Hi there, Sandy here.
Welcome to another polymer clay video at KeepsakeCrafts.net.
Today I'm going to be showing you a project that you might find helpful if you've decided
to get a little bit more organized in the new year and this is a simple polymer clay
holder.
I've designed it to hold a cell phone, but you can also make a larger one to hold a tablet.
You can use it to hold business cards or recipe cards, photos, photo frames, even as a place
to plunk your eye glasses.
This idea was originally inspired by a pin on Pinterest which was a product that was
for sale at ElsaKStudios Etsy shop.
I'll have a link to that in my blog post, but I just wanted to give credit to her as
the original designer.
Her products are made from ceramics and today I'm going to be using polymer clay.
So if you're interested in having one made out of ceramic you should go check out her
Etsy shop.
So the first thing you're going to need is four ounces of polymer clay.
Now it can be all the same color.
I just thought it was kind of fun to make it two different colors and a package usually
that you buy in the store is two ounces, so here I have one package of Sculpey in turquoise
and then another two ounce package of Premo peacock pearl.
I've conditioned them well and then rolled them out on my pasta machine at about a number
three setting, which is about 1.5mm and I found that double thickness, so when your
finished piece is about 3mm, that's perfect.
So the next thing you're going to need is a template and what I have here are two 4x6
business cards that I cut down to 3" wide and then I taped them together offsetting
by 2".
So my template is 3x8".
I also have a line here 2" from one end although this actually would have sufficed because
that's 2" and you're going to cut each of your clay sheets out using the template.
Now because this is longer than my clay blade, the best way to get a clean cut is to use
a straight edge ruler and then use a craft knife.
[My apologies, a video clip went missing.
What you do next is cut out one piece with your template, then use texture plates or
stamps to add texture to your whole piece.
If you are using two different colors, the one you texture will be the one you see the
most of in your finished project.]
Okay so now I've done all my texturing on here and let me explain why I changed my mind
about the order earlier because when you cut out your perfect template shape and then you
texture it, you can see you distort your shape a bit.
So by leaving this one untrimmed, I can layer the two together and then very easily cut
out a nice neat shape with the two together.
Make sure when you put this one on that you do it carefully so you don't trap air bubbles.
I just kind of smooth it down like that.
I can put my template on and cut out my final shape.
So now you can see I have my pieces cut out and layered and now we're just going to do
the rolling, but before we do that, let me show you just how this thing works.
So it just sits there.
Here's my phone.
Plunk!
Lovely!
It just sits and leans in there.
However, it can be done wrong.
Plunk!
That one didn't work.
There were a couple things wrong with this one.
You can see that the space between the front and back scroll is wider and therefore it
lets the phone just tip too far back.
So you have to make sure and kind of test it with the object you're going to be using
or one that you know is close.
It's a beautiful thing when it works well because you can just plunk it in there and
it just makes me happy to just be able to throw it in there.
Here's another one I made.
This one I made specifically for this phone and case.
This is an iPhone 6 with a Life Proof case and that's that little screw on thingy always
makes me crazy on my phone holder because it makes the phone tip sideways and I'm a
right angles kind of girl.
So that is great.
And you just pop it in there and it stays.
This one stays quite straight upright and you can see that's because this opening is
a little bit narrower than that one.
The tricky thing about these is that you can't really test it well before it's baked because
it doesn't have any resistance.
It's clay so it flops about, but I will show you how you can adjust it a little bit even
after baking.
The key that I found though, I had some that just went and tipped over even thought this
wasn't too wide and the problem was that you have to have I found for an object this tall,
obviously if it were shorter and lighter it wouldn't be an issue, but this is probably
one of the bigger cell phones you're going to find.
For an object this tall you need to have at least 2" touching the table and that's why
I have this 2" mark on here.
You have 2" that is flat on the table and so we'll use this template to help us achieve
that.
So you want to make sure your work space is clean so you don't get any schmutz on the
front of your holder and then flip it over upside down and then I found to start rolling
without cracking, take an acrylic roller and just kinda use that to get it started.
That's all.
Now the front roll does not have to consist of much.
Just enough to catch the bottom edge of the object so that it won't kick out and then
we'll repeat on the back and that's all you need to do.
It just helps it get started.
