Contestant's Case to Win

A little over 1 year ago my business partner Kira Slye and I met in an online community I had started at http://www.pcagoe.com and we decided we wanted to create a podcast and videocast to teach others how to work with a very popular craft medium called polymer clay.

We were both in love with the medium and created with it for more than 33 combined years and wanted to share our passion for it with others. The only problem was we had no idea how to do a podcast or videocast and had no experience with either.

Well a lot of research and determination and here we are over a year later with thousands of listeners and viewers tuning in every Friday to watch and listen to our show all around the world. We are on You Tube, Itunes, Google & Yahoo video, Blip.tv, Tube Mogul and about 300 other places. It is amazing for us to think that someone in Slovenia or Japan or even China are learning from us every week.

We have added an online a shop that includes products we demonstrate on the show, so that our audience does not have to hunt them down. The show has been tremendous for marketing and brings many people to our website.

We also wanted to provide our listeners & viewers who could not attend community events, retreats and such with a way to be there without being there, so we have gotten press passes into events and have covered them nationwide and shared them on the show.

We are constantly trying to make the show better and have also added a community feature to our site where artists can share ideas and their work.

We feel very strongly about giving back to the community and have been involved with the Bottles of Hope, where artists use glass bottles, sometimes recycled chemotherapy bottles and cover them with the clay and then they are given to cancer patients.

Our group also started Pendants For a Purpose which is where the artists make pendants out of polymer clay and they are given to the Look Good Feel Better charity, to help cancer patients. Most recently our group has started a shop on etsy where all of the proceeds are given to different charities in memory of one of the members daughters. http://www.polymerclayforacause.etsy.com

I am a very determined person and when I have a good idea I try to act on it and bring it to fruition, whether I have any idea how to implement it or not. LOL

Kira and I recently embarked on another one of our ideas and have started http://www.craftedonline.com
CraftEd Online is an offshoot of Polymer Clay Productions but we wanted a place where people could go to learn all mediums not just polymer clay. We sell PDF's in crochet, knitting, glass and so much more and have plans to add videos with our artists through an online service similar to http://www.dimdim.com
The videos will be recorded from the artists home or studio and then they will be sold on the site.

We hope to one day host our own artist retreat, where polymer clay artists can get together and share ideas and techniques. We have plans for a line of silkscreens and rubber stamps as well.

Kira is a certified teacher and I have taught for over 10 years and displayed at fine art shows for many years and we wanted a way to share all of our experience with others and I think we found a way to do just that.