They are several years old [the first is from a PAPCG event the same year Polyform introduced the "Green Apple" color of Sculpey; the other two items are slightly older than that, but probably not by too much].

I haven’t got a particular polymer “style”, although my items tend to be small, and I tend not to like following project directions — although I love learning about new techniques.

So here we have some mokume, some inlay, some beads, some surface treatments.  The gingko leaf might be the most promising of the bunch, although I don’t know if it’s enough to make it ‘different’ in an interesting way from other uses of gingko leaves out there in the world.  The silvery mokume, in larger form, also covers a bottle of Pelikan ink, which I keep meaning to refill with ink…the sticking point might be that I don’t trust the seal on the bottle.

For the use of the term “hopeful monsters” in evolutionary biology, look here.  For my own purposes, I’m thinking of these items as ‘potential solutions in search of a problem’, but the “hopeful monsters” label sounds slightly more endearing, sort of like the later incarnations of Sweetums from the Muppet Show, or Gossamer, from the Warner Brothers’ cartoons.

“pollih-murr”,

she kept saying

“polly-meerh”.

[The final "h" is because the sound system gave the "r" a little bit of a roll. I don't know if the "r" enjoyed it.]

From “polly-meerh” to “PolyMirror” seemed a small step, but I hoped it would be in a more productive direction.