White Christmas

Glenda Waterworth is hosting a "white Christmas" challenge on her blog with a great prize up for grabs. For each entry to the challenge, she's adding £1 value to a gift voucher to spend on Chocolate Baroque stamps - check out the blog for full details here.

I was in the mood to play with some polymer clay so I've taken a completely left-field approach here and made something white to give as a Christmas gift - hope that's within the spirit of the challenge!

I had some fun trying out something new with this - making a mould from a stamp to get an "outy" rather than an "inny" on my finished piece. When you press a stamp into polymer clay you get depressions where you would have ink if you stamped on paper. With this technique, you press the stamp into some scrap clay and bake it and then use that to make the textured impression on your finished piece. I pressed mine into white clay, cut it out with a cookie cutter and then baked it over a dud lightbulb to get a dished shape on the finished piece. You need to add a little "platform" of clay inside so that there's a flat surface if you want to add a brooch back when you do this but you could also make a hole and use it as a pendant piece if you wanted.

I spritzed some Glimmer Mist on and let it pool in the crevices. I think the finished piece has a bit the look of something you'd see on ornate plasterwork ceilings!

Materials:
Nature's Paisley stamp set (Chocolate Baroque)
Sculpey Premo polymer clay
Glimmer mist (Antique Brass)
Clay tools (acrylic roller, cookie cutter)
Brooch back

There's nearly a week left to have a play if you fancy joining in with the White Christmas challenge - remember the more players there are, the bigger the prize pot for the random draw! Details here.

Thanks for stopping by!

One stamp - different looks!

I'm not sure who stole last week - sorry not to have been around! I thought I would share two very different projects made with the same stamp today.

One of the reasons I love my backgrounders is that they are very versatile. My first project today is a straight paper craft project - a wedding card. I'm blaming forum buddy Janice for this one! Not only was her son getting married last week but while refusing to reveal her outfit in advance, she showed us a pic of Audrey Hepburn in the race scene in the movie My Fair Lady as a tease for what her hat was like! I still had the image of those gorgeous black and white costumes in my head when I sat down with this new Fuchsia Tiles background stamp.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Fuchsia Tiles Backgrounder (releasing Tuesday May 18th)
Wedding Centers (Mona Lisa Moments line)

Paper:
Smooth white
Simply Linen Black

Ink:
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Velvet ribbon
Rose from Wild Orchid Crafts
Stick pin
Brackets die (Tim Holtz Alterations line by Sizzix)

My second project is a bit different! I revisited the mica shift technique I used to make this polymer clay pendant a few weeks back. I used gold clay this time and made a large pendant piece by cutting a square that takes in nine of the little tiles from the backgrounder. I baked it over a sphere (the top of a tin that had chocolate orange and lemon slices in it - never throw out an interesting container!) to give the piece an overall curve and then added a little loop on the back to thread a necklace cord through.

I think I'm officially fascinated by mica shift now - there's something almost hypnotic about the textural look of the pattern coupled with a surface that's completely smooth to the touch!

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms):
Fuchsia Tiles Backgrounder (releasing Tuesday May 18th)

Other:
Sculpey Premo polymer clay (gold and black)
Clay tools (pasta machine, clay blade, acrylic roller)
Klear floor polish (sold as Future floor polish in North America)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Mica magic!

I bought Donna Kato's lovely book Polymer Clay: Creative Surface Effects a while back and one of the techniques in there is something called mica shift. I've just had a first play with it to make a pendant.

Some of you have probably heard me say before that one of the things that first drew me to Cornish Heritage Farms was the backgrounder stamps. Woodgrain has long been a particular favourite. You should have heard the squeals of excitement when Liz told the DT what was in store for the All Things Considered line of stamps - scaled down backgrounders! And to make it even better, woodgrain is in the first release, way hay! The smaller scale means they're perfect for things like jewellery projects as well as ATC stamping.

So, back to mica shifting. Metallic or pearl polymer clays contain mica particles. Some bright clayer worked out that if you condition the clay so that all the particles line up and then disturb them by pressing into the clay you can get a pattern that looks 3D even though it's completely smooth to the touch. I thought woodgrain would be the perfect pattern for experimenting with!

After running your clay over and over through a pasta machine (at least twenty times) you press a rubber stamp firmly into the surface. Then use a clay blade to gently slice away the raised portions of the clay. You can then flatten further with a roller but I confess I forgot to do that so I relied on sanding after the piece was baked to get the surface really smooth.

I thought this came out pretty well for a first attempt and I'll certainly be having another go with this technique.

