I’ve dabbled in ceramic and air dry clays and I’ve done polymer clay as my day job for years now. Apart from making canes and beads, my favourite item to build is bowls. Little bowls, great soup bowls (from ceramic … Read More ...
Tutorial: Making Polka Dots
Making precision anything with craft materials is sometimes a challenging experience so I always like tips and tricks on how to get great, clean results with fairly basic tools. The pearl and etch toolset from Sculpey
are nifty that way. … Read More ...
Tutorial: An Autumn Turtle
Where I live you can feel autumn inching in – the day time temperatures are still lovely but there’s a chill in the mornings and the evenings come so much earilier than they need to. School starts for the kidlet … Read More ...
Tutorial: Soufflé Cone Earrings
Patti Kimle has a project up on the Sculpey.com site. It’s done with the new Polyform clay, Soufflé, but you could do it with any of them. The nicely faux-metal look of the bead cap or cones is achieved with … Read More ...
Tutorial: Creating Background Texture in Polymer Clay
This trick lets you add what appears to be two layers of different texture or design with one stamp or texture. There’s a background texture created with a low relief pattern stamp or tool and then a contrasting or higher … Read More ...
Tutorial: The Fish Cane
As Lavilla says in the first slide of this Flickr photo tutorial for a fish cane – it’s a more detailed version of the very good fish cane tutorial on Kim Korringa’s site. Which you should take a look at … Read More ...
Tutorial: Jasmine Flower Necklace
Delicate, summery flowers and little bobbles make this necklace a light and airy piece to whip up. The polymer clay flowers that are constructed could easily be any other colour, depending on your whim. Deep red roses, darker chain and … Read More ...
Tutorial: Faceted “Eye” Effect
These beads look like the composite or faceted eyes that some insects have. The use of mica powders gives the whole piece a nice shine and colour variation. Andrea Machler, the author, refers to the mesh she uses as tulle … Read More ...
Tutorial: Mediterranean Landscape Cane
Almost all of the polymer clay work I do involves canes – canes to make beads, to decorate bowls with, to add to sculpted pieces. Some of those are simple canes and some are more complex. One type I’ve done … Read More ...
Tutorial: Tiger Skin Cane
Here’s a picture tutorial for a tiger skin cane (what got used to make the nifty beads pictured above I’m betting). Animal skin patterns are often fairly straightforward canes to make and are forgiving of reducing and asymmetry. Tiger and … Read More ...
Tutorial: Polymer Clay Rose Cane
Rose canes are one of those canes I make absolute scads of. I usually use a slight variation on the tru-leigh rose and it works well for me. This one is a more tightly wound rose that would look lovely … Read More ...
Tutorial: Making Roses
When I teach classes for new clayers I always do a variant on this rose to give people confidence. You can make a great little rose bead in moments and if you hate it, squish and try again. Most people … Read More ...
Tutorial: Antiqued Buttons
This tutorial makes a nice, subtle button – you could get a totally different effect with a bright coloured clay and a white wash – to match your sewing project.… Read More ...
Technique: Waterslide Transfers
This is a how-to for a specific product- in this case Using Lisa Pavelka’s Waterslide Transfers – but the concept is good. Transfers are one of those Great Big Fun concepts in clay and for straightforward no fail stuff… I … Read More ...
Making Molds Experiment
Here’s a quick run through of how to use an easily available product – Amazing Mold Putty which I’ve bought at Michael’s I believe – to make quick, useful molds.
Minor issues with your pulls can be teased into … Read More ...