more experiments with Polymer Clay

Wayne bought me sandpaper today - 800 1000 1500 and 2000 grit wet dry. To use - put face side up in a bowl of water - start with lower number and work to largest number grit. Rub the bead gently on the sandpaper in a circular motion. Watch out you don't create flat spots.

I could feel the difference by the time I had finished :

here are the beads I just made yesterday - all sanded and wired with some silver plated beads.

Wayne has a passion for waxing his car - I have a passion for creating things with polymer clay. Great that he understands why dinner is often late!

I also made some molds - both positive and negative images of some cord I tied into knots and pressed into raw clay. Here they are:

Not sure what I'll do with them yet - hey - I'm experimenting!

Not so successful was this pendant I did today - it scorched !
dang!!!

I'll be back at it tomorrow! Hurray for football on thanksgiving! I've got the day to play (no company coming).

Happy Thanksgiving USA!

curing try 2

I made these rings and coils with leftover clay - adding a bit of mica gold for zip! I'm pleased with the results.....

my favorite polymer clay creations (on Pinterest)

I love Pinterest! While browsing the web - you can "Pin" your finds to a bulletin board for easy reference. No limit to the number of boards you can have. Warning: highly addictive!

here's my board for Polymer Clay creations:

http://pinterest.com/jansart/polymer-clay-creations/

first curing samples!

Day one curing:

The little blue / yellow / black dots were my very first beads. I thought they would work clustered and dangling from earwires. They came out okay.

There are an assortment of red / blue / gold ones - some I cured with metal findings - pendant testing. The large pieces in red with gold should fit together on top of a backing bead. Will try this again.

The shimmery green / gold / blue are the ones I did using the layering technique - just testing.

Just found this awesome blog via Pinterest - Jewelry Tutorials - lots of them!

http://www.making-jewelry-now.com/

I'm on a roll - playing with textures and imprints

I'm now the proud owner of a "Collection" of Polymer Clay books! Three!

- Look, Learn & Create - Polymer Clay 101 - by Angela Mabray and Kim Otterbein

- Making Polymer Clay Beads - by Carol Blackburn

- Patterns in Polymer - Imprint & Accent Bead Techniques - by Julie Picarello

I have learned to do the Skinner Blend (I really love playing with colors - continually amazed by the variances).

I am working on layering colors. I stack the layers and then impress with various tools to make Abstract Art (ta da!!!) This is right up my alley....

You then slice the stack into thin layers - to create a series of beads or pendants in a series of colors that changes with every slice!

I recommend Patterns in Polymer - it describes this technique much better than I just did. I am also trying some strong color combos because of this book. So a big thank you to Julie Picarello for the inspiration.

Tomorrow is the day to cure my creations (it's been very hot here the last few days - tomorrow will be cooler and low humidity) - perfect!

wish me luck!

color wheels - done!

I'm really glad I decided to do a color wheel as suggested.

It really will inspire me to try different combinations.

I bought 5 colors from Dick blick

Yellow, red, navy blue, turquoise and purple as well as black and white.

Using 4 parts per sample I combined 1 to 3, 2 to 2, 3 to 1 and 4 to 0 (the package color).

Used my matrix ruler to divide up the clay, I rolled each combination and put them on index cards - labelled with the color combo! (don't drop these!).

Put holes for wire and baked at 275 for 30 mins. (only burnt 1 load....) I learned to preheat oven before putting samples in......

here is the result:

now I'm going to try Skinner blending!!!