Polymer Clay and The Big Surprise

This past week I worked on ways to use my most recent (and most wild) polymer clay kaleidoscope cane. Up til now, I've felt precious about every square millimeter of each cane slice. So much went into making them, I didn't want to waste any little bit.

However, this cane was so wild and weird that I took my curvy flexible clay blade and cut ovals around the central motif of the slices.

This transformed them from wacky to utterly charming. Time to haul out Donna Kato's book in search of that inspiration advertised on the cover. I made a triangular pad of clay, laid the ovals on it in a pleasing way, and then pondered, "what next?"

I like the look of Kato's "zipper" canes and made one to match the kaleidoscope cane. Pretty!

A couple of slices of that now surrounds the central oval, setting it off quite nicely.

I have some blocks of metallic gold clay; let's see what that could add to this project. I cut shapes to fill the space around the ovals, laid it in, and using a carving tool, made some lines to look like pleating. (My shibori fabric experience lives on...)

So far, I'm loving this new piece. I rolled some black clay through the pasta machine with a textured plate and cut a surround for the triangular piece : "voila!"... a knockout polymer clay pendant.

The two ovals in the center were sanded, buffed and coated with acrylic for a high glossy shine. The gold and black surrounding areas were left alone for a nice contrast. All that was left was to glue on a flatback Swarovski crystal for some added bling.

Frankly, I was really surprised at myself when I saw the final results of this project. I have no idea where this came from - not my usual style at all. But, hey, you won't find me complaining.

My question now is, "What should I string this onto?" I like the look of rubber "buna" cord, but finding it at an affordable rate is proving problematic. Any ideas??

**Note: no worries that the trimmed off sections of the cane slices went to waste - I'm saving them for something special. You'll have to wait for my next post to find out what that's gonna be. ;)


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