Weaving a mystery

Eliska Koliosova weave extruded strips into beads on PolymerClayDaily.com

A number of woven polymer beads have popped up online. Eliska Koliosova weaves extruded strips in this light summery choker. She alternates the colors under and over each other, perhaps creating a flat sheet that’s then cut up and rolled into a bead.

Or maybe Eliska is using the Mummy Bead technique that Emma Ralph outlines on her site. She starts by winding a base color on a wooden skewer and then layering on additional colors.

My brain doesn’t decode weaving very readily so rather than ponder this any longer, I’ll show you and hope that some enterprising PCD reader can unravel the mystery.

Whatever the method, the effect is eye-catching.

Thanks to Carrie Harvey for leading me to Emma’s tutorial.

Faceted heishes

Chicago’s Marina Rios (fanciful devices) made some very cool heishi beads by covering faceted tubes of polymer with acrylics and enamel paints.

Marina Rios low-fire enamel-painted heishi beads on PolymerClayDaily

“At all hours I find myself crouched over tiny, crusty treasures found in my home country of Uruguay, or in midwestern flea markets, or culled from the brilliant artisans of Etsy” says Marina, “I am madly in love with crafting, altering, assembling little bits of wearable art.”

Look at more of Marina’s rustic, tribal, mixed media assemblages on Instagram .

These beads have already sold on Etsy so we’ll have to make our own versions. I plan to make facets on long extruded tubes, then color them and chunk them up.

Sometimes simple ideas grab me and won’t let go so I post them on PCD as a way to remind myself to try them.

Follow the dots

UK’s Olga Petrova shows off her latest polymer-covered 4″ x 8″ vessel.

Extruded designs? Probably. Textured? That too. Accented with a wash of black? Yes. Begs to be touched? Indeed!

The vase looks like a 3D zentangle with islands of designs floating in rivers of dots. Wouldn’t this look stunning as a shelf accent? See more on Instagram, Facebook and Flickr.

Room accents

If you’d like to create accents for your home decor, sign up for one of the remaining seats in my class at Creative Journey Studios in Georgia, October 7-9. You’ll learn all about polymer and wood plus other unusual decorative accents that will make your heart sing.

Chinese vases

Beefball Papa seems an unlikely name for a polymer artist from Bejing. It could be a bad translation.

There are few other clues to guide us and we will have to let this Chinese artist’s Flickr photos speak for themselves. You can see how he has moved from creating small vessels to larger items over the last year.

His latest mokume gane striped vases are particularly interesting.

The extruded strings make his vase resemble the colorfully melted candles that were popular in the 60s. Heidi McCullough sent the link to PCD. Let us know if you find more information.

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