Polymeri Online 27.11.14 | Pam's Millefiori haute couture, Molds and cookies and buttons, Make your own sculpturing tools, Polymer belts, Masking tape to the rescue & De-stashing sale in my "garage"

Pam's Millefiori haute couture

Pamela Carmen’s flickr gallery is full of colorful animals decorated with endless blooming millefiori canes.

Fish, owls, birds, hens, frogs, all of them gets their coat of flowers.

In her owl sculpture she mentions ceramic as her base while only the veneer is canes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pamelacarman/

Molds and cookies! :)

Nerd Ecrafter posted a video for creating your own molds using only liquid translucent clay (she is using TLS by Polyform). She took an oreo cookie, embedded it into the liquid, baked it (twice) and created her mold instantly. You can use this technique to create any mold of your choice from your found objects as long as they are oven proof! yay!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq_ofBGMUSg

Molds and buttons

Talking about molds, here is another example by artist Elena Semin, taking a button with a nice pattern and creating 2 molds/casts to form a double-sided bead with a pre made channel –

http://hobby-box.ru/phakturnye-businki.html

Don’t forget to take a look at the glowing snowflake tutorial– fun and easy project just in time for winter!

http://hobby-box.ru/master-klass-snezhinka.html

Make your own sculpturing tools

Ever wanted to create your own sculpturing tools? Diane Foster‎ published this PDF file on the “Polymer Clay Tutorial Collectors” FB group showing how to transform simple tools into sculpturing tools! The ebook is written by G. Schellert.

http://www.ringert.com/sculpting/MAKE%20YOUR%20OWN%20SCULPTING%20TOOLS_ebook.pdf

Polymer belt necklace

Ingrid Ulrich’s belt accessory is beautifully adapted to polymer clay. Stamped and antiqued it is giving the impression of the real thing. Located in Germany she is playing with various techniques in her designs.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/16881789@N07/8437844559/

http://www.ingul-schmuckdesign.de

Masking tape to the rescue

Remove excess polymer clay powders

Christelle Van Lingen shared in her Pinterest gallery a tip she credit Christie Friesen. By using a masking tape you can take off any excess powder left on your stamped image. I learned this trick from Laurie Mika when I was her student several years ago, when she used it on extra foil left on a design. That is really a neat trick.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/8373949282726848/

I am de-stashing some of my extra tools and findings, if you’re interested you can take a look of what’s left, in my FB gallery –

https://www.facebook.com/iris.mishly/media_set?set=a.10152601243342968.1073741846.608452967&type=1&pnref=story

Have a great thanksgiving holiday if you're celebrating, and a great rest of the week :)

Polymeri Online 4.4.13 | The Elephant Project, Polymer wavy beads, Graphic flower millefiori cane and The winter girl project

The Elephant Project

My colourful journey flickr gallery led me to find this beautiful tile project called the "Elephant project" by Wendy Moore.
While she was reading a book called "How to Train a Wild Elephant" by Jan Chozen Bayes, the author describes one practice a week to help you be more aware and mindful. She made these tiles using imitative techniques to symbolize each practice for her. At the end of the year she assembled them into a wall piece. She restricted herself to imitations of semi precious stones. You can read more about her process in this post and what each tile represent in the flickr link below.
http://afterthemonsoon.com/2012/07/12/the-elephant-project/
A Colourful Journey is the non profit organization for Nepali women who have survived domestic violence and are developing ways to generate an income for themselves and their families.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43394774@N04/sets/72157630509750550/
http://acolourfuljourney.com/

Use your old polymer
clay beads

Russian Kaplinka Polinka is sharing with us more of her fun and easy classes. In these two she is showing how to use old polymer clay beads you no longer like and turn them into new beads by covering them with fresh millefiori canes. Don't forget to mark your holes!

Wavy Beads Tutorial

In her second link you can see a cute project for wavy beads using the wavy blade - aren't they colorful! Here is a post from 2011 which showed more of her goodies.

http://www.kalinkapolinka.ru/publ/master_klassy/master_klass_rakushki_iz_polimernoj_gliny/2-1-0-99

Wanda Shum's graphic flower cane

Remember Nat Gernigon fun Cane Scribbles tutorial featured on Polymer Clay Daily a while back?
Talented millefiori artist Wanda Shum took this cane one step further to create a beautiful flower cane.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10799328@N00/8470426378/in/photostream


Rut & The Polar Bear from Sweden posted this photo on her Pinterest gallery which led me to this Korean website -ClayKiwi. This tutorial for making a winter girl is so cute! Although I am not sure they use polymer clay (vs. air dry clay) this can be another cute project with kids.
http://m.pinterest.com/pin/352758583282854618/

Clay - Winter girl tutorial

Don't miss their angry dragon project along with others (scroll to the end to see more related links).
I used Google chrome for easy translating.

Polymeri Online 18.3.13 | Scrap or planned sheet, Inking your findings, Polymer clay tile collage and Millefiori headband

Passover holiday is just around the corner and I find myself doing so many things besides claying. I was also waiting forever for a shipment of materials I plan to use in my new classes and I am also guessing that the overload from my recent traveling demanded some rest. Anyway, now I am back with full powers and there are some exciting surprises ahead.

polymer clay sheet
is it scrap? or a planned design?

Now back to some polymer clay talk -

Look at this beautiful scrap sheet posted in Anne Poncet blog. She describes it as "work in process". Later posts reveal a set of necklace and earrings using this beautiful sheet. The cutter replacing and changing colors makes this sheet a new beginning of a new design. More designs in her blog.
http://lebruitdesvagues.canalblog.com/archives/2012/09/28/25198229.html
https://www.facebook.com/APoncetLeBruitDesVagues

Alcohol inks as the new
 findings painting medium

We all know Alcohol Inks as a material to use on clay, but what about using it on metal findings to color them? Annie Bimur (Anna Kokareva) is using these inks to decorate her findings and the result is wonderful!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bimur/6904240826/in/photostream
You can link to her blog as well for more polymer clay talk -
http://bimur.livejournal.com/40466.html

The Pikes Peak polymer clay guild made a joint project of all(?) or several members to create a beautiful tile collage project. The members created square tiles to be assembled into a larger piece - a woman face. The photos of the process and final product were published on Facebook and you can see them as well. Julie Eakes was the one behind this idea and Sue Mueller was the picture creator.

polymer clay millefiori headband

It's been one of my projects to make a polymer clay headband. I have some blank metal headbands just waiting to be created and still I never used it.
Purpleluggage (Jen from Philippines) created these delicate beautiful millefiori floral headbands and in her post she is trying to explain to potential buyers why they are more expensive then regular headbands sold out there. As some of us know, this long process of millefiori canning along with forming these delicate petals requires a lot of work and that's the result of a real handmade product!
Lot's of great food, dogs and polymer clay art in her blog -
http://purpleluggage.blogspot.it/2012/07/purpleluggage-floral-headbands.html