Polymer Clay Daily

Tips and Tricks

Applique meditation

Applique is meditation for Magdalena Pavlovic on PolymerClayDaily.com

“Making jewelry is the only thing that calms me down,” says Serbian sports coach Magdalena Pavlovic (storiesmadebyhands).Lena patiently adds minuscule pieces of indigo polymer in patterns that mimic porcelain.

Lena’s work doesn’t require much clay or many tools and there’s no waste. But it takes a very steady hand and lots of patience.

For these rectangular earrings, she prepares bits of many shades of blue and applies small pieces to the white base with a fine needle. See her results on Instagram, Etsy, and Facebook.

For most of us, this sort of intensity raises the blood pressure, but for others, it’s a calming meditation. You could try this applique technique and see how it makes you feel.

 

Thanksgiving house tour

Take Lindsay Black's tour of homes on PolymerClayDaily.com

Happy Thanksgiving! Nashville’s Lindsay Black (oddlyandcompany) will finish this season’s orders before December 1. Isn’t that impressive?

Her custom home ornaments, small replicas of houses are highly sought after and she limited her production this year to have more family time. Give her a hand for making a plan and sticking to it.

If you’re like me, you’re telling yourself that you’ll make yourself one of these someday. I think we’d all be surprised at the skill and dexterity required. But it is tempting to try.

On a lazy Thanksgiving afternoon, take the tour through Lindsay’s houses on her Instagram.

Stringing and shopping

Katya Karavaeva’s (nikamiart) pendants glow with colors that are both dark and clear. Her pendants often have rings buried on the top from which she strings them to flatter each design.

This is not your usual drill-a-hole-and-grab-a-cord approach. Look at the multi-strand and braided cords that she’s paired with her beads on Instagram.

On sale now!

The catalog from the Into the Forest exhibit is a keeper, a souvenir of a monumental event. You can now order one online by following this link.

You might also want to click on Dan Cormier’s new online Single-Slice Mokume MasterClass which debuts in January. The pre-launch, early bird pricing ends at midnight tonight (Wednesday).

The Sculpey.com store is now open and PCD readers can get an extra grand opening discount by using the promo code PCD20%

Drawn squiggles and dashes

Mouna Cadra has a keen eye and steady hand on PolymerClayDaily.com

This dish from France’s Mouna Cadra waves gently on the tabletop. Its vertical patterns make your eyes trace up and down the lines.

Mouna cured the white clay and then added the designs with pigment markers. The thought of drawing on baked polymer sounds refreshingly uncomplicated, It must be a challenge to draw those squiggles and dots with precision and without smudges, however. Read more about Mouna on her site and Facebook.

Speaking of things being harder than they look, I’m off to Pittsburgh’s Into the Forest weekend and will compile all my snapshots and first impressions into a report for tomorrow’s StudioMojo. I hardly know what to expect! Join us to see the results on Saturday morning.

Salads and polymer

Jane Cox turns simple wooden kitchen utensils into special gifts on PolymerClayDaily.com

The UK’s Jane Cox (JaneLovesCreativity) turns simple wooden kitchen utensils into special gifts.

She winds comfy colors of extruded polymer strings around the handles, smooths the clay and polishes it to a shine after curing.

Imagine a friend smiling as she stirs dinner or serves salad with the spoon that reminds her of you.

There’s plenty of time to create these before the holidays, right?

We’ll be peeking into Tory Hughes Santa Fe atelier this week on StudioMojo. See how she surrounds herself with samples of luscious colors before she begins. Join us!

 

Swapping with style

Joan Tayler's ball chain idea makes swapping fun again on PolymerClayDaily

Ohio neighbor, Nancy Nearing, traveled to Vancouver to visit her daughter and to meet up with Joan Tayler who has a thriving polymer business at the Granville Island Public Market (and on Etsy).

Joan sent PCD readers a super new idea for small art to trade and collect.  If inchies and totems and bowls have lost their swap thrill in your group, consider her new method.

She recommends baking beads directly on short lengths of ball chain (1 1/2″ or so). Sandwich the chain between two slices of cane or devise your own style.  Join the individual pieces together with connectors and make them into necklaces, bracelets, keychains, whatever.

Joan made all these beads on this sample. Beads coming from far and wide might look very different.

Once your group agrees on a color and size of ball chain, you have an easy swap. Brilliant, eh? Thanks, Joan and Nancy!

StudioMojo heads west! Travel along and see who we run into. Join us!

 

 

What goes ’round

Patricia Roberts-Thompson reinvents the wheel on PolymerClayDaily.com

This pendant by Patricia Roberts-Thompson is the result of her playing with Samantha Burroughs’ Oyster Watercolor tutorial. Its loose circles and watery colors make your eyes dive right in.

Patricia added distressing powders to her color combinations and enlarged the design adding a bail fabricated from the same batch.

Samantha admits that she developed her clever tutorial by studying Maggie Maggio’s Watercolor Torn Paper instructions from some years back.

No criticism here! I enjoy the resonances from years back and smile at the progression. Ideas get updated, rejuvenated and taken in new directions that keep our craft healthy and vibrant. It’s also great to see each artist credit her source. Thank you for playing nicely and showing such good manners.

Sage polymer

Sage from Julia Tarasenkova on PolymerClayDaily.com

Julia Tarasenkova has studied and drawn yarrow, cornflower, wild onion and other vegetation in her Russian landscape. She reproduces them in polymer and turns them into jewelry as with this Sage necklace.

Julia shares a step-by-step of one of her wildflower necklaces and more on Facebook.

What beauties are blooming or drying in your landscape as the seasons change?

 

 

The appeal of build-your-own

Melanie West adds a new twist to her Bones necklace on PolymerClayDaily

Melanie West wore her new Bones necklace at Synergy4 in August. One night it was a long chain, the next she quickly reconfigured it as a choker and bracelet.

Melanie West transforms a necklace into a choker and bracelet on PolymerClayDaily.com

The genius of Melanie’s design is the way the links are connected with o-rings held in place by the bulbous ends of each snakey bead.

A more recent version of Melanie’s necklace shown at left includes curled sections, a play on vine-like necklaces by Maggie Maggio. In true Synergy spirit, Georg Dinkel joined in and suggested adding contrasting dots on the end of each link! And she’s not finished experimenting.

Has Melanie’s build-your-own bright idea started your wheels turning?

Join us over at StudioMojo where we mull over the new designs and keep the synergy going every Saturday morning. 

 

 

Monster Monday

If you tracked monster storms all weekend you may be in the mood to purge your world of all its monsters.

Monster Monday courtesy of Anthony (Ace of Clay) on PolymerClayDaily.com

Watch as Michigan’s Anthony, Ace of Clay, turns his demons into pins. With ferocious teeth, of course.

Some texture, a few wrinkles and a dusting of dark shadows around the eyes heightens the ominous look. Some have sunlight color-changing eyes, others glow in the dark.

Anthony also keeps switch plates, phone cases and sculpted figures in stock. If you’re squeamish, you’ll prefer his colorful imitative sugar skulls. Look on Instagram, Etsy, and Facebook.