Polymer Clay Color Inspirations – Techniques and Jewelry projects for creating succesful palettes by Lindly Haunani and Maggie Maggio (RRP $21.95)

This book will teach you everything you need to know about color palettes. With topics like “playing with colors” and “mixing colors that flow” you are destined to travel on a kaleidoscope of colors when reading this book. It’s almost like a sophisticated color trip with only an addiction to clay and not drugs.

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Competition details

Open – Worldwide

Closes – November 1st

This review was written by Editor Shellie Wilson

Hi ladies (and gents?) !

I was cruising around some old haunts on the web, and one of them was the Poly Clay Play website. When I found this gem of a site I was first beginning to explore clay. I love her site just as much today. Trish Hodgens is the owner of the Poly Clay Play site, which offers tools and unique supplies to help keep the polymer fun going with monthly sales. She also has monthly clubs for both, adults and children. There are free samples of a few of her her club projects on the site. Oh, and there are monthly challenges, this month was the Spooky Tabletop decor. It was a hard choice to pick from the entries . Last month the theme was “bugs”. That looked like a fun one also. She offers monthly kits for her members of the club to use with the challenges. Then, there’s the Yahoo group where you can keep up with the going’s on over there and to vote in the challenges.

The thing that I loved on the Poly Clay Play site; Trish has a new way of doing color-mixing recipes and it also cures the problem you may have of storing them. She calls her system ” Rainbow of Color System” “ The Poly Clay Play Color Recipes & Storage System”

Here is a small description from the website about her new color-mixing product- 

“The Poly Clay Play” website is a superb site for polymer clay beginners to start. The monthly kits have all the instruction you need and Trish doesn’t mind answering any of you questions. She has well stocked supplies of all kind of goodies, I spotted a texture sheet that’s gonna be mine! So, beginner or pro, at least check out her supplies!

A comprehensive kit with everything you need except clay.

Color chips at your fingertips. Easy to See – Easy to Recreate !

Poly Clay Play’s ~ Rainbow of Color System Everything you need to create and save your recipes!
Binder	Recipe Card Pages hold up to 180 Recipes
Printed Recipe Cards for your New Polymer Clay Recipes	Pre-Printed Recipe Card with lots of colors to try
Inventory Sheets	Shopping Lists
Polymer Clay Color Charts	Web Access to New Color Recipes
Step-by-Step Easy to Understand Instructions for making your own or following the included recipes.

Color chips at your fingertips. Easy to See – Easy to Recreate!

 Let me know if anyone has one or gets one, so you let me know how easy it is.

[tags]Polymer Clay – General, color recipes, Poly Clay Play, monthly kits, challenges, website review[/tags]

When I first discovered polymer clay, I had been put out of work because of a neck surgery and was sooo tired of reruns, so I tried a new channel. Yep, that’s right it was showing ”The Carol Duvall Show” and it was Donna Kato making fascinating canes. Well, I think you know the rest of the story because I’m here! Ooooh, okay, I’ll tell you anyway. I wanted to make canes.

I suppose I was just like the other newbies, I tried the clay with all the pretty colors to cane with. You all know which one I’m referring to. It’s so gooey that chewed gum would have been a better choice to cane with. It’s an honest newbie mistake, the colors are pretty and it doesn’t say gooey on the package. So, I go and research on the web , and I research on the web, you get the picture. I tried the Premo, not much better. For some reason I skipped right over poor Fimo and feel into the arms of Kato, and have never left it’s side. Now I know some of you swear by Fimo, but after Kato, nothing else will do for me.

Except! When it comes to color mixing. I’ve never took any kind of formal art classes that may have taught color theory and the like, so when it comes to this color and that color makes this color, all I know is what I learned in kindergarten. The basics. Red and blue make green, blue and yellow make purple. I’m KIDDING folks! I also know that they all make clay mud if you don’t know how to mix colors beyond the primary stage. So, I’m always on the lookout for Kato color mixing recipes everywhere I go on the web. I’ve found them all over the place and want to share them all in one place for everyone – HERE !!! If you happen to see a duplicate, please let me know by leaving a comment. My eyes started crossing as I was looking for them.

Enjoy!

[tags]polymer clay, Kato PolyClay, color mixing recipes[/tags]

[tags]polymer clay, color, crafts, design[/tags]

You might want to try these color mixing tricks to achieve different common color palette variations:

Autumnal colors add ecru or gold.

Desert/Southwest add ecru.

Beachy add equal amounts of white & ecru.

Jewel tones add tiny amounts of black, purple or blue.

Pastels add lots of white.

Metallic add silver.

Vibrant/tropical add fluorescent pink or yellow.

(these are from the Sculpey link above.)

Start off by mixing your basic colors and add the above to achieve the different palettes.  Color mixing is so much fun, I could spend a whole day just playing with colors!

[tags]polymer clay, color mixing, color theory[/tags]

Maggie Maggio has a free color course online, with tutorials, videos and even worksheets!

Here is a crash-course in color from Kato Polyclay.

And for reference there is the wonderful color mixing chart from Fimo for those who need a cheat sheet.

[tags]polymer clay, color mixing, color theory, color basics[/tags]

[tags]polymer clay, color mixing, color theory, beadmaking[/tags] 

There is a cool tool on Big Huge Labs that creates harmonious color palettes based on photos.  So you could upload your favorite paintings and instantly have the colors listed for you.  Of course you’ll need to know how to mix the colors!

[tags]polymer clay, color mixing, color theory, art history, inspiration[/tags]

[tags]polymer clay, color trends, fall fashions, maggie maggio, color mixing[/tags]

You can’t deny the inspiration in the color palettes gathered at FashionTrendSetter.com.  Taking your cues from these color combinations can take the guess work out of your next project!

[tags]polymer clay, color trends, fashion trends, jewelry, beads, color mixing, crafts[/tags] 

[tags]polymer clay, color theory, color-mixing, polymer clay tutorials, polymer clay projects, crafts, diy[/tags]