Category: Makings

Last night, instead of just doing nothing or working on polymer clay, I decided to make something using memory wire. I must say that I’m not good at designing with it. There are so many wonderful styles that can be accomplished. I even ordered a couple of finished bracelets from Etsy sellers. They were so pretty. I want to learn from the designs, but definitely not to copy and sell… I just admire them. They’ve been on my favourites list for ages. Here’s what I bought: New Years Resolution and Lavender Pixel Triplets.

So here is what I made…



It’s single layer, pretty much like a bead bangle, really. I joined the ends together, because the bracelet kept opening up. It’s a little too big for me, but that’s how I can manage to get my hand into it.



The bracelet is asymmetrical, yet there is a visible pattern. That’s also one reason why I think it looks good. Forgive me, all my design terminology has flown out the window, so I cannot analyse the bracelet any further. 😛

Sorry old fruit canes, you didn’t satisfy me, so I made new ones. I’ve finally gotten around to it! Everyone knows my old bananas, they were stylised and the 6 seeds were not in the location I wanted them to be. It was the second cane that I had ever done in my life. Now take a look at my new bananas!

The left image is the one with my new canes. The right one compares my new to my old ones. They look a little better and less stylised. It’s an improvement, but I still need to make the darker bits surrounding the seeds a little brighter next time, and perhaps the seeds could be slightly darker. Not perfect, still… but I definitely prefer them to my old crappy ones!


Mmm… Banana slices!

And my oranges… poor things, I didn’t like them at all… too yellow, too small. I kept telling myself that they were mandarin oranges, but still, in my mind, they were horrible. So, I sold the whole lot! I made them really cheap and sold them, just so I could wipe my mind clear and start a new orange cane.


As you can see, it starts off as a stump with ugly ends, but the pattern inside should look fine. I slowly reduce the cane and elongate it…


Once at 1-1.2cm in diameter, I cut it in half to investigate! Looked good, so I elongated it till 6-7mm, which should be about right. My last batch was way too tiny, and I should learn from my mistakes. And finally, I cut off the ugly ends until a nice fresh pattern started on all the canes. I was left with lots of leftover unbaked clay, which I normally re-use when I need that colour, or when I make another cane. No wastage!

Let’s compare the old with the new:

I certainly like the colour change! The size is right too, but I added an extra layer before the skin, and the entire skin part might now be a tad bit thick. Nothing’s perfect, I suppose. Hope you enjoyed the photos!

I’m slowly getting used to making fruit canes… It’s not as hard as I used to imagine it, although, I did mess this one up when lining up the green wedges and had to redo it. Once I figured out a way to reduce the cane that worked for me, everything went a lot smoother.


I started the kiwi by making a triangle wedge and cutting it in half to put a strip of black, which becomes the seed. I join them back up, and add a layer of white on one side. I then elongated it a little and cut in half. I used one half to lay on the first one, becoming two seeded sections as one piece. I then elongated that again and cut it into 8 pieces. *phew* a long explanation for just two photos. These steps are actually the most difficult. If you get the wedges in the wrong shape, the outcome is likely to be poor as well. Sorry, I usually only like to photograph as the results start to show! I recommend books by Angie Scarr, I followed her instructions almost to the letter.


I assembled the wedges around a centre piece and reduced it slowly. The photo on the right shows the chunk is compressed slightly in the centre, and I removed the air holes.


The first picture shows the canes at 8-9mm in diameter, and still unbaked. At this point, I always get excited and I cut the cane in half quickly to see how the pattern turns out! Then I take the two halves and reduce them further to their final size, roughly 4-5mm. I cut them up into manageable sizes and bake them at 100 degrees C, and longer than 30 minutes to be sure. Don’t want to repeat the mistakes from previous canes.


Finally, the sliced canes produce kiwis! Hope you enjoyed the tour… I will try to include more work in progress photos next time, instead of just giving you the end results. I really need to remake my banana… oh, so lazy.

This is only my third time making a polymer clay fruit cane, so I can’t really call myself an expert, and this is technically not a tutorial. I have only made lemons and bananas up to this point, but I thought I would take the plunge and do a moderate level cane. I am a little disappointed with my bananas, so I will redo them at some point. Okay! On to the photo tour.

How Baby Strawberries Come from a Big Strawberry
Large Strawberry
I didn’t take a photo before this, because I was questioning my ability. So, first, I made a skinner blend cube out of red and white clay. I had trouble making it — I was too impatient when rolling it over and over in the pasta machine. I’m sure I missed 10 rounds. I had to fix it by cutting out some white chunks left in there, kneading it until it turned light pink, and then stuffed it back into the cube. It looked disastrous. Nevertheless, I decided to continue and see if my strawberry would end up as a pile of scrap clay. Next, I put in white strips by cutting up the elongated skinner blend clump into 8 pieces, and laying white clay in between them. I lengthened the one side and cut it in half to make the mirror image. At this point, the big strawberry is ready for reducing.

Strawberry, Half-reduced Strawberry Canes, 1/8 scale
These are photos of the strawberry canes, about 1/8 the size of the big one. You can still see my bad skinner blend lines, but that will disappear once I reduce this further. I like how the pattern is turning out!

