Pay it forward polymer

When Scotland's Melanie Muir won the top polymer award with her Reggae Necklace at this year's Bead and Button Show the award came with a $300 gift certificate from Fire Mountain Gems.

Melanie feels that the recognition is enough prize for her and she is raffling off her gift certificate on behalf of Women for Women. Craftcast's Alison Lee jumped on the bandwagon adding a $100 class voucher. PCD couldn't be left behind! We're adding two copies of Polymer Clay Global Perspectives to the raffle.

Entering is easy. A £5 donation becomes a virtual raffle ticket. Buy as many as you like. For instance, if you donate £20, your name goes into 'the hat' four times. (We'll let Melanie work out the £/$ mathematics.)

Melanie has already raised 35% of her goal so jump in and take a chance. Any way you look at it, you can't lose.

The satin smooth finish on Melanie's beautifully crafted work is amazing and you'll find her latest creations (and raffle updates) on her Facebook page.

Faux collection

Luxuriate in the colors and patterns on Lynda Moseley's newest group of faux turquoise polymer pieces. She's sampled a variety of colors and experimented with all kinds of cracks and crevices. This sampler pendant combines snippets from lots of test pieces.

"What I had originally planned as a faux turquoise tutorial has morphed into a range of faux finishes using the same technique," she reports. It looks like her Faux Master Collection will be ready for prime time at the end of the month.

Lynda has a reputation for researching and refining her techniques into deceptively simple steps that make you wonder why you didn't think of that. See more of her work on Flickr, on Facebook, and watch her Etsy site for the new info.

Hollywood polymer

Mike K. Viner's 10" polymer caricatures are so spot on that they compel you to stop and study them.

Replicating facial features in polymer (no paint) is one talent. Finding a defining gesture takes his portraiture to a higher level. This Russian who lives in Tel Aviv is hard to find online with a slim web site, a few YouTube slideshows and a newish Facebook presence. I keep gravitating back to his page. He'll be worth watching.

Back to school

Susan Lomuto (Daily Art Muse) starts another online web class in September. It's a dynamite course and the students' web sites are testament to Susan's great teaching. Her sliding scale price offer ends July 31.

Pushing with polymer

"I pushed myself to create something large and more complicated than in the past," Alice Stroppel says of her newest 20" x 29" polymer painting. "I bake my polymer clay in a regular kitchen oven, but even so I had to construct it in pieces like a giant jigsaw puzzle," she says.

Track her progress (here's the Flickr version) and see how she assembled the piece on her blog. Alice uses a process she calls cane mapping to combine lots of cane slices into a cohesive painting.

Examples of Alice's famous Stroppel Cane continue to appear online and she has recently added her own Stroppel Cane Swirl necklace to the long list of variations.

Is this your week to push out of your comfort zone?

Integrating tutorials

Lorraine Vogel's polymer pendants and earrings glow with graceful shapes and layered colors that make me envious. Look closely and you may spot tricks she's learned from tutorials by Lynda Moseley and Ginger Davis Allman but the stamps, the carving and the colors are distinctly her own. She uses tutorials in the way they were meant to be used, quickly integrating them into her signature style.

A graphic artist from South Florida, Lorraine brings a keen eye for balance and harmony to polymer. She has a couple of Etsy shops and you can find her on Facebook. Her Flickr photos will give you a wider look at her eye-pleasing creations.

Need a freebie?

Don't miss Margit Bohmer's step-by-step photos of her doodle transfers for some free weekend fun.

Noodling and doodling

In her new Doodle Me Do class on CraftArtEdu Nikolina Otrzan shows you how to make a bunch of small canes. You then use that stash to doodle and play and make all kinds of artworks.

A peek at the class with all its pictures and possibilities had me itching to pump up my own supply of canes and to try out some of the ingenious ways she has of building them.

Nikolina also has a class on Zentangling on clay if that suits your doodling style better.

Need a new idea?

If you're ready to try something new, I might also suggest the hollow bead tutorial from Orly Fuchs Galchen. Look at these yummy examples.

And my newest favorite tutorial is Tina Holden's sea glass. Tina uses a whole different method for producing glass that's virtually indistinguishable from the pieces weathered on the beach. I wish I'd thought of it. Here's her site where you'll find some freebie lessons as well.

Wired polymer

Ponsawan Silapiruti has been playing with positive/negative space as she makes wire brooch and pendant forms. " I use bigger gauge wire to make the form, then use smaller wire to wrap around the big wire and in the middle. When I put on a sheet of polymer to fill it up, the clay grabs onto the wire," she explains.

You can see how Ponsawan has progressed with her wire working on her Flickr site and get even more details on her Facebook page. One of the wire forms below became this polymer-filled brooch.

Breezy polymer

On a hot day, the graceful, spare designs from Ohio’s Grace Stokes are like a cool breeze.

Grace says that her work with polymer was born out of frustration. "I did not want to be limited by the color or pattern or size of a stone," she says. " Polymer allows me the versaility to create elements and qualities exactly to the specifications that I want for my designs."

Time for a mint julip!

Fruit polymer

The weekend farmers markets are bustling this time of year and these wearable translucent polymer raspberries look as juicy as the real ones.

Moscow’s Natalia Leitman (Madlen) specializes in small fruits, berries and flowers to wear.

What looked like a single J-shaped earring confused me until I saw this photo and realized it’s not an earring, it’s a belly ring for wearing on your pierced navel! Google body jewelry findings to locate the hardware.

Her garden delights make great bracelets, brooches and hair adornments as well. See all her creations on Natalia’s blog and her instagram. Should you consider some fruit this week?

Sulky polymer

France’s Sonya Girodon’s Boudoir necklace has a softer, more romantic way with designs and doodles. Sonya explains that boudoir means, “Little bedroom or study adjacent to the lady’s main bedroom of the castle – a place to hide away and be alone amongst the things she loves. Bouder means to sulk in French.”

Sonya takes Sutton-slice accented pieces of polymer and rolls them into dimensional tube beads. The coral and beige colors add to the sulky mood and the square metal bezel adds intrigue.

Sonya usually gravitates to ethnic designs and you may enjoy her pages on the EthnicJewels ning site. Here’s her Rain Dance necklace where she carves designs into polymer. You might have guessed that she grew up in South Africa. See the range of her strong and unusual designs on her Flickr site.

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Back to school

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