Polymer Clay Tutorial on Sea Urchins published

The much anticipated tutorial is now published on Artfire. If you've wanted to create your own sea urchins from polymer clay, I now have step by step instructions published.
First I will show you how to create a mold from a real sea urchin (ready made molds are also available for purchase).
Then you will go on to learn how to create a hollow polymer clay sea urchin and finally you will learn the effect of color for added realism.

This ebook is packed with 35 steps, 43 photographs, and 16 pages.

As I said, ready made molds are also available so that you can...

Starfish polymer clay tutorial

Here is a simple tutorial on how to make polymer clay starfish. You can use my mold that I have for sale on Artfire, or you can use part of the tutorial and create your own texture. (click on pictures to make larger). Instead of pressing a sheet of clay into a mold, I'll show you how to use your fingers to make starfish 'arms'.....

Polymer Clay Molds and Cabochons

I finally made some Polymer Clay Sea Urchin Molds and Cabochons for sale.

I've been asked at various times for a tutorial on Sea Urchin related things, but I've also been told that it isn't always easy to find sea urchins to make your own molds from, so decided to offer up a few.
I will still write a tutorial for the "whole" ones, but it will take me a while since I'm so busy these days.

Still, it is almost summer and you may wish to use these textures as soon as possible for your own projects.

With sea urchins in mind, I'm also offering sea urchin cabochons in various shapes and colors for the beader and beadwork or the polymer clay crafter to incorporate these into their own polymer clay projects to be rebaked.

You can find these in my Artfire or click on the Artfire on my right sidebar.

Polymer Clay Petroglyphs

My latest Polymer Clay articles are receiving a sunny disposition with more orange and lemon flavor. I created a few more stencils and made some petroglyph PhotoEZ stencils for business card cases as well as for necklaces and earrings.

Purple Polymer Clay Jewelry

Am in a mood for purple. These earrings and necklace are made from black Polymer Clay with Jones Tones foil and resin. I used some of the fishing lure spoons for the oval earrings and some other metal backs for the others.
I have put 3 sizes of the fishing lure bezels up on my Artfire.
I made these with the large size...
These are made with some other bezels I have. I may put a few of those up tomorrow.


This purple starfish is my favorite. Already sold 2 of these. These pictures don't do it justice because it has 3 dimensional depth that can't be shown with a 1 dimensional photo.

Polymer Clay and Fishing Lure Spoons

Sandy from Simple Inspiration did it again. Polymer Clay and Fishing Lures. Got me digging out the trays of fishing lure spoons that I've been storing for years. Seems the April of PolymerCafe has a tutorial using them. Haven't seen it since I canceled my subscription about a year ago. Am certainly missing out on some eye candy!

Some of the lures have a bit of corrosion happening, but nothing that a bit of steel wool won't cure. Back in the early 90's taught my mom how to make Polymer Clay jewelry and she very much like the lures I had gotten from hubby who was a Sportfishing guide back then. Here is an old picture with a pair of danglies. Omg...that was 1990!! I think not only my jewelry cards have improved since then, lol. Am thankful a computer can print much neater...



I have 3 sizes available. I think I'll put some up on Etsy for anyone who wants to play with them. I have some gold oblong lures somewhere...need to find them.



Here are some samples of my moms work from about the same era. Vintage 1990! she even baked acrylic stones...mm....

Transparent Resin Clay

It will be interesting to try this product soon. It's called Sukerukun Transparent Resin Clay. I'm not certain if this is a Polymer Clay, but it is air dry.

Here is Penny Dogs blog about it. She created a gorgeous ring from it. Go have a look!

I haven't tried this air dry clay yet, but suspect it reminds me of thickened Elmers Glue since it always stays flexible. Elmers is white out of the tube, but dries somewhat translucent. I think the term "transparent clay" is a misnomer since no matter how thin a piece is worked it will always have a bit of 'opaqueness' to it, althought the pamphlet says the glaze that comes with it will help to make it 'appear' more transparent. Apparently it can be mixed with oil paint, acrylic paint and watercolour, but too much of any of these as liquids and the clay may have trouble drying or won't be as translucent. Am anxious to try and see if I can come up with something worthwhile. I'll let you know ;). The manufacturer sent these photos of some beautiful flowers that are very artistic examples of what one can accomplish with this clay. Too bad I didn't get who the artist is...

Please send your links or tell about your experience with this clay.

Polymer Clay Fun Pendants - revisited

 This post is already a year old, but shows how time flies. Resin and pendants, lol...Here is one thing I've learned...they are popular, but my newest will be a bit more colorful than these, or at least have more resin :)

May 21, 2009

Been having some fun creating some new Polymer Clay pendants for this Spring and Summer. Been enjoying starfish and sanddollars as usual, but also am having fun creating some flower pendants with resin and foils. I'm feeling very refreshed having been able to play and create something new instead of the constant production work...although, these will become a production also.
Hard to photograph the depth. It feels like I'm looking at them with one eye. If you want a closer look go to my flickr.
The amber golden flower pendant if my favorite as it has varying shades of bronzes and golds. The pendants measure an average of 2x2 inches, but I'm thinking of creating even larger ones. I've already sketched another design....
The orange pendant (on the lower right) I had a bit of difficulty with as I wasn't exactly a fan of orange, but now this pendant is growing on me and am thinking of creating some other bright shades for this season. The flowers were especially creating for a clothing boutique, but will take her the orange pendant to see if she fancies it. The center stone is cats eye, same with one of the blue flower pendants. Now I need some names for the resin flower series, for the starfish squares and the metal starfish and sanddollar blings. I'm terrible with names, all I can think of are 'discs', 'circles' and 'squares'. Names help when being asked "can we have more of the "blah blah blah?" Some people just have a knack for names, not me!
Help!

Tutorial in the works...

More than a few people have asked me to do a tutorial on my Polymer Clay Sea Urchins and other sea life beads. I'm not quite ready to let go of those yet as they are a product line that I sell through various Galleries.
Eventually I will sell tutorials and kits of these when I'm ready to move along in a different direction. For now, I'm thinking of offering up this necklace as a Tutorial with 3 options...

• as a stand-alone ecopy for the pattern
• selling a mold of the cabochon, so that one could create their own sea urchin colour palette.
• and as a complete kit which would include the sea urchin cabochon, beads and pattern, maybe different colours...

Ideas?

Acrylic Painting

Here is my first ever acrylic painting! ...completed that is. I feel I did quite well with this attempt. I might take this photo and turn it into a smaller image and use it in Polymer Clay transfers. What do you think? Maybe on the outside of a vessel...? box?....card?
I attended an acrylic painting workshop this week, also my first. Boy, was that ever fun!!
I've tried watercolors before, but feel I failed miserably with my attempts even though a couple of my watercolours were good enough to be framed.
This workshop was held by renowned wildlife artist Mark Hobson . This year he was bestowed with the honour of attaining Signature Status by the Federation of Canadian Artists which recognizes an artists overall outstanding artistic achievement. Mark has also done 4 coin designs for the Royal Canadian Mint and was awarded the 2006 Artist of the Year award by Ducks Unlimited. Mark has a fabulously interesting workshop coming up in June aboard the Columbia III, a 5 day adventure touring the Broughton Archipelago in Northern Johnston Strait along with learning his many tricks and tips for watercolour.