Use Up Polymer Clay Scraps

No frills tutorial...

STEP 1

Cut out shapes, arrange on a sheet of clay. Put your sheet on a large, smooth-surfaced tile so you can easily pick up the whole thing and rotate it. The ability to move the whole thing around will come in handy in the next steps.

Run an acrylic roller over it gently to press the shapes down into the base layer. (My pieces are a little thick -- a tad thinner would make the flattening process go faster.) Don't use the pasta machine at this stage -- it will warp the design. After you have gone over it multiple times in different directions with the acrylic roller and it's almost flat, you can put it in the pasta machine to make it totally smooth if you want to. Just be sure to turn the sheet 90 degrees with each pass through the machine so your shapes don't warp.

STEP 2

 Etch lines into your shapes to define and add interest if you want. 

STEP 3

Use cutters on the sheet to make a series of pieces you can use for necklace or bracelet components. Peel away the excess clay from around your pieces. Use a small cutter to make holes or opt to drill small holes after curing. Bake right on the tile for flat pieces or gently peel the pieces off the tile with a slicer and place on a curved surface as shown below.

STEP 4

Bake according to your clay's instructions. If you etched designs into the clay, rub your favorite paint into the etched lines and wipe the excess paint off the surface. Then sand and finish as desired.

Embossing Powders on Polymer Clay

Update 8/17/28:
 :(  The embossing powder on clay doesn't hold up over the long run. It gets gummy and un-shiny.  If your need for super glossy only has to last a short while, go ahead and try it.
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A few weeks ago I bought a heat gun and then last week I saw a video on Instagram in which gold embossing powder was used on calligraphy. These two unrelated events caused two more things to happen: I thought, "Hey! I can use embossing powders because now I have a heat gun." And I headed off Michael's to get some embossing powders.

At first I just got gold and white, and a mixed sample kit of black and silver, along with two Perfect Pearls glue pens (brush and bullets points), and an adhesive applicator with a sponge top.

My initial thought about the embossing powder was, "Yay! Finally, there's a way a way to make bold, opaque metallic lines on a bead. (And, also, now I want to learn modern calligraphy!)

So the first experiments were these:

But then, two more things happened:
1. As I heated the bead while it was mounted on a skewer, I saw the similarity to flameworking.
2. Now that I knew the powders were functioning as I had hoped, I bought more powders: sparkly gold, white, black, bronze, sparkly black, silver, clear, and chunky gold.

I pulled some not-so-good beads out of my stash and used the embossing powders as faux flameworking, though I think the finished products look more like ceramics than glass.

HOW TO:
I put a cured bead on a skewer. The bead had been made on a skewer so the hole was tight enough that the bead didn't slide up and down and then I went to town...

The original bead was mostly turquoise with some gold and yellow on it. I very, very lightly coated the bead with the Perfect Pearls adhesive in a sponge top applicator. I sprinkled a tiny bit of scrap powder all over the bead and hit it with the heat gun on the lower speed.
I have a Black & Decker heat gun with two speeds. The lower speed doesn't blow the powder off if you hold it at a distance and only move closer when the powder starts to melt.

After the first layer of powder is on, you no longer need the glue. If you turn the skewer while heating the bead the surface will be warm enough to make the powder stick.

Next I sprinkled on some white. I sprinkle the powder directly from the container. Put a piece of paper below where you're working to catch any excess and put it back into the container.
Or, if that's too much trouble, dump all your powder "scraps" into one container and use it as the base for your next beads.

More gold.
Sometimes I put layers of clear between the opaque layers to give the illusion of depth.

...and chunky gold...

If you keep the heat in one spot, the powder will begin to break up (a little bit is good but don't over-do it -- the melted powder will flow if you're not careful.)

Keep the bead on the stick a while to let it cool off. But if you get impatient and you touch it while it's still warm and leave a fingerprint, no worries! Just hit it with the heat again and the fingerprint will melt right out.
If you get a few bubbles from air trapped between the layers, wait until the bead cools a little, pat the bubble with your finger, and then melt the fingerprint.

CLEAR EMBOSSING
In the example below I didn't want to cover up the pretty colors underneath so I put the adhesive on the bead and sprinkled it only with clear powder and the chunky gold bits which I had mixed together.

I made a video to show the basic process. You can't see detail but you'll get the idea.

(If you can't view it on your phone, view it on a laptop. I don't know why, but the video that was shot and edited on my phone, cannot now be viewed on my phone when I try to launch it from the blog. Go figure.)

I tested the beads to see how well the finish holds up. I threw the clear one above 

 10 times and there's not a scratch or crack on it. See the video...

Transfer, Paint, Ink Experiments

I've been experimenting with liquid clay, toner transfers (learned from Lorraine Vogel's tutorial), colored pencils, inks, and paint pens. I started working with the paint pens as a way to salvage ugly old clay pieces but this weekend I worked on made-from-scratch pieces.

