Imitated Nature

For those that don’t know I love to recreate things found on the beach with polymer clay. That’s also where my choice of name ‘Beadcomber’ came from, beachcombing.
I know a couple of my pieces are missing from this photo, namely a sea star or starfish and a whole sea urchin, but I wanted to see how a group shot of my handmade bits would look like. Sea urchin piece, sea glass, driftwood, pebbles, shells and my most recent addition, sand dollar.
The Sea urchin, driftwood and shells are made in a similar way with the help of chalk, the sea glass is made from a liquid form of polymer clay and the sand dollar is caned or made with a method called milifiori which is based on a technique that was originally used in glassworking for making complex designs.

So what is a cane? It’s a log or cylinder of clay that has a design running through it, so each slice of the cane - the cross-section - contains the design. I made a cane that measured approximately 2 inches in diameter and the larger the design, the easier the cane is to handle. It can then be reduced in size by pressing, stretching and rolling it so the cane becomes longer and thinner and the design becomes smaller along with it. Then when cutting slices from the cane, the design will look the same front and back.

I have tutorials on all, except for this and the driftwood. They can be found Here. Just look for the Download Category with Tutorials. If you want some sand dollars or other things, I have them too!