The bracelet in the tutorial uses a smart little bead that’s totally popular right now. Adrianne goes on to demonstrate two different methods of making custom beads for your bracelet projects.

One thing I would change is that you should be able to curve the clay before it’s baked and have it hold its shape fine or bake it on half a paper roll or other rounded surface. When i do this style of bead I bake several on the curved edge of a bowl. Some clays, when properly cured, don’t have the memory to hold a shape you bend into it when it’s hot from the oven.

Photo by Adrianne from CraftsUnleased

Where I am, the last few days of the school year are happening. Summer break is so close you can just about taste it. There will be claying in my summer and it looks like I’m not the only one!

1. Polymer clay polka dot tree, 2. Miniature Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Sweet Potato Fries – 1/12 scale, 3. side view, 4. Four Chic Chicks egg shell art bird ornaments

Of course, this one isn’t limited to Father’s Day – I’m pretty sure I wear cuff links on my fancy blouses more than my guy does – but the combo of a nice shirt and cuff links is good and a change up from the nice shirt and tie. This tutorial is super simple stuff! If you have it, I’d use a compatible clay varnish like Varathane rather than nail polish since some of the nail polishes react badly with clay over time. And since I have the whole stack of tools, I’d probably roll a sheet of clay and go that way. It’s one of those tutorials you can build up from.

I admit I haven’t been a big mold user. In the past I haven’t done a lot of sculpting and most of the base shapes I use are simple enough that I can use cutters and shape by hand quickly and easily. For some crafters the use of molds to build inventory up is more useful: you cast an original in your mold material of choice and then create a series of pulls from the mold. Often, each pull is altered a little anyways so you have a whole new series of originals.

Instructables has a tutorial about using Composimold (a reusable molding medium) for helping with production work. The artist goes on to alter the pulls from the mold depending on what they’ll be used for.

How do you use molds and mold making in your claying?

One of those trends the last year or two has been ombre everything so it’s not surprising people are making clay ombre pieces. This tutorial is for simple ombre beads (and other simple, colourful clay beads) and a necklace made from those beads.

I’m curious if anyone has done any ombre clay items not involving beads. Email me if you have, I’d love to see your piece!

Ronit Golan – who has a shop FULL of loveliness – generously released another great tutorial: how to make a very graphic gradient cane and some simple pieces using it. As always, her work is clearly photographed and well explained. You could mix it up a bit and use this to make pieces in the crazy popular ombre style going around on everything or simply make YOUR gradient in your favourite matching shades.

Polymer clay is particularly awesome for bright and wonderful colours and summer is the season for all of the colours you can dream up. These are just a few picks.

1. Summer Flower Dangle, 2. Summer Flowers, 3. Flip Flop Beads, 4. Jean – jean – jean

I occasionally struggle with making crafty gifts for the guys in my world. Key fobs are a simple, practical idea and this tutorial by Jenny of Crafts Unleashed is basic enough for the kiddos to do as well. You could marble the colours of their favourite sports team or other memorable themes. If you make the hole a little larger you can also use leather cording to tie to the keyring instead of wire.

Here’s a great tutorial for sculpting a folk-style cat. The original blog post is in Slovenian but is clearly illustrated or you can use the nifty translator widget from Google. The tutorial uses earth clay and slip but you could do this with polymer clay and a little tls as well.

Carmen Rose shares with us a tutorial for using simple canes – jelly rolls – to decorate drawer knobs. A great way to customize your decor. The same idea makes great magnets or brooch pins.

I went looking for ideas for polymer clay wedding crafts and it turns out I didn’t have to go far – Patricia Kimle has a whole series of good stuff on Sculpey.com:

• The cake featured above
• A pretty votive
• Decorative place card holders

These lovely glasses have beautiful, time-consuming details. Art-ioma has picture steps on how to make them but some details are missing. I often adhere clay to glass without an adhesive but for this, with the open work and the tiny beads, I’d probably either make sure my flowers and vines touched or fill with a little TLS here and there.

The most common wedding craft made from polymer clay seems to be the wedding cake toppers. While I’m not talented enough to do realistic sculptures of people… I’m not the only one who thinks a more stylized shape would work nicely. In this post here’s no specific instructions on how to make the bird but some good advice on adding the monogram and doing a mockup so your scale is correct.

Picture by makemeow.