Santa Brought Joy To My World

Happy New Year, Everyone! My new year is certainly off to a happy start, thanks to Santa Claus and Marble Man. For years, I've wanted to try using polymer clay to make beads, but haven't been willing to lay out the cash for all the supplies and utensils needed to do it right. I've had this in my shopping cart at Amazon.com, along with it's cousin, for over two years now, just waiting.

This Christmas, Marble Man (my enabler) bought them for me. He also threw in a new toaster oven so I can fire my creations without poisoning our kitchen appliances. What a guy! I added in some Christmas cash, and that was enough to buy a pasta machine and a small selection of clay colors. Ready, set, PLAY!

The books have very clear instructions and helpful photos to go along. After a couple of false starts, and about 4 hours of time, I finished a beautiful cane in a kaleidoscope design. I sliced off very thin slivers and applied them to a base bead of plain clay. Voila! A set of gorgeous beads ready for the oven.

Click on the image and you'll be able to see more details

Puffed up with confidence after this first attempt, I moved on to a flower cane...

a little more complex than the kaleidoscope cane, but very rewarding when finished. The canes are built from lots of layers of clay. When the first stage was complete, the cane was about 2 inches across, and about 4 inches long. The next step involves squeezing that fat cane down, and rolling it to reduce the diameter to about a half inch or less. That initial fat cane makes a VERY LONG final result!

I used it in a similar fashion as the kaleidoscope cane, slivers on a bead, but wasn't in love with the result.

For the next bead, I made an oval shape of clay. Then added thin slices of my new flower cane, and nestled in some slices of the kaleidoscope cane for fun. I topped off the ends with overlapping leaves made from a blended piece of clay (yellow to green), and I have a pretty wild focal bead.

Today, I fired up the computer and spent some time on You Tube where I found some really good instructional videos. I chose a veined leaf cane as my project for today, and boy-oh-boy, that was fun.

I have visions of using these as fringe ends for a future bead-embroidered necklace. It's spectacular in my head -I just hope I can make it happen. Stay tuned...

copyright 2009 Shibori Girl