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Polymer in Black and White

Here is a great treasury at Etsy to check out....

Using an Epoxy Clay In My Mosaic Pendants

 I have been making mosaic pendants for awhile using polymer clay as the bezels or using metal bezels with polymer clay pieces. When I did this I always used glue to secure all the pieces together and this worked pretty well, but could be messy. Now I have finally given Apoxie Sculpt a try as a base for securing the pieces. It is a two part epoxy clay. I am left wondering why I was not using this all along! It works great for this.
  The clay has a million uses that you can look into by going to the Ave Studios website. You will also find directions on how to use it there. The
directions on the containers are very rudimentary.

 You take equal parts of container A and container B and mix together thoroughly for at least 2 minutes. If you have a large batch, mix a bit longer until you are sure it is thoroughly combined. You will want to remove your rings certainly before working with the clay and could wear some latex gloves if you choose. You can clean up your hands with vegetable oil and soap and water. The clay has a working time of 2 hours and takes 24 hours to cure. I have read that you can put the clay in the freezer to prolong the set up time. This would be useful if you have mixed too much clay for one project or are not able to finish all at once.

  After it is mixed I smoosh it in the bezel. Spell check seems to think smoosh is not a word, hmm, stupid spell check. The clay at this point is soft, slightly firmer maybe than play doh. It is a bit sticky, but not unmanageable. Then I just apply my pieces into clay, making sure that they are firmly embedded. Just keep going until satisfied with the positions.

 Before the clay is cured be sure and clean away any residue of clay on the bezel or beads with a towel.
That is about it! The clay can be painted and I went ahead and painted it black after it had cured to darken the background a bit. The clay does come in colors, but not in larger sizes.
  I can't wait to work some more with it. It was a lot of fun.

String Ball Ornaments and Pinterest Obsessing

I am loving these string ornaments that you make with string, glue and a balloon (glitter optional). These come via www.marthastewart.com Click the pic to get the full tutorial. I am seeing them with slight variations all over my new latest obsession... Pinterest!

  I can waste soooo much time on Pinterest it is ridiculous. I love it! I highly recommend going there and checking it out. If you have not checked it out yet, it is a big bulletin board site where everyone can post pictures of things they like and create their own bulletin boards to save the things they like and repin from other people. There are different categories and you can follow certain people if you like their pins, crazy!!! I am a sucker for quick craft tutes and humor pics so that is what a lot of my repins are, but I am also trying to use it to market my Etsy shop a bit. But mostly I just click and look and click and look and click and look and tell myself I am getting ideas :)

Next post I will most likely be writing about my new adventures with Apoxie Sculpt clay. Stay tuned.

Easy Faux Stone Technique

 This is a faux stone technique for polymer clay I have been playing with lately. It is a lot of fun and very easy. It is a technique that with just a few variations you can get all sorts of different results. A lot that aren't necessarily like real life stones, but fun none the less. I learned about this from the book,Making Polymer Clay Beads by Carol Blackburn. I am still trying different things with it and learning along the way.
  You start out with conditioned translucent clay and you chop it up into pieces. You will get different effects depending on the size of your pieces and whether or not they are all the same size. A variation would be to not just use translucent clay, or not use translucent at all.
   Next you paint the pieces with acrylic paint and allow to dry. I have the pieces laying on a sheet of plastic wrap first to catch the mess and help with the next step. At this stage you can also add in some textural matereials like sand, embossing powder, glitter. Lots of room for variation with this expecially with the embossing powder. You might want to do a trial run with a little bit of the mixture before you do a big batch. You are never quite sure what the embossing powder will look like until it bakes. In the mix above I added just a pinch of black embossing powder.
   After the paint has dried, you can use the plastic wrap to bring the pieces together to form the shape you wish to create. Cutting into the clay before it is baked will reveal the effect and sanding it after it is baked will also show off the faux treatment. You bake the clay as you normally would according to the package instructions. Here are the lavender pieces baked up sanded, buffed and one unsanded.
   Below are a couple other examples of the technique I have tried. The brown is using mostly opaque and a bit of translucent.                                                    

                                                   

This is part of what we saw this weekend. This a lego creation of a lifesize artist by Nathan Sawaya. We saw it in downtown Charlotte as part of the Wells Fargo Community Celebration. Lots of fun free music, art and stuff!