Year of Clay – Put a Nice Face on it

Posted on June 30, 2008 by Elaine

Usually when you say “put a nice face on it” you’re talking about making the best of a not-so-hot situation but in this case I’m being literal: put a nice face (cane) on it (the bead).

The addition of a fancy or more complicated cane to a focal bead adds elements of interest you may not have space for on smaller, more tightly designed beads. Personally, I like to make little scenes or stories on the focal beads, setting up simple floral canes and more complex insect, face and animal canes as a part of a whole. These are the fronts of 4 recent ones:

Face bead focal

The reverse of these beads have butterflies and other little details – you can see them in this flickr page.

Year of Clay – O Canada

Posted on June 22, 2008 by Elaine

This is a week early I suppose – Canada Day isn’t until July 1st – but I was pretty happy with the cane! You can see that cane here on my Flickr. I used it to make some very simple slice beads and pendants, strung on satin-type cord with sliding knots. This was probably my first ‘cookie cutter’ cane though I didn’t make it with a cookie cutter. I cut around a drawn design. The process is the same though. Now I have a head full of ideas for other similar canes!

Year of Clay – Pillows for a Small World

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Elaine

Before I started with polymer clay I had never really heard of pillow beads. When I made my first few, my daughter ‘borrowed’ them to use as Barbie doll pillows so to this day they remind me of little doll minis rather than beads.

These are 2 each of beads I made with little clay fabric swatches I made a few weeks ago. They are all 5/8″ squares, plumply stuffed with scrap clay… and a fabulous way to use clay fabric. Since you can flatten sheets of clay in the pasta machine, to reduce the bumpy feeling, I often recommend pillow beads to new clay bead makers. If you are careful, there is minimal finishing to do, the shape is easy to hold to sand or varnish and does not roll away when being photo’d or worked on.

Year of Clay – Flower on a Necklace

Posted on June 9, 2008 by Elaine

I have been making these tsumami kanzashi-inspired, faux fabric, clay flowers for almost 4 years now. And I have made many, many hundreds. Have I used more than a few? No. They sell even as ‘beads’ at shows but I don’t think I’ve done a thing with them. So I decided this after noon I would turn the larger one from the weekend’s batch into a pendant one way or the other!

clay kanzashi necklace

I stared at the pendant for a while and was lacking inspiration – I am out of practice with jewelry design! – but I didn’t think my usual leather choker was going to do it for this one. In the end, I settled for two strands of glass beads. The pendant is large enough (about 2.5″) to hide the front clasp attachment and the necklace is nice and light.

Year of Clay – Little Things, a Bit Different

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Elaine

Somewhere in the production of making a stack of new canes, beads and finished items for upcoming shows and online venues, I found the time to fool around with some new work and old favourites.

I hadn’t played with shrinky plastic for more than 20 years even though I’ve begun to see it around again, a lot. Friday I was stranded in a Michaels waiting for a thunderstorm to end and a pack called… The suns are based off of a large stamp of mine. One side shows the frosted side I coloured on, the other is shiny smooth top side. Tons of fun with these!

In the search for pretty icing on my food beads, I tried the very simple thinned out TLS as a sweet looking glaze. Voila! It worked. I thinned out a teaspoon of TLS with a few droppers of mineral oil and iced beads! Next, try with alcohol colouring.

The final ones are the end slices off some older face canes I reduced for my shop – I reduced them a little small (still perfect for beads though) so they are all a very reasonable $3.00 instead of the $3.50 or $4.00 my semi complex canes are. Distortion can sometimes be a fun thing.