Inchie Frame

Several weeks ago I started making polymer clay tiles to decorate some thrift store picture frames. They were relatively simple tiles to make. I just stamped sheets of clay with a rubber stamp, cut them with a tissue blade and attached the cured tiles onto the frame. Easy-peasy.

Well my creative gears went into over-drive. What if I used cane slices to decorate some small square tiles? I've made magnets and buttons this way before but they were round. What would they look like square? There was only one way to find out!

Slice, place, repeat.....12, 1" square polymer clay tiles. I love 'em!

And I had the perfect frame too! One I had purchased at the thrift store weeks ago, long before I made the tiles!  If only I had taken a "before" picture of that ugly two-toned, fake wood grain, brown frame.

See the corners? These are raised areas on the frame so I ended up making 12, 1/2" tiles to place there, 3 per corner. It's really hard to show all of the details in the pictures (or either I haven't learned how to use a camera yet). The frame can stand or hang vertically, as pictured, and the two openings are 2" x 3".

real close-up shot of one of the tiles

So, there you have it. Another successful thrift store make-over! I hope you'll join me again soon for more creative ideas.

National Martini Day

These days it seems like there is a day set aside for just about everything. Have you ever heard of some of these:  National Donald Duck Day, National Hazelnut Cake Day, National Go Barefoot Day.....the list goes on and on!  Take a look at the list of National holidays for yourself, you just might want to celebrate a few.

But today, June 19, is National Martini Day.

A few years ago I covered a set of martini glasses which both sold. Knowing this, my sisters gave me a couple..... almost a year ago.....thinking I could make some more. I guess I was just needing the inspiration to do it. Well, today was the day!

So, raise your glass and say a toast for such nonsense holidays like today...at least they can inspire me to be creative!

If you would like to be the owner of this glass I invite you to take a look in my Etsy shop. Or if you want a custom one done in another color scheme contact me. I would love to create it!

Making Polymer Clay Ring Bowls.... a tutorial

I love making canes! I think it is my favorite thing to do with polymer clay. I try not to make my canes too big though.... I like to use them up fast so that I can make more! But still I have my share of old canes, ones that either didn't turn out the way I wanted or ended up being bigger than I needed. But for whatever reason I have too many and wanted to get rid of them. I didn't want to just throw them away though so it was time to experiment. I've used hard clay before, you can see those tutorials here and here, but I wanted to do something new. My first ring bowl turned out really cute and so I made a couple more and decided I would take some pictures and show you how I did it. Let's get started!

Step 1. Chop up your cane with a ripple blade. You could also use a straight blade if that's all you have. I used a blue and white star cane that was about 4 years old and chopped it up really small on a piece of white paper just to help contain all the pieces.

Step 2. Take a piece of conditioned clay, it can be scrap or new as long as its well conditioned and soft. Roll it into a ball. I used some scrap clay that was about 1 inch in diameter. This amount will make about a 2 inch bowl.

Step 3. Flatten your clay into a disk shape, not too thin and press it into your pile of chopped up pieces until completely covered on both sides and around the edge. Make sure the pieces are sticking well and covering as much as possible.

Step 4.  Place your disk onto your work surface (I use my glass table top) and start pinching/pushing the sides towards the center. Keep turning and pushing, keeping a round shape, until it looks like a dome. Its hard to tell from the picture but the center is starting to rise and take on an upside down bowl shape.

Step 5.  Turn it over and press down in the center with your thumb. This will flatten the bottom. Then begin pinching the sides making them thinner and enlarging your bowl. At this point you may notice some cracks forming. You can simply fill them in with some more of the chopped up clay or leave them and fill them in later.

Once you are happy with your bowl's size and shape it's ready to be cured. I place mine on a clay tile and bake it for the recommended time and temperature for the brand of clay I use.

After your bowl has cured and completely cooled you have some options.

A) You can leave it as is. You're finished and your bowl is ready to be used!
B) If you still have cracks (from step 5) you can fill them in. You may need to use a little liquid clay to get the pieces to stick.  Then you will have to cure your bowl again.
C) Paint it! I like to use dark acrylic paint to give my bowl a weathered look. Just paint it on and wipe it off, leaving the paint in all the cracks!
D) Decorate it! This is what I love to do. I use slices from some of my "good" canes and have fun!

