Well… I am kind of disappointed with the final outcomes of some of my first experiments.  I mean, why don’t they look as awesome as the professionals’ look?! Hmm! When will mine look that good?!

So far (well just as an aside I need to tell you that my 11 month old niece plays on my keyboard a lot and at the moment I can’t use the “v” key so every time you see it I have had to paste it and well since the shortcut key is to paste is also ctrl+”v” that is proving slightly difficult… I wouldn’t change it for the world but if you notice missing letters in any kind of pattern, that is probably why!) I have made a few things.  Most of them have been photographed and you can see them in the gallery in this post – I just figured out how to add that plugin to my post so look at it

Item 1 The Polymer Clay Owl
I put up a photo of him in a previous entry.  He was made out of Mont Marte Make and Bake Clay.  I took about 10 days to bake him so he has lost some of his little embellishments and his wing cracked a bit. I used 2 black seed beads for his eyes and he was made using a  Free Tutorial available on Christi Friesen’s Web Site.

Item 2 The Polymer Clay Lily

Polymer Clay Lily

I made the lily using Sculpey III polymer clay mostly white mixed with a little violet. I used the detailed photographed and well written tutorial by Pedro Ramirez available on his blog here.  I did not do the painting steps and did not use the colour suggested, I used a wire instead of a needle tool and because of the macro function [insert appropriate cuss word here] you can see in detail how I messed it up. Tee hee.

But considering the flower measures less than an inch at its widest point I think I did ok. It looks better from a distance… ha ha. Pedro’s looks brilliant from any distance.  I didn’t get a chance to bake the lily because one of the petals snapped off after standing for a few days.  So that gives me an excuse to make a new one then.

Item 3  The Swirly Dooflicky Thing
So I had some of this pretty lilac-ey pink  clay left after attempting the lily and I wanted to play some more. So you know fancying myself to be the world’s next Christi Friesen (sorry Christi…)

I started to make some swirlies and dots and poked seed beads in them and this is what happened. I still have a few thousand to make before I make anything decent, but for now this was quite ok for a mess around.

Item 4 The Peacock Necklace

Polymer Clay Peacock Necklace

I think I may be starting to use Christi‘s name in vain, but I really got very inspired to start playing with polymer clay after I visited her website and the sites of those who were working on her workshops or tutorials or doing Christi Friesen inspired work.

As well as the projects, workshops, books and tutorials available for free (and to purchase) on Christi’s site, there is this free tutorial to make an awesomely designed Polymer Clay and Bead Mixed Media art jewellery necklace at the Firemountain Gems site.  [I also found some for sale at the Kalmbach Bookstore site, they publish Bead and Button, Art Jewelry(sic) and Bead Style and Christi has been featured in them]. I wanted to do this with what I had on hand and discovered that a lot of my beads are plastic, I wasn’t sure if they would melt when I baked the clay, so I tried to use all glass beads.  I didn’t have the same or similar ones to what Christi used in the tutorial so I improvised. I also chose lighter colours in the clay (especially the brown and now not so sure I like it). I used some glass cats eye gems, rose quartz and amethyst chips, some glass leaves and flowers.  The wire dangly bits will have things strung onto them when completing the project so that is why they are there.

One thing I found fabulous about this project, I am not an accomplished wire worker and you get to cover up stuff ups with the clay.  What I learned:

• pale brown ‘branches’ do not look good
• if you concentrate too hard on making one bit of a bead like you want, you have inadvertently squished something you concentrated on earlier
• Wires, pliers and frustration do not play nicely with fingers
• when Christi says “Be very careful not to put any pressure on the bead or it will crack” … be very careful not to put pressure on the bead or it will crack!
• If there are bubbles in the glaze when you paint it on, it will stay there not magically vanish when it dries

The photo here is after baking and glazing and the one in the gallery below is of the raw clay.

Other Items

Polymer Clay Rabbit and Strawberry Charm after Baking and Glazing

In addition to the above, I made  a Polymer Clay Rose, using the Fry Rose Tutorial by Sukaiburu Chan on Deviant Art, photo in gallery below. I made a little dolly, she is also in the gallery and is what I am going to be concentrating on making with less dirt and fingerprints and all that in the clay. I made a little rabbit from another Deviant Art Tutorial by Shiritsu, and also a little strawberry… all by myself for a change.

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Short Cut to Links Used in this Post:

Christi Friesen’s Web Site
Pedro Ramirez’s Polymer Clay Creations – How to Make a Polymer Clay Flower Lily
Peacock Pizzazz Free Tutorial from Firemountain Gems, designed by Christi Friesen
Kalmbach Bookstore
Tutorial for making a Polymer Clay Rose by Sukaiburu Chan
Little Polymer Clay Rabbit Tutorial by Shiritsu