Hi there. Sandy here. Welcome to another polymer clay video at my YouTube channel and my blog.
So for our next project we're going to be making this pendant. This series will be in
two parts. In the first part I'll show you how to make this textured polymer clay
bezel and in the second part, I'll show you how to add these really cool paint effects
and a resin dome to cover it all.
So there are a couple different ways to make this bezel, but for both of them you'll just
need some polymer clay and I like to use kind of a neutral shade. Black is good. This is
Soufflé clay. It's called Cowboy. It's kind of a dull brown. For some of them I mixed
copper and bronze for a metallic. One of the ways you can do this is by using nested graduated
cutters and I have a set of teardrops here, which makes a nice pendant, but you can also
do it free form. I'll show you that in a minute.
And what you'll need to do is roll our your clay to two different thicknesses. This one
is number three on my pasta machine where the number one is the thickest, so a medium
thick, and then this is the thickest setting on my pasta machine. Then what you'll need
to do is decide how thick you want the sides of your bezel to be. So take a look at your
different clay cutters. This will make a thicker edge around the bezel than this one. That's
entirely up to you.
Then you want to use any kind of a texture, a stamp with a cool texture or a texture sheet.
So what you want to do is take the thinner sheet, this will be the back of your bezel
and just take whatever you're going to use for texture and add that and then I like to
add some perfect pearls. You can use anything you like. Silver looks nice on the black or
gold or Perfect Pearl. I like to avoid colors on these because the paint effect is quite
colorful. So just something to kind of give it some interest. And then just cut out one
shape with your largest shape. And this will be the back of your bezel and now take your
thicker sheet and add your texture and it doesn't have to be the same. and cut out your
larger shape and then cut out your smaller shape. If you want it centered, take a minute
to get it centered. Pop out the piece in the middle and then lay the pieces over each other
and if you want to get a nice, exact match, it may take a little bit of fiddling or you
may have to do some trimming later and then you can rub this with the Perfect Pearls as
well.
So what you'll end up with is something like this. Now the tricky part here is you want
those edges to look seamless, so I actually let these two pieces sit over night and so
now it's firm enough that I can smooth and stroke that edge without squishing my entire
shape and squishing away the texture. Also, if you let it sit over night, once you smooth
that texture, you can take a tool, a needle tool, even the edge of your blade and add
a texture to the edges once you've smoothed them out. Another approach you can take gives
it a little bit more of an organic look that once you get the pieces together you can actually
lay your texture over and press down and that gives these more rounded edges and that will
blend that seam together. Although it does tend to flatten out your texture a bit on the back.
So here are a couple of examples of bezels done that way. This one I used ovals and on
this one I just used a paper template and then kind of free hand cut inside it and you
can cover these edges with perfect pearls when you're done as well. So one of the things
I like about these paints is they have a very organic texture, so it makes sense to have
somewhat of an organically shaped bezel.
So we'll do it a different way, but again we start with the thicker clay and the
thinner and this time we're going to start cutting on our thicker piece, our front piece
and what we're going to cut out is the inner part of the bezel. So for example, on this
one, we're going to make this inside cut first thing. So keep that in mind as you're cutting.
You want to leave at least a half an inch or so of clay from your cut to allow for the
edge of your bezel. So I'm just cutting a shape and if you need to you can take some
time to smooth it out. You can even distort it, reshape it. Once you're happy with your
inner shape, set that aside and then pull out your thinner sheet that's the back and
go ahead and texture that. If you want to learn more about the texture sheets I'm using,
you can check out my blog post. There will be a supply list with links there.
So once that is done you can flip that over and put your bezel cut out on top, making
sure to leave room all around the edges and like I said, you can reshape this too as you
go along. Next take your blade and go ahead and cut out the outer perimeter of your bezel.
Keep in mind that as we texture this, it's going to widen a bit and also try to keep
your blade at a 90 degree angle to your work surface. The benefit of doing it this way
is you don't have much of a seam, if any, between the two pieces. And now take your
texture and press on really just the edges. You don't want to really flatten this out
too much because then you'll flatten out your center and you need that to apply your paint.
And now that's a really cool organic shape and texture and of course this is clay so
we can continue to manipulate it and shape it until you're happy with what you've got.
And you get maybe something like this.
Now if you find that in the texturing you flatten your texture on the back a bit, what
you can do is make sure that you have a texture sheet that's flexible. Put the back on one
side and then fold over the other side and press this way and if that's the case, you
probably want to wait to do your Perfect Pearls until after both sides are done. Now you might
notice that I didn't add any holes for hanging or stringing because I'm not sure how I'm
going to use these when I'm done. Polymer clay is easy enough to drill through that
I'd rather leave my options open.
And so there you go. You can make several, any shapes, textures, combinations of metals
that you like and bake them on a card for about 20 minutes to half an hour.
So if you're interested in the supplies that I used in this project, there's a link in
the upper right to go to the accompanying blog post. And if you're new here and you
haven't already subscribed to my YouTube channel, make sure you do for three new video tutorials
every week. I upload every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
If you'd like to support this channel, click on the Patreon link for information on how
you can help out for as little as a dollar a month.
Next week I'll show you how to add this great painted texture. You can also share your ideas
for future projects in the comments below and I'll see if I can make you a video.
So here's another look at the project we made. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up, share
and leave me a comment.
Happy creating. Bye bye.