You may recall I’ve been having problems making bangles. I’ve had trouble with them cracking.In my usual style I did a little experiment to see how curing on different ‘bangle forms’ changed things.I had a suggestion from Jo who writes the FloRaeMe blog that perhaps the coke can being flimsy might move, undermining the strength of the bangle and that I should try using cardboard tube. I tried to make a cardboard tube the...

I have been asked a couple of questions about my purple flowery cabochon pendant so here’s a little more information  about how I made it. Looking at the colour differences due to the lighting in my pictures I really should go back to using my  photography set up but I took these pictures as a record for me rather than for sharing with you.First I made 2 canes (typically I made them with little bits left over from another project so they...

So in part 1 I discovered that for optimum strength you should turn your oven off at the end of the curing cycle and leave your polymer clay pieces to cool down slowly in the cooling oven. This was just an initial test to see if the set up was going to work before I made lots of samples with more complicated curing, and something I had always been curious about. I was happy that the test worked and set about making more samples (got a blister...

It’s my husband Richy’s 40th birthday today. Hopefully he is having fun at work while I bake his cake and prepare a special meal for dinner!He got lots of presents from me and the children but here’s one I wanted to share with you. Rhodium plated pen with polymer clay decorationThe pen looking all fancy in it’s presentation boxYou may remember I made a pen for my mum recently, from a fairly average pen kit and I was...

I was lucky enough to attend a workshop with the lovely Carol Blackburn yesterday. The workshop was organised by Clectic Events (Rebecca Thickbroom) so I knew it would be well organised, and indeed it was! It was great to spend time with so many lovely people. To catch up with some people I now consider old friends and to meet some new friends too! And even better I get to see a lot of them again this Sunday at the London Polymer Clay Group...

In order to find out how best to make strong bracelets I have a series of experiments planned. The first thing I wanted to find out was if polymer clay is stronger if it’s quenched, that is plunged into ice cold water straight from the oven. I’ve heard people say this makes it stronger, polish better and it will keep transparents more transparent. Well I’m using grey coloured scrap Kato clay so can’t comment on...