Stamps (Cornish Heritage Farms) :
Country Charm Textures (All Things Considered line)

Other:
Sculpey Premo polymer clay (Copper and black)
Cookie cutter and clay blade
Rubber cord


Thanks for stopping by!

Carved jade!

No I haven't branched out into semi precious stones - I've been playing with polymer clay!

This pendant resulted from stewing ideas from several sources. I've been reading Donna Kato's beautiful book The Art of Polymer Clay - Creative Surface Effects. The shape of the clay piece is influenced by some of Donna's pieces.

Desiree McCrorey makes beautiful faux ivory pieces and I wondered whether it would be possible to use the technique with other colours of clay to create different effects.

Finally, Julie Picarello does amazing things to turn polymer clay into gorgeous jewellery. I was particularly taken with her curved brass tube bails and wanted to try something similar.

I used green, translucent and a pinch of pearl clay to mimic a jade or malachite look. I think it worked although I'd probably use a higher proportion of translucent clay next time. I found that placing a piece of conditioned clay onto my stamp and rolling across the back firmly with an acrylic rod gave me a deeper impression than just stamping down onto the clay would have done.

Buffing the clay piece once baked gives you more textural contrast between the high spots which take on a sheen with the buffing and the low spots that are out of reach.

The copper tubing came from a model shop that sells supplies to miniature railway enthusiasts and special thanks go to my dad for hints and tips on tube bending!

Supplies:
Sculpey Premo polymer clay (green, translucent, pearl)
Tiled Scallops backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms)
Copper tube
Copper Wire
Copper findings
Rubber cord

Thanks for stopping by, hope you get your week off to a great start!

Fade into the background?

One of the things I love about background stamps is that they're so versatile so when Julia told us that this week's CHF Challenge Chicks would focus on backgrounders my problem was choosing an idea from many rather than coming up with just one! I decided to make my background stamp the star of the project and use it to add texture as well as colour. The pendant is polymer clay cut to shape with the lid from a small jar and the barrel of a pen! I dusted Perfect Pearls onto a sheet of paper and laid my stamp on to pick up the powder (I find there's less chance of getting it into the crevices of the stamp and therefore onto bits of the clay where you didn't want it if you do this rather than brush the powder directly onto the stamp). If you have a small piece of baking parchment under your clay shape, you can handle it without distorting. I pressed the pendant gently onto the stamp and then baked. I think these would make nice Christmas gifts and with a limited supplies list it won't break the bank, either! I think one small block of polymer clay would make 8-10 pendants of this size (this one is just under 2" across). Stamps: Tiled Scallops backgrounder Other: Sculpey Premo polymer clay (black) Perfect Pearls (Perfect Copper from the Metallics kit) Leather thong Thanks for stopping by! For more backgrounder ideas, check out the other girls playing along today: Carole ~ Dawn ~ Julia ~ Kim ~ Kristine ~ Lisa Strahl ~ Michele ~ Val

Vintage Christmas

Sorry, I know it's still a bit early for Christmas projects but I had this idea in mind since first seeing this set of stamps (Winter Vintage Signage) and I managed to grab some time over the weekend to have a go.

Instant vintage appeal with modern materials!

I rolled thin sheets of polymer clay and stamped the images into it with Brilliance ink. I chose Sculpey Premo as it's a very durable clay so even though they're thin (I used a pasta maker on Number 1 to roll my sheets) the ornaments should stand up to being bumped around in a storage box for most of the year!

I stamped the designs first and then used a stamp positioner to stamp the frame around them. The stamps sink into the clay slightly (so don't press too hard!) and give a slightly carved or engraved feeling to the words and images.

The clay is soft enough that it's very easy to trim to shape with a craft blade, just trim a little outside the edge of the frame. If you're going to have a go at this, I recommend making holes for your jump rings or wire before you bake as it's not easy to make them later (yes, ask me how I know *rolls eyes*). If you're using an oven you use for food, it's best to make a 'tent' of foil over your polymer clay pieces as they bake, just to make sure you don't get any vapours from the clay condensing on your baking surfaces later.

I used Copic markers to add touches of colour to the ornaments and then sponged Timber Brown Stazon ink around the edges and very lightly in the centres to tone down the white clay and give them a bit more of a vintage look.

I used jump rings and some wire to make hangers so that I can hang them from my Christmas tree or maybe even a bare wintery branch in a vase.

TFL!

-----------------------
Stamps: Winter Vintage Signage (Cornish Heritage Farms)

Ink: Graphite Black Brilliance, Timber Brown Stazon (both by Tsukineko)

Other: Sculpey Premo Polymer Clay - white, Copic markers, jump rings and wire (jewellery supplies)