How often do you step outside your comfort zone? If you have a clearly defined style and your work is easily recognized as yours that’s a good thing. However, if you don’t shake things up once in a while your designs may become stale. One of the things I’ve noticed while watching Project Accessory is that when the designers are pushed far out of their comfort zones, they lose their own sense of style.

So, how do you step outside of your design box while still retaining your own style? Baby steps. Change up your color palette. I’m not suggesting you work in neon colors if you generally work with a more muted color palette. Each season’s color forecast contains varied colors from brights to more muted shades. Try incorporating just a few seasonal colors into your designs. What else? Try a new technique or even working with a different medium. While the new technique or medium may not find it’s way into your designs, perhaps a shape or pattern will spark an exciting new idea.

What have you done this past year to step outside your comfort zone?

This week is the work of Roberta Warshaw. Roberta’s background in graphic design is evident in her polymer clay bead and jewelry designs. Her mix of texture, geometric shapes and crisp clean colors has a modern tribal look to it.

Click on any photo to see the product listing.

Visit Roberta’s Etsy shop, see more of her work on Flicker, and check out her blog here.

Let’s start with the flowers. These are the first polymer clay pendants in my Bloom Where You Are Planted series…Tropical Beauty, American Beauty, Classic Beauty and Subtle Beauty.

I’ve also been playing with metal and fire. This is where I’m at…..

But this is what I’m trying to duplicate color-wise….

On to pirates. I love all the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies and have had the idea for this bracelet floating around in my head. Then one of my bead/jewelry groups had a sea themed challenge which motivated me to bring the vision to life. Ode to Captain Jack, is a faux leather polymer clay cuff. Don’t you think it would look great on Johnny Depp? A girl can dream….

I’ve been lax in sharing some of the pretties from the Color Palette A Week Flickr group (CPAW), so let’s play catch up.

This is just a small sample, be sure to check them all out on the Flickr group.

Here are a few of the pretties from last week’s color palette. You can check them all out here.

Have a colorful week.

Another year is coming to a close. Like most other years, it has had it’s ups and downs. We started out the year (January 4th) welcoming our first grandchild. It was a long depressing winter with 90 some odd days of at least 5 inches of snow on the ground. A cool/wet spring. A hot and stormy summer, including a tornado that hit about a mile and a half away from our house. Our daughter’s wedding in August. Fall was beautiful. December brought the unexpected passing of my husband’s brother and the birth of niece (Grace).

As for the year in polymer clay….my polymer clay color recipe ebooks were by far and away the biggest hit of the year. We learned that some were referring to their polymer clay work as just polymer. There were beads and bangles and a new tutorial. All hell broke loose when it was announced that Polyform Products was discontinuing several colors, including cobalt and zinc yellow. It was wonderful to see the polymer clay community pull together to let their voices be heard….and they were heard….Polyform Products announced that they would be keeping cobalt and zinc yellow.

Each item purchased before 12/15/2010 will earn an entry to win a $25 gift certificate to my shop. Winner will be drawn 12/16/2010.

Below is just a small sample of items included in the sale.