At the beginning of February I drew this wren - it was my first attempt at designing a maker's mark. I'd like it as a sort of signature on handmade jewellery.
Handmade jewellery you cry?
Well you probably don't as I'm sure any of my past readers have long since gone... but anyway... I know its a long time since I blogged anything let alone anything vaguely artistic or crafty and I don't think I ever showed any jewellery... even though in the last few years I have strung together the odd necklace, like this one:
In the much dimmer past I used to do quite a lot of beadwork... from very simple strings to weaving with beads:
(I can't find anything that I wove... it was rather a long time ago)
But something I have never done is work in polymer clay.... and that's what I was just starting to want do at the beginning of February.
These are my first ever polymer clay beads:
I made them on the first day of the year of the tiger so I'm calling them tiger beads.
They are a very minor variation on a bead from Ancient Modern Polymer Clay and Wire Jewelry by Ronna Sarvas Weltman - a book that I've found very encouraging.
I purposely added in a very thin layer of the orange clay into the spiral cane (jelly roll) and I didn't know not to use the very distorted end bits - which was lucky as that bead is my favourite and most tigerish of them all!
These beads were made using Cernit (from EJR Beads), over balled up aluminium foil.
Since then I've mostly been reading and learning more....
Handmade jewellery you cry?
Well you probably don't as I'm sure any of my past readers have long since gone... but anyway... I know its a long time since I blogged anything let alone anything vaguely artistic or crafty and I don't think I ever showed any jewellery... even though in the last few years I have strung together the odd necklace, like this one:
In the much dimmer past I used to do quite a lot of beadwork... from very simple strings to weaving with beads:
(I can't find anything that I wove... it was rather a long time ago)
But something I have never done is work in polymer clay.... and that's what I was just starting to want do at the beginning of February.
These are my first ever polymer clay beads:
I made them on the first day of the year of the tiger so I'm calling them tiger beads.
They are a very minor variation on a bead from Ancient Modern Polymer Clay and Wire Jewelry by Ronna Sarvas Weltman - a book that I've found very encouraging.
I purposely added in a very thin layer of the orange clay into the spiral cane (jelly roll) and I didn't know not to use the very distorted end bits - which was lucky as that bead is my favourite and most tigerish of them all!
These beads were made using Cernit (from EJR Beads), over balled up aluminium foil.
Since then I've mostly been reading and learning more....
Posts
5 comments:
And I hope to see more! I have had a recent interest in polymer clay, too, but not to the same extent as you. In my case it's more "I want to do this so don't let me near it or I'll never get anything else done!" (We creative types *do* like to play, don't we? :)Love the tiger beads and the connection to when you made them.
Right now I'm taking a break from re-organising my work space... I realised that the dining room table was not the right place to be doing this... nor the tray that I've been using in the sitting room whilst Jim is watching telly... at least not as the only places :-)
There are TONS of polymer clay websites and blogs... I've spent the last month getting lost amongst them... so whatever you do don't get started... you won't be able to stop!
I use those distorted end pieces to make 'cane end tortoises'. I found a tutorial on polymer passions blog there is a link on my blog to it.
Love the colours of these
Looks like a lot of fun! It's been ages since I did any polymer clay or jewelry, but I used to enjoy it. I like those bright yellow beads especially.
Tinker - I'm finding it hard to find words to blog with so not sure if I should be blogging really...
Post a Comment