Exotic polymer

What would you find if you scooped up a handful from Nikki Zehler’s bead stash? Pyrite? Porcelain? Polymer? If LoveRoot is missing a color or needs more texture she turns to polymer to fill the gaps.

The earrings to the left include chunks of pyrite along with African baule beads. The rusty textured chunks are polymer.

The distressed earring bells to the right? Yep, they’re polymer. The big bead in the bracelet is the only polymer there. Nikki lets her eye guide her, not the material.

This exotic gypsy sensibility comes from wild Ohio! Who would have guessed? See loads more on Facebook, Etsy and Pinterest.

Ready-to-go earrings

Natalia Garcia de Leaniz is one clever and efficient artist. Look closely here and you’ll see that she built these polymer earrings right onto the findings. Her method is perfect for those of us who have trouble assembling and finishing earrings.

She filled the earwire’s bezel with clay and textured it then wrapped slim strips over the background clay and the bezel. She tops her construction with a small bowl shape with a bright shiny interior. Bake and wear!

Donna Kato shows these earwires on her favorite findings page and other vendors offer them as well.

Natalia will teach her tricks at the July 30 – August 2 Clay Carnival in Las Vegas.You can find more about this Spanish artist on Facebook, CraftArtEdu and Pinterest. Her free tool tutorial explains how she builds texture tools.

Nothing like a trick to start the week right!

On the bottle

Briget Derc’s polymer covered bottle will have you rummaging through your liquor cabinet! She’s covered the glass with a combination of beautiful gradations and geometric patterns.

The light glints off the smooth finish and makes you want to caress the surface. A browse through her Flickr pages shows how she pays meticulous attention to finish and she often mixes seed beads with her polymer cabs.

Her quilt inspirations on Pinterest show the striking patterns her eye is drawn to and there’s more about her work here. She’s part of the London Polymer Clay Group.

Polymer cigars

Staci Louise Smith hints that this dramatic new piece may be her Bead Dreams contest entry. These long pointed cigar shaped polymer beads are playfully carved and colored. Their marks, lines, cracks and curves seem to contain a message from some cyber tribe. The brass spacers are cured to gently separate the spiny shapes.

Now that the rush to finish her piece is over, she’s cleaning her studio and destashing. Check her site, Facebook and Etsy sites to see what she unearths from her workspace.

Spring polymer palette

Bring out your Spring Palette as Carol Beal (BeadUnsupervised) does with this Kandinsky-like bracelet.

You can see what she’s cooked up for spring on her Flickr page and on Etsy. Carol mixes her media in delightful ways.

I’ve been unsupervised all weekend and am not quite ready to return. Talk amongst yourselves.

Two heads swivel

When Germany’s Bettina Welker and Scotland’s Melanie Muir realized that they’d hit upon the same solution to a polymer connection problem, they got in touch with each other and had a good laugh.

No one would confuse Bettina’s latest Swiveling Neckpiece with this new Standing Stones piece by Melanie but if you deconstructed them, you’d see that the engineering is remarkably similar. They independently worked the connection conundrum out in the same way at the same time.

Swivels and rivets have been around for a long time, of course. This particular solution was a technique whose time had come.

Two takeaways here: you’re part of a community that can solve differences in a frank and cordial way, and sometimes a solution arises in several places at the same time. No harm, no foul.

We can also agree that flawless execution makes everyone take notice. We’ve been searching for ways to hide the distraction of hardware and both these artworks feature polymer beautifully all by itself.

Smelly stones

You may not be drawn to Sarah Sorlien’s polymer imitative rock but there are plenty of dogs who love it!

This Philadelphia physician makes Odor Stones, hollow polymer stones that are used as hiding places for dog training and competitions. She creates these functional faux stones for a canine sport called Nosework. Now you understand the holes.

Sarah says she learned rock basics from my online class and then added her own magic ingredient – cement. “Add a little liquid clay if it gets too powdery,” she suggests. It’s cheaper than embossing powders and was already available in the garage. “Don’t get it near your eyes,” physician Sarah cautions. See more of her examples on Pinterest.

An interesting diversion from jewelry on a Thursday. PCD took an interesting diversion too and stopped posting on schedule. Technological spring fever!

Sand-washed, sun-bleached polymer

Elena Sevva’s latest series of necklaces look sand-washed and sun-bleached by the Israeli elements. Her Archeological series is strung on coarse twine. The one on the left is From the Beach and features a faded pencil drawing on the focal bead. Another is entitled From the Old Olive Grove.

Elena’s work is rough and worn. She’s at her best when she pulls from memories to create fragments in polymer. Each piece is full of stories, mystery and history.

She’s gathered a large trove of pieces that inspire her on her Pinterest board and she keeps a continuing catalog of her work on Flickr.

Silkscreening on Craftcast

Syndee Holt shares her secrets of silkscreening and coloring on polymer tonight (March 18) on Craftcast. She also excels at taking images from camera to computer to polymer and then bringing them to life with inks, pencils and markers. I’ll be in the front row! Come join me.

Polymer pansies

Maine’s Jayne Dwyer has jump on spring with this big and complex pansy cane. If you’ve ever grappled with a big cane, you’ll be impressed by what Jayne has achieved – complicated shading and graduated, textured colors everywhere. We’ll have to check back to see what she makes of it.

Jayne thinks in both a painterly and a 3D way which can be downright tricky. The canes are very clever puzzles.

Go through her Paper Moon Jewelry Facebook page and Pinterest boards to see how she uses slices of reduced canes. She translates her Spring fever into polymer canes just in time for St. Patrick’s Day!

Spring sprouts

Slovenia’s Tina Mezek makes Circle Pins that pop with playful loops of wire and polymer accents. Tina trained as jeweler and now she mixes her media with ease.

She carves a design, then stamps, colors and uses liquid clay liberally. Her lopsided accents give her pins an extra springtime flair.

Turns out, Tina teaches the methods for making these pins on CraftArtEdu. See more of her work on Pinterest, Flickr and Facebook. You won’t want to miss her angels!

1 2 ›