Now we want to keep these rolls right where we want them while we're baking because they
will tend to unroll.
So I have a super fancy tool for doing that, some toilet paper.
Just take little strips of the toilet tissue and then as you're rolling you can tuck it
in, I just need half of that.
Just a little piece and as much as it's stuck on there now, it will pull right out after
baking.
And then I put one inside that curve, that first curl.
I do try to let that touch that clay there so that it adheres to itself, but then I'll
put another one and that just gives you some space so that you see that nice scroll from
the side once it's baked.
I'll just put a couple and maybe one more and you can kind of see that.
Can you?
Not really from the side, but we now have some space in there.
You can see how it's trying to unroll.
And then this is the point where I'm going to use my template to make sure that I have
at least 2" touching the table and that looks good and then I'm not going to bake this on
the tile because I don't want the bottom to get shiny so you want to put it on whatever
you're going to bake it on and then take another piece of toilet tissue and just fold it to
make a bit of a wedge and then just tuck that under and that, see.
It wants to unroll, won't unroll and I'm going to take my phone.
If you're making this for a gift, you might have to borrow their phone for a minute.
One of these is for my husband, but he has the exact same case as I do, although his
isn't purple.
So that looks just right and that's about the extent that you can test it before baking
because, like I said, it's clay and it's going to move, and there we go.
That's all there is to making it and then you bake it in the oven.
I bake these for a long time.
I bake them for at least an hour because they're going to get used, you're going to be banging
your phone or whatever objects into it.
You really want it to be really strong and the longer you bake polymer clay, the stronger
it gets.
As long as the temperature doesn't go over the manufacturer's recommended temperature
it won't burn.
Now here's an instance where this piece, I took it out of the oven, put the phone in
it and it went flop.
Now and it actually, when I took it out of the oven, it was curled up much more tightly
than this one.
It was somewhere around that point that I realized the 2" rule that was in play here
and so I put it back in the oven, heated it up for, oh, I gave it a good half an hour
to get nice and warm because if you've noticed, polymer clay is pretty flexible when it's
still warm out of the oven.
So I used pot holders and I tried to reshape it.
Unfortunately you can see right here I cracked it so I won't be giving this as a gift to
anybody, but I just wanted to show you that you can, even now you can flex it a little
bit.
I'm going to end up breaking this one pretty soon, but you can reshape it a little if when
it comes out of the oven, it just needs a few tweaks.
Put it back in at the same temperature, let it get nice and warmed up and then take it
out of the oven.
You'll have to be kind of patient.
It moves readily, but it takes a long time to cool down.
I usually put on a YouTube video and then get it position and sit and hold it with my
hand while I watch a video so that (you can watch another one of my videos) until it's
cooled down.
It just takes awhile and then it will hold that shape once it's cool.
And then after baking you can antique it by painting on some acrylic paint.
Let it dry just to the point where it's no longer shiny and then you can rub off the
excess and it accentuates your texture.
This one I used this burnt umber color and on this one I used black and what's interesting
is these are the exact same color of clay.
This one has a layer of black, but the outer color is exactly the same, but on this one,
I've taken it a step further.
I haven't done it yet on this one and I've added some Gilder's paste and in a variety
of colors.
This is a linear design, I kind of added them along the lines, but I just added yeah some
blues and greens and silver.
You can sort of go in any direction that you want and I just rubbed them on in different
places, added layers and then let it dry for 12 hours and buffed it off.
And I have this look of almost like raku pottery.
I think it's very cool.
If you want to know more about using Gilder's paste then check out my Gilder's paste video.
On this steam punk one, I plan to do more, oh here's Inca Gold, no it's not...
African Bronze, Copper, Inca Gold, Antique Gold and instead of doing a linear pattern,
I'm probably going to like apply different colors to different gears.
Now on every single one of my project and Friday Findings videos I always have a blog
post with links to the supplies that I used.
So if you ever want supplies, that's the most asked question I get on my YouTube channel,
click on the little 'i' that is in the upper right or the link in the description box.
That will bring you to my blog post where I will have a supply list and links to where
you can get some of the supplies.
Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already.
Take a peek at my Patreon page and find out how you can get great rewards and help support
these tutorials.
Happy creating.
Bye bye.