I decided on options D and C above and used white acrylic paint on this one.

Here are a few others I have made. I just love them! They will soon be listed for sale in my Etsy shop. Aren't they cute?!

But you aren't limited to making just ring bowls with this technique. If you're a jewelry maker then try pendants. Or "paint" a picture, filling in areas with different colors: green for trees and bushes, blue for the sky! Just thinking about the possibilities has me anxious to get started!

I hope this tutorial has given you some ideas on how you too can give new life to your old canes. If you have any questions please ask in the comments below. I would love to hear from you! Happy claying.....

Buttons

I love buttons! I'm not really sure why though. I don't sew and really have no use for buttons...well, other than the ones that come sewn onto my shirts, pants, jackets, etc. Maybe it stems from my childhood. My Mom always had buttons....and zippers, fabric and threads. She was, and still is, a top notch seamstress and quilter. So I guess that's why I love these things today.

I've made quite a few buttons in the last couple years. Unique buttons that you just can't find in any fabric and notions store. But my attention turned towards other things in my creative journey and buttons were put on the back burner. That is until yesterday! I'm thrilled with how these latest ones turned out. Take a look at how they came to be......

I first made a Klimt cane (the small square thing on the tile with my blade) with these colors then decided to make one long thin string with the remainder of the clay.

First step, choosing and blending colors. Then rolling the colors into sheets, cutting out circles, stacking the colors in random order and pushing them through the clay extruder (not an easy task!).

After I had a long thin strand of clay I began making coils and placing them on a sheet of clay. Doesn't look very exciting at this point, does it?

What happened to all my colors?  The orange ? The yellow?

Next came the tricky part. Shaving away the top of the coils, careful not to cut too deep. This requires both a sharp blade and lots of patience!

There they are! Hidden inside the coils.

I was so happy with the way it turned out. So happy, in fact, that I almost hated to cut it! But finally I just did it having faith that it would work out.  I strategically cut out different sizes. I didn't want to waste any more of this design than I had to. I placed my buttons in the oven to cure, giddy with excitement about the way they were looking....

Then came the next step......sanding! Ugh, I hate sanding!!! I despise sanding!!! I loathe the thought of sanding!!! Okay, you get the picture..... but, it had to be done.

Blah! Did I mention I HATE sanding!

A rare glimpse of me. Sitting at the bathroom sink, SANDING!

Here's the result!!! Oh, and what the pictures can't show is how they feel. So super smooth, I could just hold them in my hand and rub them!!! I know, that sounds a little weird, huh? But all of that sanding makes such a difference!

The 4 large ones are 1". There are 5, 3/4" ones, one 5/8" and the smallest one is 1/2".

These, along with some other newly made, equally fab buttons, will be listed for sale soon in my Etsy shop. I have plans for some other, totally different, BIG buttons too. So be on the look out for those soon. If you're a button lover like me, you won't want to miss them!

Another Bead Tutorial

Last week I wrote about making beads from some of my old, hard clay.  I mentioned the same technique could probably be done using old canes.  I hadn't tried it but figured it could be done the same way. So.......I decided to give it a try. It just so happens that I have been holding onto some ugly, brittle canes. Just when you think something is unusable....think again!

I started off the same as before, chopping up my cane with my clay blade until I had a pile of small pieces.

Since this clay was really, really dry I drizzled some liquid clay over it and mixed it all up. This is the point where things took a turn.

I was planning on painting my pieces, like previous, but I just wasn't sure it would work with this now sticky pile of clay. So.....I picked up a small amount and smooshed it together. I rolled it into a fat log and started twisting. This made the colors spiral. I flattened it out and ran it through the pasta machine. This gave me a nicely lined sheet of clay. Next, I folded the sheet in half and ran it through the pasta machine again. This started blending the lines into each other. I kept repeating this procedure until I liked the look of it.

Then....what do I do next? Hmmmm..... I remembered I had made some beads once before by wrapping a veneer around a core of scrap clay so I decided to do that! I rolled a ball of clay to use as the center of the bead, cut a strip of the lined sheet just slightly wider and wrapped it around, cutting it where the ends met up. 

Now, here's what you end up with.

Just gently pinch the ends together and slowly work the clay closed.

Then roll the bead in your hands to finish joining it all together.

