
Costume, ethnic dress, etc.
Kids' projects & craft sites
--fingerpuppets, pop-ups, button pocket pals,
physics play toy, carousel,
Misc. crafts
-- seasonal, sweatshirt decorating,
cake decorating, etc.

Computer theme/pun tree (hints & answers)

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ORGANIZATION of Site

There is now a "Table of Contents" page for all of the GlassAttic site as well (..a link for it can be found at the top of the alphabetical navigation bar on every page)
...it shows a listing of all the categories, as well as all the sub-categories for each category, all in one place
...on the TOC page, the categories have been grouped by topic as much as possible, and also color-coded
...looking there should help in finding particular things at the site when you don't know where to begin <g> (in addition using to the search features discussed below)
.......it's also a good way to see the breadth of the whole site in one place, or just to browse around
(then when you've decided on a page to visit, just select it from the left-hand navigation bar)

.....navigation bars on the left side of each page show the categories in alphabetical order
.....the Table of Contents page and below on this page both show the categories grouped by subject.

PROBLEMS VIEWING. the Site ?

If you are unable to access the entire site because our server is having problems, etc., remember this:
....you can view a "cached" version of the site via Google's last crawl of it at any time (...you'll still be able to navigate through all the pages).
....To do that.... go to http://www.google.com and enter glassattic.com in the search box.
........When the results page comes up, click on "Show Google's cache of glassattic.com".

For some viewers (when you've opened a drop-down menu button in the left-hand navigation bar which contains a lot of categories), the bottom navigation buttons may temporarily disappear below your screen.
(...however, when you click on that open button to close it, you'll be able to see all the buttons all again).

Also for some visitors, there may be a problem with the text ...that is, the sizes and fonts of whole paragraphs can be inconsistent for some computer setups (some paragraphs will appear much larger than others, and in a different font ... very annoying!)
... if you want to see the text the way it should look, make these 2 changes (temporarily or permanently) to your browser settings from the menu bar while visiting:
1 . View > Text Size > Medium
2. Tools > Internet Options > Fonts > Arial (+ ok)
(most people say they don't notice a difference later at other websites if they just leave those settings this way)

If these things can't be corrected by changing the Text-Fonts above, also make sure that:
...your window is open as high up and low down as possible... your Resolution isn't set very low... you aren't using a very small-screen monitorand ...and don't have too many toolbars (or they're not set for large icons).

If nothing else works, you can always click on the page links you want to go to from the bottom of this page (where they're listed by category rather than alphabetical order)
...btw, the Table of Contents page can give you a good idea of what's on each page without having to actually go to it

PROBLEM LINKS + dead links at the site
problem links & dead links
for individual websites or pages, photo-sharing sites ... what you can try, etc.

SEARCHING

SITE

1. use the G.A. "Table of Contents" page
(it lists all the categories and all their sub-categories on one page)
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/contents.htm...(or it's at the top of the navigation bar on every page)
.....just browse around that page to see what's at the entire site, or to see what's on any individual category page
.....or, to find a particular search word on the TOC page, use the ctrl + f ."Find" command from your keyboard along with the word you're looking for (more details below)

(...or just go to a likely category page and use the ctrl+f keyboard command from that page)

2. use Google's "site search" (....from Google's "Advanced" Search .page)
(search whole GlassAttic site** using any search word --or any exact search phrase if you put it in quotes)

..... first click on this link: http://www.google.com/advanced_search.html
......for Find Results (in top window) -- write the word you're searching for
......for Domains(Only) (in bottom window) -- write glassattic.com
(then click on : Google Search)

(you can also do this from the Google Toolbar if you have it, by entering the search word, then clicking on the googly-eyed magnifying glass)

OR.... do the same thing from any browser window, using a specific word formula
--the formula is the word you're looking for (or phrase, in quotes), followed by a space... then followed by the domain name (plus .com, etc.) :
some examples:
molds site:glassattic.com
Pearl Ex site:glassattic.com
"feather cane" site:glassattic.com ...."special needs" site:glassattic.com
admission site:www.stanford.edu

3. use a lessons-only search, via Google
(search all of GlassAttic, using the word lesson as your search word... more details below)
http://tinyurl.com/3dfu2 (I've done the search for you with this link)

cool trick when using # 2 or # 3
...once you've gotten to the "results page" for your search, you can click on the word "Cached" instead of on the regular blue URL link under any of the pages listed in the results
......this will cause each instance of your search word (or the word lesson if you've used it) to be highlighted in yellow on its page making them all really easy to find --very helpful!
....sorry, Cached doesn't seem to work now for GlassAttic --just returns a blank page... am trying to find out why

(---when you know the name of the particular page you want, click on its name from inside the alphabetical navigation bar on left side of page)

Google searches

WARNINGS for Google searches:

Some GlassAttic pages that Google returns as results will come up without the navigation bar, for some reason I can't figure out yet (...the url for each of those pages will also contain the phrase MainPages).
...So to get to the real page, which has a navigation bar, just .remove. MainPages/ .from the URL... then hit GO or Enter
......for example:
glassattic.com/polymer/MainPages/baking.htm .......should be changed to:
glassattic.com/polymer/baking.htm

The GlassAttic page that Google shows in searches will be an older version of that page from Google's last crawl --which could be up to 4 weeks or more out of date)

Google's web crawler also cannot crawl to the very bottom of long webpages (and some of mine are really long!), so Google won't always see examples of a search term that occurs somewhere near the bottom of a very long GlassAttic page.
......that's another reason it can be good to search (ctrl+f) on the Table of Contents page, and/or on an individual category page instead.

