Hi there.
Sandy here.
Welcome to another polymer clay video at my YouTube channel and my blog, KeepsakeCrafts.net.
Today I'm going to show you, oh really, several different simple techniques that we use to
make these lentil beads and make this bracelet.
So the first thing I like to do when I'm making a project like this is choose an assortment
of the colors I want to use.
It really helps you to get a rich look.
So I've got a whole bunch of different blues here that I just pulled out of my scrap bin.
I always like to include either a metallic or some pearl, that just adds some sparkle.
And I've conditioned each of these colors separately and then rolled them out on my
pasta machine.
And now all you need to do is stack them and it doesn't really matter what order, just
make a stack of all this clay and then you can begin compressing it and shape it into
a bit of a log.
Try not to trap any air.
And then we'll roll it out and once you have it rolled out enough, you can start twisting
it.
Roll it out some more, twist it some more.
When it starts getting long, you can cut it in half.
Roll out both pieces, twist them together and do this probably three or four times in
total.
Now once you're starting to see stripes and just a little bit of mixing of the colors,
take your acrylic rod and just roll that out flat.
Now if you don't have a pasta machine you can do all of this with your acrylic roller,
but a pasta machine is great.
So I'm going to send this through mine on the thickest setting.
So now you can see it's starting to get some interesting stripes and a nice blend and you
might like one side better than the other.
So what you need to do is fold it in half with the side you like better on the outside
and send that again through your pasta machine or again you can just roll it out with your
roller.
I'm going to do this just until I get some nice striping, usually about three times total
and then I stop.
Here it is after another roll.
Fold, a third roll.
I think I'm going to do it one more time, and that's nice.
We get some nice subtle shading and striping.
Now I'm going to send this through the pasta machine on a medium setting.
And so here it is.
I rolled this out on a five on my Atlas, which is just a smidge over a millimeter thick.
Isn't that pretty?
Now the next thing we're going to do is silk screening and what I have to do this is the
Sculpey clay silk screen kit.
It's actually a really nice kit.
It comes with two bottles of paint, a gold and a silver, a squeegee for applying your
paint and four silk screens and they're really pretty designs.
There's this one with the kind of peacock feathers, two sheets with six different round
designs, and then this one, which is really pretty with the bird.
I'm going to put four of these on here and just kind of press it down lightly and you
want the shiny side down against your clay and then take your paint and this paint that
comes with the kit is the perfect viscosity for doing silk screening.
I've tried using other paint and I never can get it to come out quite as nice as with this
paint.
So you just put a line and now you take the scraper squeegee, set it on the silk screen
right before the paint and you just want to do one decisive movement, angling it at about
a 45 degree angle, scrape that paint over the screen and clay.
Just like that.
If you can avoid it, you don't want to have to do it again, but one more.
There.
And then you want to immediately peel off your silk screen and then go wash your screen
and your scraper.
If you let the paint dry in your silk screen, it will be ruined and you won't be able to
use it again.
And the silk screening is as simple as that.
So you have the clay, unbaked clay with painted silk screen designs.
So I'm going to set this aside to dry and here's a sheet I did earlier and let the paint
dry completely.
And now it's time to cut out circles, so we can use our hollow bead maker.
This is a great form made by Sculpey and what you need to find are circle cutters that are
as close as you can get to each of these.
So this one fits this middle one pretty well.
This one's a little big for this one, but it will do and I'll show you how to make it
just right.
And this one is pretty close to the small one.
So I have a couple different circle cutter sets.
You might have to find a few.
This one you'll find in the cake decorating section.
It's fun because it's got a scallop and just a circle.
So for each bead you're going to need to cut out two of these.
So once you've cut your circles, you can remove the excess clay and don't think because it
has paint on it that it's waste.
You can just mix it right up and use it for something else.
Put it in your scrap bin.
And then we'll use the hollow bead maker to form these and the way it works is these pieces
just go right over these shapes.
Now sometimes I make these sheets and then I leave them for a long time and so the clay
is quite firm and difficult to form.
This was just rolled out so it's behaving very nicely, but if it doesn't, you can take
one of these.
It's a heat gun used for embossing, a craft heat gun.
Not the kind that you use to strip paint.
That gets too hot.
