Double duty polymer bail

Syndee Holt tweaks Jan Montarsi’s easy polymer bails to get double use out of a brooch/pendant.

Syndee added a small hole at the bottom of Jan’s domed circle bail design which allows it to accommodate a pin that slides diagonally from the top hole to the new bottom hole for a brooch. Or slide a cord through the top two holes to wear the piece as a pendant.

Jan makes his bail on a domed form and uses liquid polymer to adhere it to the brooch. You’ll find more examples and clever adaptations on Flickr,

See more of Syndee’s innovations on her Pinterest site and on Facebook.

50% off sale

My extruder disk sets and Helen Breil’s stamps and screens are all deeply discounted only on the KazuriWest site starting today (while quantities last).

Polymer goals

These six polymer pendants are part of Angela Garrod’s personal challenge to herself to make entirely hollow forms with unusual polymer bails.

She tints mica polymer with alcohol inks for the patterned pendants. On the black ones Angela uses matte and hi-gloss surfaces to provide more subtle tone-on-tone patterns. Rivets embedded in the clay add metallic accents. You can see more views of the pendants on Flickr.

Angela’s study reminds us that we don’t have to join a group or commit to a year-long experiment. We can simply set ourselves a goal and work toward it.

Polymer bail beauty

Zuzana, from the Czech Republic canes and collages pendants in an increasingly interesting way. The thin buna cord accents running through the polymer bail on the top of this pendant fit right in with the rest of the design.

She nicely attributes her designs to her teachers and then takes flight on her own as you can see from her Flickr photos.

I’ve taken flight too. Checking in from the road and back home soon.

Twisted polymer

In some of her recent work Canada’s Helen Breil facets and twists polymer and gives it a metallic or glass-like surface treatment. This particular pendant, part of her Creative Bails series can be hung two different ways.

See just how twisted Helen has gotten herself lately. And see how quickly students make fashionable textured bracelets in her workshop.

Polymer connections

Susan Waddington of Polydogz does many things well. What I found myself stuck on as I cruised through her galleries was her ingenious bails for pendants, some from years past, some new.

Integrating polymer bails into pendant design is quite a trick and Susan’s mastered it. She’s fond of using a paper-bead type construction which she camoflages with decorative coverings as in the shield shape with textured folded circle shown here. Layers of patterns form connections that fit seamlessly into her collages of polymer pattern.

You can see more examples on a sister site here and on Etsy here.

Cecile’s simplissimes

France’s Cecile G has added some red polymer clay pendants to her site to brighten the season. Even though she’s working from established designs and techniques, her personal stamp on the work is remarkable and she brings her own voice to the pieces.

I’m fond of the way she’s crafted a companion bail on the red pendant. The color composition of these elongated beads is like a painting. Comb through her photos by clicking the links in the right column on her blog to get a good look at her polymer adventures.

Here’s an earlier post.

THANKS to Melody Tallon who spotted the broken email blog feature. If you didn’t get your post via email this week, you can blame my tinkering. Keep your fingers crossed that it works today.