(see Cool Trick just above for Google problem with Cached versions of my pages)

Google RESULTS
I think Google may present their results in order of the number of times a search word appears on a page, but not sure ....so checking out the first category or two Google presents in its results may help to find the most significant page for that search term.
.....You can also further refine your search from the initial results page either by adding or subtracting other words in the original search (see http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html for details)
...OR by searching within the results given (simply add more words to the window at the top, after the words site:glassattic.com, or click on Search Within Results at the bottom).

Google TOOLBAR
(if you install the Google toolbar on your browser --have it & love it-- you can initiate the a Google search for GlassAttic without ever having to leave any page on the Web you're on. Just write the search word in your Google toolbar after clicking your cursor there, then click on the "Search Site" icon... and voila, the same info will come up. This also works for any page on the web: http://toolbar.google.com )

PAGE

ctrl + f .... this built-in keyboard search function works on any browser (I think)
...hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard, then press the letter key. f .(...a window will pop up which says Find What?)
...type in your search term as a word or phrase
...then click on Find Next
(you'll be taken to the first instance on that page where the exact letters of your search word appear
..... repeat clicking on Find Next until you've been taken to all instances on the page in turn)

LESSONS .only

I've tried to use the underlined word "lesson" (rather than tutorial or instructions, etc.) wherever a fairly complete lesson was given or linked to (though some of the earlier text hasn't gotten changed to that format yet).
So click here to see the 87 GlassAttic pages which have lessons on them:
http://tinyurl.com/3dfu2
....if you then click on the word Cached instead of the blue link for any entry,
you'll see the word lesson highlighted in yellow all the way down that page, and they'll be very easy to browse that way.
.... (If you have the Google toolbar, just enter the word lesson in the toolbar window and then click on Search Site to bring up the same list.)
....sorry, Cached doesn't seem tobe working right now for GlassAttic! --blank pages are returned as Cached results... am trying to find out why

However, to find all lessons on a specific page, use the ctrl + f keyboard command on that page and enter the search term lesson.

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Language TRANSLATIONS

These great sites will give translations to or from various languages, for whole websites or individual pages, and for bits of specific text (you copy or you write).
....the translations are not perfect of course, but they're usually understandable enough to get the general idea of what's being said in the other language.

...Babel Fish from Alta Vista ...major languages +
http://babelfish.altavista.com
...Google ...major languages
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
...OmniLang ... many languages via other translation websites
http://www.omnilang.com
......or from most any webpage, simply type omnilang.com/ in front of the URL in your browser window to be taken directly to Omnilang for translation... for example: omnilang.com/http://www.glassattic.com

So.... to see any GlassAttic page translated fully into one of these languages, just copy the URL from the page you want translated then paste it into the search box on whichever page above you choose (removing their http:// first)... then click Translate (results are very quick!)
........or to see just a few words or a paragraph translated, you can copy those words into a different box on their page, then click Translate.

OR sometimes this works, for some pages:
...copy and paste any URL into the regular Google search box
...then click Translate this page next to the page in the "results" brought up

 

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"ChangeDetection" service
.....to see what's been added recently at GlassAttic......

"Netmind" is now gone .....but it looks as if this free "ChangeDetection" program does about the same thing?
http://www.changedetection.com/monitor.html

If you do this, be sure to sign up for any of the 90+ specific pages at GlassAttic you want to monitor, because signing up for the "whole site" http://www.glassattic.com, will only give you a notification when this page (the home page) is changed --and that doesn't happen very often.

....From Cheryl: I also have been meaning to share something with you that I do with your pages. May be a bit obsessive, but it works for me. I spent some time one day at Netmind. I added every one of your pages to be "Minded". Now when you change a page at GlassAttic I get it emailed to me (there is an option there where you can get document delivery).
. . . Then you can choose the highlight option, so I also know which things you have added.
... Some days it really fills up my email box, but I just transfer them all to a folder til I get time to read, which really doesn't take too much time since all I have to do is scroll til I see the yellow highlighting. Though then I can get distracted when I read something really interesting that includes new links for me to investigate. LOL.

....(or just sign up for the single page or pages you're most interested in...DB)

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DB to-do list (in order)
....Home page: divide categories into 6 super-categories, each with photos indicating its contents
....Attic drawing with overstuffed file drawers, etc., for home page
....Photos and diagrams to illustrate ideas in the text; more lessons

 

e-mail . . . DianeB@glassattic REMOVE THESE WORDS .com