Use it to warm the former for about 5-10 seconds and that will let your older clay form nicely.
But you can see this is forming pretty well.
So you just center it over there and I like to take a little scrap of paper and I'll use
it to press it down and then also where it's not quite meeting the edge there, I'll press
it down a little bit more.
This helps keep fingerprints off.
It helps you to smooth it off.
So you just put all of your pieces, if it's a little small, you can just use this piece
of paper and kind of ease it down and make it bigger.
If it's a little big, what you can do is use the cutter.
Let's see if I can do this so you can see what I'm doing.
Use the cutter to just trim right along the edge.
Now I trimmed a little, I trimmed way too much there.
If I'm not doing it for the camera, I might trim just a little too much.
So I'm just going to stretch it to form it and then I can use my paper, push it down,
just trim off that little bit.
You can use your nail to kind of push that into shape and once you have all of your pieces
on there the way you want them, then you can bake it at the manufacturer's recommended
temperature for 20 minutes.
Once your pieces are baked, then it's time to sand the back side.
We want to smooth out any rough edges.
This is not the ideal spot.
Where I usually do this is in my kitchen sink with a thin stream of water running and then
you can just put this on, move it in circles and sand it and it goes much easier with a
little bit of water.
Sand it until all those rough edges are gone and it's nice and flat so that two of these
met together will make a nice smooth finish.
So once you have the under side of each of your bead halves sanded, then you need to
decide where the stringing holes are going to go.
Mine are just going to be strung straight across and this is an excellent tool for doing
that.
If you don't have one of these though, you can just use a craft knife to carve out a
little 'v' shaped notch, but this will actually make a 'u' shape, which is perfect.
And so on one of the halves, you just position that, support the other side with your finger
and just press in.
You can wiggle it a little and that just pops out half a circle and then you can use a pencil
to draw a line, but I'm just going to eyeball it and make the same kind of a notch on the
other side.
Now once that's made, you want to take your other half and take a little time.
You see that went together pretty well.
They may not be perfectly round so just try to position it in such a way so that they
fit together the best you can get them and then you can take your tool and just make
a little bit of a mark on the other half just so you know where you're going to make your
hole.
I can see that one, and then repeat.
Now unless you've measured them and made a perfectly straight across line, you'll have
to pay attention to which way they're going.
They'll only work one way.
The easiest way that I've found to glue these together is get them lined up just the way
you want them and then put the index finger and thumb on your non-dominant hand right
over those holes and give your bead a little squeeze to open it up and then apply a very
small amount of super glue along this edge and then you can squeeze them back together
making sure your stringing holes are still aligned and then turn it and repeat, opening
up the other side and applying glue to that side.
Now if you happen have some little edges that are sticking out, this one is pretty good,
but if you have some, take a nice sharp craft knife and just shave off the smallest amount.
It's really easy to go too deep really quickly on this, so you just want to shave off the
tiniest of slivers so you don't ruin your nice round shape.
Now of course you can use your beads whatever way you like in what ever kind of jewelry
piece you want.
What I've done is I've strung three of the smallest and then three of the second smallest
alternating.
I've put some beads in between them and then I've also made them some custom little end
caps.
Now let me show you how easy that is to do.
What you'll want are these types of end caps that are filigreed and stamped.
You don't want the hard ones that are cast, they're thicker, because what we're going
to do is take a pair of nylon jaw pliers, put your bead cap right in there and just
give it a gentle squeeze.
And it might zing away, but it will fold like a taco.
You don't need to fold it as much as you might think and then these get strung on either
side of your lentil bead and they provide a really nice finish.
I opted to make mine an elastic bracelet because one thing that's difficult with hollow beads
is getting the bead stringing wire out the other hole.
It's easy to get it in one, but it can be tricky to get it out the other.
So I used a long needle to thread my elastic through the beads.
So to finish this type of bracelet, you just tie your elastic cord into a square knot and
then put a little super glue on it.
Pop that knot into the hole of the bead that it's next to and once it's dry, you just trim
off the tails.
If you're interested in the supplies I used in this project, there's a link in the upper
right to go to my 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 tutorials every week.
I upload every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
And here's another look at the project we made.
If you liked it, give it a thumbs up, share and leave me a comment below.
Happy creating.
Bye bye.