Although we are currently holidaying in the French Alps taking a well deserved snowboarding break I still managed to make some polymer jewellery this afternoon. My nephew Matt made a lovely necklace for his girlfriend as well and a polymer covered pen for himself. He did really well for his first attempt. Will be snowboarding for the rest of the week and post another entry as soon as I return.
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Monday’s Jewellery making Class
- Everyone working hard on Monday
On Monday five ladies from the Gran Alicant area attended a polymer jewellery making class at Tutti’s bar and restaurant. We started at midday and after selecting the colours we wanted started making geometric canes for our jewellery. After forming our canes we shaped them into beads for bracelets. Whilst the beads were baking in the oven we formed pendants and matching circular beads. After 2 and a half hours we were starving so took a well deserved break and tucked into delicious sandwiches supplied by Sirus, the owner of Tutti’s.
After lunch the lesson continued using silver wire to make links for the bracelets and ear wires for earrings. Once the polymer beads and pendants were cool they were varnished and 15 minutes later we started to put our jewellery together. Five hours after the lesson began we were done, everyone had made a pendant with matching beads, bracelet with silver wire and polymer beads and a set of earrings. We even had time to make jazzy key covers and charms for our keyrings!
So at about 5 o’clock the ladies went home for a well deserved rest. My husband and I tidied up and had a quick coffee before heading home. In conclusion I have to say the lesson went really well and would like to thank Sandy, Sue, Denise, Jackie and Anne for being a great class and for all their efforts during the day. If you would like to see a selection of the jewellery they made it can be seen in the students gallery.
Leather & Wood Effect Polymer Jewellery
- Polymer Wood Effect & Copper Wire Earrings
The other day I was blogging and discussed the materials that I thought would be great for mens jewellery. Now the great thing about polymer clay is that, by combining colours and using different textures you can create almost any effect you want; stone, wood, leather, amber. You name it you can make it.
So I sat down this afternoon with ideas flying round my head and just started to mess around with the clay. When I start working with polymer I never really know what I’m going to end up with, sometimes it’s great and other times I end up really frustrated not really being able to put my ideas into the finished piece. My first thought was what colours do you find in wood? I sat down with the colours I had chosen and after an hour or so ended up with a pendant and set of earrings. I finished off the earrings with copper ear wires and hey presto! Not bad for my first wood effect piece.
Polymer Leather Effect Pendant
Spurred on by this I thought I’d have a crack at something with a leather effect. The hard thing with leather I found is creating the right texture. I picked out a colour fairly easily but had problems trying to create that “leather look”. I messed around folding the clay, twisting it this way and that until I was happy with the overall shape but it still didn’t look right. So I started messing around with the edges and came up with a torn ragged effect, I didn’t have an exact idea of what I wanted but carried on until I was happy with the results. T0 finish off the pendant I added a different coloured and textured centre piece and popped the pendant on a copper coloured cord.
Caroline
Jewellery Making Classes
I’ve spent most of this evening preparing for my upcoming polymer clay jewellery class which is on Monday. Five ladies are atttending the class at “Tutti’s” restaurant in Gran Alicant. The owner Sirus lets me use his upstairs room and supplies a delicious lunch as well. We are going to make geometric design polymer beads on silver wire; bracelet, pendant and earrings. Everything is made from scratch, including the findings. The ladies have a jewellery class about once a month and have learnt, among other thing, jewellery making with art clay silver, silver wire and polymer beads. I always like to practice what I’m going to do beforehand as occasionally something crops up that I hadn’t thought about.
Tonight I had major problems conditioning some of the clay. Some colours are harder to condition than others and crumble a lot, my hands were really hurting afterwards. A good tip is to put just a drop of baby oil on your fingers when conditioning the clay by hand and this helps to soften the polymer. It shouldn’t be a problem on Monday as I am taking my husband and conditioning the clay is his job. Well enough of the talk, the beads are due out of the oven. I’ll post some pictures of the stuff we made on Monday.
Polymer Clay & Jewellery
Polymer Pendant & Beads
My latest obsession in making jewellery is using polmer clay. Polymer clay is so versatile, it is not only used to make all types of jewellery but also figurines, cake toppers, decorations and so much more. It’s such a versatile medium.
So what is polymer clay? - Polymer clay is a pliable bendable compound made up of fine particles of PVC suspended in plasticer. It is not a true clay by definition but what makes it so special is it’s versatility. It comes in many, vibrant colours which can be mixed together to make new, original colours. As the colour is present in the PVC particles the different coloured clays can be used together without the colour blending for special effects such as caneworking and marbling. Once the clay is conditioned it’s easy to work with and can be moulded, pressed or sculpted into almost any shape. Another advantage is that, unlike normal clay, polymer clay does not dry out so you can work with it without having a time limit. Finally the temperature required to fuse the particles together is relatively low and the pieces can be fired in a domestic oven. Once fired the piece can be filed, sanded and varnished to give different matt or gloss effects.
Polymer & Silver Bracelet
Do I need specialist equipment? – The simple answer is no. You can start working with polymer clay with hardly any specialist tools or equipment. All you need to start with is a shiny flat surface (a ceramic tile or glass cutting board is ideal) to work on, something to roll the clay, an unserrated knife to slice the clay, if you are making beads, wooden cocktail sticks or skewers to pierce the beads and finally an oven to fire the clay. Thats it! Later you may want to invest in a pasta machine (to roll the clay flat), cutters and extruders but you don’t need all that when you start.
Where do I find out more? - The internet has plenty of sites with free tutorials, hints and tips as well as sites to buy the clay and equipment. If you’d like to see more jewellery made using polymer clay have a look at my polymer jewellery. So what are you waiting for? Just google “polymer clay” and get started!