The next thing I did was to add some texturing to the beads. Why? Because I absolutely hate sanding. I love the look and feel of a perfectly sanded and polished piece of polymer clay but I dread the work it takes! I especially hate sanding and polishing small round beads! Do you know how many times they get dropped???? So, I took the lazy way and added some texture to these beads by rolling them in salt and this is what I got. The only thing left to do was to pierce a hole through it. One down, several more to go.

Here's what I ended up with. Twenty rustic looking beads, all with their own unique colors. I think they look like old, distressed beads that have just been dug up at an archaeological site. (I always wanted to be an archaeologist when I was little.) Or maybe tiny planets, complete with craters! (I never wanted to be an astronaut.)

So there you have it. Yet another way to use up old dry clay!

Rorschach - what do you see?

Have you ever been reminded of something that you once enjoyed but had long forgotten? Maybe something from as far back as your childhood or it could be something you experienced more recently. Life's obligations and the mundane everyday chores have a way of pushing back our little pleasures. Or sometimes new, more exciting things take their place.

Well yesterday I was reminded of one of those little joys I discovered when I first started playing around with polymer clay. You see, Google's doodle was about Hermann Rorschach, the psychiatrist who developed the Rorschach "ink blot" test. And so naturally it made me think about the Rorschach technique in polymer clay. Probably everyone who has ever picked up a block of clay has done this at some point.  And if you haven't maybe you should! :) Or if you're like me, maybe it's been a while. Either way, it's fun and you should give it a try!

When I first learned this technique I was mesmerized. The excitement of not knowing what you will reveal when you slice into that log of clay. And I find it interesting to hear what other people see in the image.

There are loads of online tutorials and different ways of doing it. This is just my way, a quick introduction, in case you're unfamiliar with or new to polymer clay.

First, I looked thorough my old canes. Some of these are leftovers from years ago. Some not so pretty, some dried out and crumbly. I could never just throw these away as most polymer clayers know, there is never anything useless when it comes to ugly canes, leftovers or "scraps". So whatever you have on hand will work for this project.

These pieces are each about an inch long and really nothing special about any of them.

I squished the cane pieces together like this.

I rolled and twisted it into a snake.

Then pushed the snake into a cube like this.

And here is the exciting part, slicing into that ugly square. See the mirror image?

Keep slicing to get another image.

My little cube of clay made 5 different images, each one different.

Here are some pointers: I like to choose canes that have lines, like the leaf and pumpkin canes I used. I also like to have a bit of black in there and some white. This gives contrast to the other colors. But really it's entirely up to you. If you chose your colors wisely you can get some beautiful results.  I'm not so fond of the orange in these particular ones, I feel it's too over powering. But, it is what it is.

And remember, there are different ways of lining up your mirror images. Play around with them until you have something that is pleasing to you.

So what can you do with these miniature pictures? Bake them individually and turn them into awesome pendants. Combine them all into one piece and have yourself a pretty trippy piece of wall art. They're great for multi-media use. Or make them into small tiles and attach them to the outside of a picture frame, mosaic style.  Just use your imagination, I'm sure you will see another use, suited just to your personality (pun intended!).

Doing It Mandala Style

A few months ago I covered a sugar bowl with polymer clay. I loved the way it turned out and told myself I would do more work along those lines. Well yesterday I finally did. But it wasn't another sugar bowl that I made but a hair accessory. Now you're probably thinking to yourself, "what does a sugar bowl have in common with hair accessories?" Why...the WAY I decorated the both of them of course!

First, here is the sugar bowl I did. I absolutely loved the way it turned out and I hope the person who bought it loves it just as much. A lot of slicing of canes and placement of those paper thin slices went into making this dish.

For those who have never worked with polymer clay before I thought I would show you a little bit of the "behind the scenes" process. So here is a glimpse of what it took to make my latest piece, what I am calling a hair slide because well.... I don't really know what to call it!

This is just a sampling of some of my canes. I ended up not using all of these but I had them handy just in case....

This picture gives you a better idea of the size of some of the canes. And yes, I use a pin to pick up those tiny little petals and place them where I want them. The slices stick to the point of the pin when slightly touched. You have to have an easy touch and a steady hand. And my reading glasses and a bright light comes in handy too!

And this is the end result!

So there you have it. The similarities between a sugar bowl and a hair slide. Both of these pieces have sold but I KNOW I will be continuing with this style. I just love it!