I created my own designs for the transfers with shapes I had drawn and scanned then arranged in Illustrator. After that I layered, colored, sliced and diced in Photoshop.

Layer 1 -- toner transfers. My transfers came out a little patchy but it won't matter for this purpose.

Layer 2 -- I put a thin layer of liquid clay over the transfer and cured it before using oil-paint pens to draw lines. The layer of clay is critical to keeping your pens in working order. If you draw directly on the transfer layer, the slight bit of tackiness of the transfer seems to gum up the works.

The "extra fine" point Sharpie pens make the nicest lines. I also tried the relatively cheap CraftSmart brand at Michael's and a more expensive Sakura pen but the Sharpies work well and don't remain gummy after I do the final spray of PYMII. The CraftSmart pens stayed a little tacky so I don't recommend for this purpose but they could be pretty decent for other uses.

The pic of the four pieces were done with the Extra Fine point; the fish was done with the Fine Point which is actually fairly thick).

I put a thin layer of liquid clay over the ink lines once they were dry and cured the pieces.

Layer 3 -- I started shading with colored pencils but they didn't like the liquid clay surface. So I pulled out my favorite ballpoint pens, Ink Joy by PaperMate, and started shading. I shaded as though light was coming from above to give the pieces a bit of 3D effect. After coloring I put another layer of liquid clay on the surface and cured it.

I discovered the purple pen bleeds. I had to touch up the white lines on the tall skinny spike before going further. The orange pen bleeds a bit also so I touched it up too.

Layer 4 -- I glued a clutch pin back on the back of each piece. I covered the backs with a full sheet of a coordinating color that I wrapped around the edges and trimmed flush. I covered the front surface with another layer of liquid clay before curing. The last liquid faded the white somewhat so I revived it with a white pen. When the piece was dry, I gave it a spray of PYMII to protect the last white lines.

Tutorial: Super Easy Earrings to Match Your Outfit

I think we all agree that part of the fun of clay is the ability to whip up jewelry to match any outfit. Here's an easy way to make half-moon curved dangly earrings. 

Mix up an assortment of colors roughly like the colors in the garment you want to match.

Roll each color on the 3 setting (on my pasta machine, 1 is the thickest) and
tear into rough edged strips. Work with the strips on a small smooth tile so you can easily
move it around to roll it, and hold it up next to your garment as you work.

Roll the layers with the acrylic rod to flatten the them. It's important to roll along
the length of the strips and start in the center and work out to the center. Otherwise you
may just worsen gaps between the colors and not end up with a smooth surface.

I needed to muddy the colors up a bit and work some sparkle in, so I added a thin layer of metallic clay to the back and blended some more with the gold on the inside.

Fold the clay in half with the fold on the short edge of the stripes.
Run it through the pasta machine several times to blend the colors for a softer effect.
I should have used the magnet on the roller trick to keep the clay from getting too wide.
But I didn't, so instead...

...I ripped off the blue and purple from the ends and put them back into the center.
I was planning on big earrings, but not that big! I needed to make sure all the colors stayed within a 2-2.5" area.

I checked the colors against my top every so often to see how my blend looked.
I ended up liking the back side of the clay so I flipped it over.
I waited to the end of my blending to add a strip of black so it wouldn't overtake the other colors.

When I was happy with my colors, I backed the sheet with a layer of black
and rolled it lightly to make sure the layers adhered to each other.

I determined where I wanted the colors to hit inside the circle, making sure to get
a little bit of purple and green because they are prominent colors in the shirt I was matching.

I laid the circle on a curved surface to cure.
This is the bottom of a soda can that the ever-helpful Jan Montarsi gave to me.

Cut the circle in half. (I used my blade while the clay was on the curved form.)
I used the point of a bamboo skewer to create the holes. I gently poked it in and then
wiggled it in a tiny circular pattern until the hole was the size I wanted.

I cured the clay, sanded the finished pieces, and buffed them.
I made earwires out of two head pins and voila, earrings to wear out to a lunch with friends.

And here's what they look like on!

Coincidental Colors?

Do you find that jewelry, pendants, or whatever you make oftens matches exactly with clothing that's already in your closet? If I wear a piece with an outfit people will say "did you make it specifically for that outfit?" And most of the time the answer is no. It just so happens that when I'm shopping I'm drawn to colors I like and when I'm at the worktable I'm drawn to colors I like. No surprise, they often end up being the same colors. Like this for example...

Cane Evolution Tutorial

I am not a caner but after my guild's recent workshop with Carol Simmons I had leftover cane chunks to play with. My usual work is more blendy than a typical cane and I favor large patterns over small so I "blew up" my cane.

Here's how I made these...