Lots of Baby Strawberries Baby Strawberries
Would you look at that! I cut up the canes and reduced them again, until they were about 4-5mm large. Each square in the grid is 4mm. Look at how many baby strawberries I have! Almost all of them were good, and I didn’t throw away too much from the ends of the canes. Oh, and I left the ends of a couple of canes larger because I didn’t want to spoil them from stretching, and I also like how they look when they’re not teeny weeny.

Baked and Sliced Strawberries
After baking for 30 minutes at 100 degrees C, here are some of the baby strawberries, sliced up and ready for decorating. I like this third attempt the best… I thought I would mess it up, but I like how they turned out.

My solution is simple. I rebuild a collection of polymer clay and equipment from scratch and start making more clay food. My flight has been rescheduled to 2nd May, and that’s at least 1.5 weeks from now, so I have to get claying! I regret not getting liquid clay while I was at the shop, since I need it for making cake icing and other creams. My logic at the time, was to limit myself because liquid clay can be very messy, and I would only need to keep busy for a few days before having to pack up. Of course, this assuming I will be able to fly at all when 2nd May comes along.

Take a look at my mini collection of Japanese branded tools and glue paint I found at Daiso. I wish all this was available in Zurich, or even in Melbourne. I also included my Fimo clay and other findings I got from Multifilla, so not everything is Daiso.
Tools

Besides clay, I’ve been thinking of getting a kiln when I move back to Australia. At first, kilns seem so expensive and unnecessary. Once I researched wattage used on stand-alone convection ovens, I was shocked! I’d rather get a kiln that uses 1000W instead of a convection oven that uses more than 1350W, 1800W or even higher. Kilns also have higher temperatures and bead doors. I can try out other crafts and even glass beadmaking, like I originally wanted. Oh now I’m so excited about moving back to Melbourne and starting a business… but only after my pets depart, as I would hate myself for abandoning them.

Day 2: I was bad and purchased some more clay. I’ve come to like the metallic colours a lot, and the mica effects really make the pieces unique. Although, if you want to do without the mica, there really is no way. Another favourite is white transparent clay. I use this almost everywhere, it’s a staple for me.

Green and Gold
I worked on a more dull colour spectrum, as I didn’t like the bright child-like look of the batch I made the first time. Using my own handmade colour mixes, I really like the outcome. I made my own green from scratch, using cyan and yellow with a little metallic gold and black to get the smoky olive green. I need to polish up on my colour names. This is the best I can do to describe it!

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I’m really happy with how these turned out. I tried a chop and mix technique with transparent and opaque white to get this depth effect. They were the most time consuming beads to make, but definitely worth it, just to look at the crackly-marbly-depth. I’m going to list some of these style beads for sale and see how they go. Because I make my own colours, it took me nearly an hour to get a shade I liked, not to mention the chopping and mixing I had to do for the outer layer!

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Using the chop and mix technique again, and then just swirling them around a bit to get this effect. The good part about using a metallic clay, it adds the metallic effect to the other clays as well. The whole bead gets sparkly! Not sure if these will sell, since they are quite easy to make.

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Using leftover clay, I made lots of spacers! I wanted to get a dark brown, but ended up with a lovely bronze for these disc spacers!! I love how they turned out, but I will probably never be able to get the exact shade again. I didn’t record my mixes (and I don’t intend to). Thankfully, my design skills can be utilised here when it comes to mixing colours. I generally know what colours to use to get a tone, from all that practice with illustrator. Never had an un-salvage-able sickly colour so far.

This ‘quick fix’ hobby has turned out to be rather fun, and I think I will stick with it for a while before starting my glass beads. It’s way more economical and allows me to fulfil my wish to make beads. The only thing is, it’s time consuming and sticky. I also need a little more equipment so I can work a lot faster. Pasta machine, I will get you soon!

I was a little disappointed when none of my bead findings showed up in the mail today, so I went down the street to the little craft/hardware store to get some polymer clay. I was also getting really impatient with the glass bead making supplies, since I still need to wait a couple more weeks before I can get all my equipment. In other words, I wanted a quick fix. I had read a little about making clay beads, and decided to do some more reading into it. Surprisingly, one needs to think in a totally different dimension in order to achieve the many intricate designs… I was amazed at ‘clay canes’. I still have to try that, although I think I will be terrible at it. Anyway, I took some quick snaps at what I managed to achieve tonight:
Before Baking
These are the beads that I made, all lined up on a card rack before baking. I found this trick on a tutorial site. The round and oval beads were done using a rolling mould that I bought along with the clay. Easy peasy. I also hand sculpted the smaller beads to make random shapes. Looks great as spacer beads.

Baked Beads
I like how they turned out! 40 minutes of baking at 120 degrees seems to work for me. I read a lot of different opinions on it. The beads are matte, my favourite to work with!! For the oval beads, I made swirls in them. They are the easiest pattern. I made holes in them before baking, which shrank a little, so I might have to work on the hole size next time. At least they still fit my stringing wire.

Plan for tomorrow: Go back to the store and get more white and black clay, along with some transparent colours. The mix of transparent and opaque clay will look awesome. Also, I need a hobby knife since I completely bent the plastic tool that came with my starter set.
This is a fun in-between hobby until I can finally melt some glass…