Category Archives: new techniques

new techniques

Luck in the creative process

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Last night I was messing with some old scraps of polymer clay and some new toys. This week I have bought a lovely flower stamp, the cheapest in the shop, to try out stamping as a technique to see if I liked it. And some ink. I had been hoping for some silver, copper or gold colours but the choice was limited, so between husband and I and a bit of this or that chat, we picked an ok blue shade.

After a bit of messing on my desk….voila! I love the results!

Now non of this was planned or thought through in any kind of creatively deep way. All the purchases were random and even the colour of the clay was a random mix of left overs!

So, is it just a lucky coincidence or my deeper creative psyche at work, or neither of these! And can you recreate random acts of creativity?

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An empty studio table…..

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Yesterday was a lovely day for delivering to happy customers (in between work!).

So caught up on commissions and the studio table is just about clear of outstanding jobs…….so this weekend is time for trying out new techniques and new products!

High on the list is ‘mokume gane’ technique which looks amazing. Here is a link for one type of the technique?

I’d also like to have a look at making a bowl with some canes, a tea light holder and have some new designs for jewellery brewing in my head!

Remind me how long a weekend is?!

Watch this space folks!

 

10 mins in the cooler

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I read or heard somewhere that if the clay is a bit warm to handle, pop it in the fridge for 30minutes or the freezer for 10!

I tried it with the blue and black marble beads in this picture.

The Fimo black gets warm and very soft quickly, so I popped the beads in the freezer for ten mins before I pierced them and it was much easier to keep the shape while piercing them!

Cracking idea whoever came up with that one!

Testing the new homemade light box

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Thanks to Handmadeology we’ve now made our light box. The lights and bulbs have arrived and husband made my cardboard box light box…he’s already talking about making something a bit more robust…but I think the photos look better already.

Next job is looking at getting the most out of the camera and then editing software!

But feel like we’ve made progress today!

Let me know if you have any tips for taking professional looking photos.

The link to the ‘how to’ on Handmadeology is here

 

Gold and Navy Jelly Roll

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This was my first attempt at a Jelly Roll. The biggest lesson I took away was not to mix different brands. The Gold was Fimo and I think the Navy was a Sculpey clay.

But the biggest problem, and one I’m still having is getting the Gold conditioned. I think I did this before I had a pasta machine and was kneading small clumps of clay by and, but even now with my pasta machine i’m having really problems with this particular clay. It crumbles really badly even after loads of rolling or kneading. I haven’t stored it any differently to any other clays and don’t have the same problems with the Fimo Silver.

The result is a strange texture on the large jelly roll slices, which sanding didn’t seem to solve. The reduced and merged canes seemed ok, and I really enjoy the jewels I made from them….one of the few sets I’ve managed to hang onto!

I haven’t tried softner at all, but as this is the only clay I’ve had problems with I don’t want to be spending money on softner that I could be spending on new colours!

Let me know your experiences.

Oh and I made some little Gold hearts too, but there are air bubbles ad the clay is too thin really and the glossing didn’t work…am I too critical!

 

Planning ahead….in theory

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I can’t draw, not being modest. I really am rubbish. But with my growing interest in creating jewellery from polymer clay I feel I should be putting stuff on paper, trying to define what I want to do before I crank up the pasta machine.

I’m not setting myself up as some kind of jewellery designer, but to it feels important to have an idea of where I’m headed before I set out, or I could get horribly lost!

So, for the next project I did I braved putting pen to paper to sketch (and I use the term loosely) some ideas on paper.

Here’s a photo of the ideas from my sketchbook.

So, I ad an idea of what I wanted to create….so how did it turn out?

Well…see below!

I was quite pleased with the results, even more so because my sister saw them on my Facebook page and wanted them!

It was a grat idea ad a good discipline to plan out my work; sadly I’ve not been so organised since! I do think some of that is down to my fear of drawing!

 

Sand and Buff beats varnish

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After my disappointing results with varnish in my previous blog post, and some actual reading of my Polymer Clay books, (instead of jousting looking in awe at the pictures), I thought I try sanding and buffing my next pieces.

I love silver and turquoise, so putting the two together seemed a great choice; with a touch of Pearl, I marbled the three together with results I’m still pleased with. I could only get 400 and 1000 wet and dry sandpaper, and buffed by hand, (wearing jeans watching tv!).

I’m very critical of all my work and looking at these now I can see that it isn’t flat, but this was before I bought my pasta machine and I was rolling out between strips of card.

Although I made this larger piece a couple of months ago I still haven’t done anything with it. I stuck earring backs onto the two smaller pieces, but I think they should be thinner than they are. I do wear them though and now I have some bails I might make the larger piece into a pendant.

 

The final piece I made with this mix was a piece I love but, another great lesson on my learning curve, or should that be vertical ascent, decide what you will do with it, or what you will make before you start. This lovely shiny dome was going to be a ring, but only after I’d made it did I really thing through what it would look like….a knuckle duster! So it is languishing in a box with no purpose as a lesson to me.

Maybe I could use it as a paperweight?

 

Marbling beginnings

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For my first attempt at marbling in picked black, turquoise and silver clays. Looking back now, they were different brands, which I’m trying not to do mix now in the same piece, because of the different temperatures they need.
I don’t remember how I mixed /marbled the beads together, but I think have needed by hand (this was before I bought my pasta machine), I just mixed them together by hand. In more recent experiments I’ve tried to get, and note down, the right balance of colour mix; but early on, I think I just jumped in and mixed with gay abandon!
Luckily the effect is still one I like, and one I prefer to my marbling experiment using the pasta machine, which just turned into a blend of all three colours.
I formed the beads in varying sizes by hand, bakes and then varnished the beads with a water based varnish.
The effect looks good, but the beads are a bit tacky and when warm stick together a bit; interesting,y I have avoided varnishing anything since I did these…. I think I mustn’t like the effect as much as I thought.
Not too bad for a first effort though and my Mum loves the necklace, earrings and bracelet I made with them! But she is my Mum so she is allowed to be over indulgent!

if you’ve had more luck with varnishing let me know!