Improved star cane
So I was just sitting down trying to figure out how to make them neater when I remembered I had a small star cookie cutter. I was going to use it to make an impression on the end of the block of clay to use as a cutting guide when I remembered seeing somewhere someone making a cane from cookie cutters (sorry can’t remember who or where or when – I do remember it was elephants and it was a neat idea). Here’s what I did. The sheet was about 1cm thick, could of made it thicker but it reduced OK I am pleased with the end result....
read moreQuick star cane
Finally after what seems like forever I managed to grab some clay time today. I have been having a lovely time on holiday with my friends and family but I have also been aching to create! My daughter’s school remained closed today after the holidays for a teacher training day but she was happy playing by herself for a bit so I had a go at making a star cane. Over on the Polymer Clay Central Forum there is a June Cane Challenge where people are trying out new things with canes and posting pictures of what they have been up to. One of the...
read moreTutorial links
There are hundreds of polymer clay tutorials out there on the internet, some you pay for ( in my experience these are excellent, the authors have put in much more time and they are very detailed) and many are free. There are lots of creative and generous artists out there! Some people have kindly collected the tutorials together onto pages of links and I would like to share a couple of these with you now so perhaps you can find a new tutorial to play with.http://www.everclay.dk/1_Tutlinks/tutlinks_US.htm is a very organised and comprehensive...
read moreVariation is the splice of life….
My favourite necklace right now is my spliced flower cane one that I made recently with the matching bracelet. one of the spliced flower cane beadsI decided to play about with the spliced flower technique to see what would happen. I turned them inside out (I normally put the white in the center) the starting skinner blend logs rolled so the white is on the outsidethe restacked logs after first bit of squashing The finished flowerI tried 3 colour skinner blendsUsing a couple of offcuts of 3 colour skinner blendsHere are the skinner blend...
read moreColour scales
I am working my way through the Polymer Clay Color Inspirations: Techniques and Jewelry Projects for Creating Successful Palettes book by Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani.This was my first go with the colour scales exercises. I enjoyed doing them and they didn’t take as long as I thought they might. I can see I will be doing some more with the other Kato package colours.Kato blue to green and yellow to magenta colour scales
read moreBam Bam Bracelet
I recently bought the bam bam bracelet tutorial from Tina Holden. I finally got a chance to try it out yesterday, a bit of a bracelety day. Again I can’t say much about what I did – you’ll have to get the tutorial yourself! It is very comprehensive and is broken down into lots of tiny steps.I am wearing it now, it fits! I didn’t break it! I think I shall take what I learnt from this back to the Scrap MG bracelet for attempt 3! Thanks Tina it’s a great tutorial.I think when I make another one I would put beads...
read moreShiny Happy People
I can now buff to a glass like shine!!!! I am very happy!Thank you to my husband for buying the new Dremel and Workstation, Desiree for her tutorial on making a better buffing wheel, my children for donating the cotton muslin (stole one of my son’s comforter cloths – well he is nearly 6 now and doesn’t really use them any more and he does have several – I am not that mean a mum!) and all the other clayers who have given me advice on blogs, in forums etc….Here’s what I did….handmade cotton muslin ...
read moreScrap MG bracelet attempt 2
I decided to have another go with the Scrap MG tutorial I bought from Tonja Lenderman, you can get yours here. I would recommend it Tonjas bracelets are beautiful and her instructions are clear, a great way to turn a pile of scrap into something beautiful.I made one before which was beautiful but far too big and then I was careless and broke it. I can’t tell you too much about what I did as obviously that wouldn’t be fair to Tonja but this time I measured the widest point of my hand and measured the bangle to be the same...
read moreFaux Turquoise so far
I tried one of the methods of faux turquoise where you chop the clay (I used my blender) and then reform it, painting on black acrylic paint after baking then sanding so that the black remains in the cracks.I used my turquoise ring to match the colour and decided it wasn’t a uniform colour so made a shade and a tint of my original turquoise colour, chopped them all in the food processorI combined all the colours and grated some cured black clay to add as the inclusionI formed some chip beads from a small pile of clay and rolled in in...
read moreTextured Beads, mini tutorial
I have been admiring peoples textured beads for some time and wanted to make some of my own. I tried rolling beads on some rough sandpaper but there wasn’t enough texture and I kept rolling the texture I made off and getting bits of sand on my beads – not good. I asked for help from some more experienced clayers – on PCC forum and I also emailed some people direct who had photos of textured beads on flickr. Many people were very generous sharing their techniques – I love the polymer clay world! Bettina suggested...
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