Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Winter Storm Snowflake Polymer Clay Pendant

This week's winter snow storm in Colorado inspired this polymer clay pendant project. Join me in my studio as we make a swirl bead and add snowflake embellishments. I used extruded clay strands applied to a clay base to make my swirl beads. This simple technique is great alternative to using cane slices for those of us who don’t make many canes. Upcoming projects will use this basic technique for more swirl effects. Hope you enjoy this. If you enjoy the video, subscribe to my YouTube channel, give me a thumbs up or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Below the video are the tools and materials used in the project. 
  Tools 
Extruder 
19 hole die 
Clay blade 
Needle tool 
Acrylic or glass block 
Jewelry pliers
  Materials 
Polymer Clay – white and 2 shades of blue 
Pearlescent powder – silver 
Jump ring 
Sandpaper – wet/dry 400 grit 
Sealer – Varathane or other

P.S. I’m always trying to improve my videos. I use Adobe Premier Pro Creative Cloud software to edit my videos and with this one I wanted to keep close to the 5 minute mark. It’s always a learning process and fun. Stuff I learned while making this video:
• How to speed up a clip
• Overlay comments on a clip
• Record audio outside the main video

Friday, December 19, 2014

2015 Polymer Clay Challenge

Starting the new year and thinking about how to be connected and creative.  I've decided to join the KatersAcres 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge to complete one polymer clay project per week.  This is a lot of pressure but certainly motivating.  I'm nervous but committed.  Let me know if you're joining in.  Happy New Year!
2015 Polymer Clay Challenge

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Polymer Clay Faux Knit Mitten Earring Tutorial

Let’s knit with polymer clay!  Join me in my studio as we make a polymer clay knitted “fabric” that we can use to make these cute mitten earrings.  You could also resize the mitten template to make a necklace, bracelet or zipper pull.  

You can find some free, downloadable Christmas templates here.  Copy the mitten template and resize in word processing or image processing software.  You can use any size that works for your project.  I re-sized the mitten template to 1” by .88” which is a good size for earrings.

I hope you enjoy this video tutorial.  If you enjoyed this video, subscribe, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment.  Thanks for joining me in my studio.  See the materials/tools list below the video link.



Materials
Polymer clay colors of your choice.  I’m using red and white Premo!
Paper mitten template
Eye pins – 2 ea
Ear wires – 2 ea
Jump ring – 6mm – 2 ea
Sandpaper – optional

Tools
Pasta Machine
Oven
Extruder with multi-hole disk (disk with 19 holes usually include in the basic set with Makins extruder)
Craft knife
Jewelry pliers – chain nose