Saturday, November 10, 2012

Fun with Jane


My friend Jane and I are fellow junkies and Polymer Clay is the object of our obsession (of course after faith, family, and friends). When we have a chance to play in clay it is always more fun to play together as our ideas are enriched by each others insights. Since moving over 30 miles away, we do not often have a chance for a clay play day but managed to squeeze one in on Thursday this week.
 Jane is an excellent designer and brought with her a polymer clay necklace she'd made using our newest mold, PJ047 Conical Seashells shown left. 

The tiny seashells are brightly gleaming 'gold' on a back of matte, hammered 'gold'. The added glass beads in ocean colors accent the pendants. Each pendant/charm is hung using a trio of oval jump rings.  

A tiny bit of antiquing around the molded seashells gives extra depth to the pendants/charms.
 
Very, very nice!! Thank you Jane!!


  She has often encouraged me to write a polymer clay book and I've finally taken the plunge. Faux Ribbon Embroidery (or great fun with tiny bits of Skinner Blends) is currently in the works.

Since I've become a fan of Pardo Clay, and plan a number of color schemes for the projects in the book using this clay the first step was to obtain all of the colors including translucent and make samples of each color.  Metallics will follow later.

Above is a yellow ceramic tile with all but the blue color teardrops of clay and one teardrop of pearl clay (12 o'clock on the tile).  There are two different translucents. The Viva Decor label translucent and the Lisa Pavelka (upper left corner) label translucent.  I wanted to be sure they behaved the same. 

The samples on this tile are covered with candy paper and will be the control group. Two sets of the colors have been baked and these unbaked ones will be compared to baked colors to check for any color changes. 

Jane and I conditioned about half a block of each color and cut a number of the teardrop shapes. It's so much more fun to condition clay for a long time if you have some one to visit with and help.  The colors conditioned easily, the clay was pleasant to use and in a very short time we'd finished and the colors were put away.


After we finished up the conditioning, and on a whim, we tackled the exciting Stroppel cane. (Alice, thank you for sharing your technique!) 

Having very few canes not being used I gathered up a bunch of colored scraps from projects. While I chopped the scraps with a blade, adding a slice of ivory and an old patterned cane, Jane started making sheets of black clay. We did just like the video suggested but maybe not quite so neatly added the colored bits and lumps to the first sheet, then added a sheet of black clay. Again a bunch of bits, slices and lumps and more black clay. After one more layer we packed the stack down, cut it in half and re-stacked the stack. A couple more cuts and stacking and above is the resulting cane. It looks like a happy summer day to me. :-)

If you would like to see images from artists all over the world of items made using this technique, check HERE. Amazing, right? 

The mold used by Jane to make the necklace above is the PJ047 Conical Seashells, shown below.
PJ047 Conical Seashells.


This seashell mold is filled with 17 different sizes of shells. All have a conical shape. 

Some are created with the 'opening' of the shell showing. This open area allows for beautiful pearly 'inside' finish contrasting the outer shell. 

All of the shells were natural shells but had to have clay added to make them able to be molded.



Jeweled Seashell Pin/Pendant


Free instructions to make this beautiful jeweled seashell pin/pendant (shown left) are included with the mold. 


This and other original molds are available on our website:


by 
Penni Jo



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