Polymer Clay Daily

Polymer garden delights

Inspired by Christine Dumont’s hollow bead online course, Kukel10 has built a big bead garden ornament that becomes even more interesting up close.

Ruffles, spikes, dots and disks, sit atop stripes and poetry. This piece will spark many conversations in her garden.

As long as we’re touring the garden, take a look at Shay Aaron’s polymer clay beets, radishes and other vegetable delights to wear.

There’s even more food jewelry on his Etsy site. If you have a hankering to grow something polymer, follow one of Shay’s tiny veggie tutorials.

Polymer gardens

Need a diversion from jewelry? Illustrator Paula Pindroh created an intriguing polymer cactus garden series to provide craft show customers with an option beyond her wall art.

The bottoms of each of the cactus pieces were shaped with pointy nubs that were easy to push into sand or grits or lentils. She offered a wide range of pieces that customers could mix and match.

These small gardens could provide a great way to use up bits of clay and stretch your imagination.

Leather, wire, cactus imposters

Track polymer and resin artist Camille Young on Flickr as she creates jewelry art every day during June. (Usually gamer icons are the subject of her art.) A Tucson resident, Camille didn’t have to look far for a model for this cactus cuff.

She makes a fabulous faux barbed wire which she used for a Western style eyeglass leash. Here’s her original faux barbed wire tutorial. The more recent version makes use of Sculpey SuperFlex clay baked over Stretch Magic cord.

Patty Barnes faux leather biker cuff was named the co-grand prize winner in the Rings & Things contest. Patty says that, “The use of polymer clay to create the cuff allowed me to explore a variety of surface textures, decorations and embellishments.” She’s moving on to punk, western, disco and other versions. Thanks to Janice Abarbanel, Susan Lomuto and others for passing this link along.

Making faux findings

Can’t find the bead caps or findings to finish a piece? Make them from polymer like Galina Grebennikova does.

Galina adds faux metal appliques onto many of her beads for a rich, old effect. Read more in blog posts here and here. You may need to use the translator widget to read about how she cleverly makes her own cord using double stick tape, thread and tubing.

If translating is too much for you (she’s Russian and lives in Ireland), go to her Flickr site to browse through her experiments like this faux dichroic bead.

Red, white and blue polymer

In a nice turnabout, our tribute to Memorial Day comes from Pavla Cepelikova from Prague, Czech Republic. Applying foil with a USA flag image onto polymer, she cut strips and applied them to this heart pendant and added faux grout.

This new twist looks like a variation on the polymer mosaic technique first developed by Amy Helm. She cut strips, assembled and scored them to achieve the mosaic look without having to place each tile individually. (This technique was published recently. Does anybody know which book it appeared in? I need a refresher.)

Enjoy Pavla’s Flickr pages while we wave our red, white and blue.

Note: Amy Helms’ mosaic technique is explained in Polymer Clay Mixed Media Jewelry by Shirley Rufener.

Classic Hyde faux fabrics

This black angel from Washington’s Susan Hyde is dressed for summer in her signature bright polymer ikat fabric. On Susan’s Etsy shop you can admire the construction (she photographs the backs) and design of these simple, stunning pieces. Her faux-fabric tutorial is a classic.

While her web site shows more, Susan’s Etsy site allows us to stay in touch with her most recent work and I was happy to stumble on it from Kathy Weaver’s Pinterest board.

Yep, I’m on Pinterest too. It’s quickly become my virtual sketchbook. Careful, it’s addictive.

Spring fevers

Tory Hughes‘ imitative agate beads are part of her spring collection (see collection parts 1 and 2). The Trebizond Treasure Collection includes faux stone along with antique beads, crystal, abalone and more joined together in a sophisticated melange. Her Aquarelles series glows with fresh spring colors.

Tory has been sorting and refining her website as well. Her new navigation makes bouncing between her teaching, gallery and coaching services much easier and brings them comfortably under one roof.

Speaking of sites…

PCDaily has been experiencing some hiccups in the past couple of days. Thanks for your patience. Stay tuned.

Faux Shisha

These new mirrored beads delight me so I thought I’d share them with you. I’ve always been drawn to Shisha embroidery (you know, those wonderful textiles with mirrors). Seeing how Maria Airoldi applied small nail glitter pieces to her beads gave me big ideas.

All that I learned about working small and intensely in the Cynthia Toops’ class was brought to bear on this project. Thin cane slices were individually applied to a black bead. I felt like I’d hit a new vein of creativity.

The small hexagonal pieces of glitter bake tightly onto the raw clay with no adhesive necessary. Cynthia Toops’ faux heishi beads are cut from thin sheets of baked clay with a paper punch. These beads represent a collaboration of many ideas from artists around the world.

Dayle Doroshow will draw a random number for the book giveaway (see Tuesday’s post) on Friday afternoon. We love all the comments! Thanks.

Faux fun

This polymer potato chip ring from Ponsawan Silas popped up as I was researching Pardo clay use. Very convincing, eh?

Funny how food references look so enticing when you decide to cut back on snacks. Where are those faux broccoli examples?

I’ll be back in the swing tomorrow.

Gossamer gills from translucent polymer

These polymer color chips scattered around Seth Savarick’s work area look like beach glass or Italian ice. They’re what Seth calls his “gossamer gills” and to create shapes he stacks paper-thin multicolor layers of the baked translucent clay.

It’s hard to explain (especially late at night). Here are a few pictures of his collaboration with Robert Dancik who created the metal boat shapes that Seth is filling with his glass-like gills. His almost micro-mosaic technique is alluring. I find myself wondering about the possibility of faux beach glass. Anybody tried?

You can catch up with Seth at Arrowmont this fall where he’ll be teaching the inro techniques he’s most known for.