...from these leftover 1" tall cane slices:

1) I placed a few slices of cane on a sheet of lime colored clay that was about 3 times as thick as the cane slices. Then I ran the sheet through the pasta machine on successively thinner settings (from 1 to 4-5). 

2) I alternated the direction I fed the clay through so the cane would stretch in both directions. The cane clay was more leached than the underlayer so the the cane cracked a bit as it stretched, letting the green underneath show through. 

3) I rolled a log of scrap clay, sliced it into equal portions, and rolled each piece into a ball. 

4) I ripped the cane sheet into random pieces and wrapped them randomly around the ball, covering it completely. I rolled the ball until all the wrapped pieces had melded together. I turned two of the balls into long barrel shapes.

5) With my needle tool I traced lines to loosely define shapes of leaves and petals. 

6) I baked the beads for 15 minutes and then lightly sanded with 1000 grit wet-dry sandpaper. 

7) I rubbed black liquid clay into the etched lines and wiped off the excess with a paper towel.

Then the beads went back into the oven for 15 more minutes. 

8) I sanded them again with 1000 grit. I could have stopped at this point but I like them shiny so I used my buffer.

The cane slices on the beads below were put on a lilac base layer. I didn't etch these beads. I wish I would have, the design would have looked more "focused."

So, there you go. Grab some of those old canes and blow 'em up!

Make Large Stamps for Polymer (and nice coloring page designs!)

This is the process I use to create the designs that eventually get turned into stamps. I have access to the full Adobe Creative Suite and I use Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat (PDF) in this process. You may not have access to these programs. Don't worry, you can still make stamp art if you have good paper and a good black fineline marker for clean edges.

After https://www.facebook.com/PolymerClayAnnex/ on Facebook was nice enough to feature my stamps, I said I'd write up my method so here it is...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

1. Lightly pencil a 7” x9” rectangle on no-texture paper. I make a very large continuous design stamp so I have lots of mixed-pattern surface area to impress on my beads. All of these were done with the same stamp.

    

Click on the photos to enlarge.  I purchase two stamps at a time so I can cup the clay between two sheets and impress both sides at one time. The stamps are unmounted and very flexible.

2. Fill the whole page with designs/doodles using a fine line or pointed permanent ink black marker. Add some repeating elements but don't make it all the same. You want to end up with lots of different pattern areas to use.

3. Don’t make either the black or white areas more prominent; keep the areas balanced. And keep in mind the scale of your finished items... I make beads so I want my pattern to be fairly small and multiple patterns will fit on one bead.  

4. Make lines in the drawing as neat as you can... smooth paper and a good point on the pen will help you make crisp lines. Make sure the black areas are pretty solid. (If you don't have access to Illustrator or Photoshop, you can skip way down to the bottom...)

5. Scan the drawing at 300 resolution using grayscale or color setting.

6. Open it in Photoshop and reverse it so black becomes white. Image > Adjustments > Invert

This was my first stamp. It was not a successful for beads because the my lines were too fat and far apart. I learned my lesson and made smaller patterns the next time. The items at the top of the page were made with my second stamp.

7. Print the reversed drawing and use your marker to clean up the edges. Because the black ink is now white, you can color black back into any area where the white areas of your original drawing ended up too thin. (Easier than using white paint to cover black areas or edges you're not happy with.)

8. Scan the drawing again and reverse it back to the original black design.

9. Open the jpg file in Adobe Illustrator.

10. Select the drawing using the black arrow tool. On the menu choose Object > Image Trace > Make and Expand. (If message box pops up asking you to rasterize, you can say no.)

11. After Make and Expand is finished, you’ll see a bunch of highlighted points all over your art. They serve a purpose but you don't need to do anything with them for this project. Click on the page and they will disappear.

12. Use the white selection arrow to click in a white area of your traced drawing.

13. From the menu, Select > Same > Fill Color to select all the white areas on the page at once. Click delete.

The black area that remains is now a vector art of your drawing, all beautifully smooth and sharp. 

The original scan of a marker drawing.
Try to make the blacks more opaque than shown above before you scan it.

The traced drawing. Click to see it larger.
I love the energy the variation in line weight gives to a drawing.
Uniform line widths are bor-ing!

You can use your art to make clean edged stamps or silk screens. The cleaned-up line drawing also makes a nice coloring book page. Because it is vector art, it can be enlarged to the size of a wall and it will stay sharp. If you were very ambitious you could project it on a wall and paint it or have vinyl cutouts made (Fastsigns.com will do it for you) to apply to the wall.

I save my vector art as a PDF in Illustrator and send it off!
  
14. Now, finally, here's who can turn your lovely art into a stamp: http://readystamps.com/
Read the instructions here before you start:
http://readystamps.com/instructions/ 

You can make some original stamps and help a worthy cause. What's not to love about that!?