Have you ever found yourself with some left over polymer clay veneers, maybe something
that you were just doing for technique or for an exploration and you have these left
over pieces and you have no idea what to do with them?
Well, today I have a great idea for how to turn them into beautiful pendants.
This idea is specifically for using the crackle technique that I showed you in a previous
video, but of course you could use it on anything.
Hi there, Sandy here.
Welcome to another polymer clay video at KeepsakeCrafts.net.
So in a previous video I showed you how to make fine crackles in polymer clay and I have
to tell you I have been playing and exploring and making lists of all different ways of
making crackles in polymer clay and those will be coming up in upcoming videos.
I've got all kinds of ideas of just fun ways of using clay and making interesting surface
techniques.
This is the one that I made last week and I want to show you today, but I just thought
I would show you, I actually spent the last couple of hours playing with, these are my,
just some left over sheets from other experiments.
This is from a Debbie Crothers class at the Polymer Clay Adventure 2017.
Silk screen, crackled foil.
Here's a gradient.
This is some faux abalone.
These you might recognize from a previous video where I shared how to make tools to
confine the widths of your polymer clay blends to be whatever you need, whether really narrow
or a little bit wider.
And everything here is stored in two layers of Glad Press'N Seal, which I have found works
fantastic.
But let me show you some of the things I've made.
So here's an example that I made with the green crackle that I showed you last week,
here's a bit of it, and this faux abalone, which I found in an online tutorial.
I've seen several people have tried it.
It's really a cool look.
I used it to cover one of my dragons and I'll have a link to that at my blog post because
it isn't my tutorial.
But I did the green crackles and the faux abalone and the first thing I did was I put
it on some scrap gray clay and then I realized that when I made it into a cabochon using
the Sculpey cabochon mold that the background clay actually kind of squished through, which
I didn't mind the look of as much as I might have.
So then I tried it again on some black background clay and I kind of like them both actually.
And then here is the same faux abalone clay only with blue clay with silver foil on it
that's been crackled.
And that's so easy to do.
You just put the silver foil on, run it in one direction on the pasta machine.
Here it is.
Crank it down a notch and then run it through in the other direction to get even crackles.
These were all done, these two teardrops and these two rounds were done in the Sculpey
cabochon mold just because it's really easy and quick.
But this one I wanted to make my own shape because I really don't love most of these
shapes.
And so I shaped a heart just out of some scrap clay and then I used, this is the southwest
Mokume Gane that I showed in a video.
I'll have a link to that.
And then some blue with gold crackled foil and I alternated those.
I also kind of emphasized the lines between them where often I try to blend them away.
I sort of emphasized them and I'm going to go back in with some paint later on after
it's baked.
So you don't have to use cabochon molds.
You can make your own shapes.
What I will do is bake this and once it's baked, I'll then add a backing to it.
It's just easier to do it that way.
Here's the green clay that I showed you the crackles of last time and this is some left
over pieces, probably the messed up cane ends of a peacock cane that I made.
So don't throw these things away when you make them and play with them and you think
it's a total fail.
By cutting it up into strips and then combining it with something else, I ended up with this.
I actually formed this in the triangle here, which isn't my favorite shape.
So I sort of worked on it adding some curves to it, which now it sort of looks like something
from Star Trek, which doesn't thrill me, but you can see that we got something interesting
going on here with the green and black crackles and the peacock cane.
And you can have fun with this making it into a pendant, adding things to it.
I'm just showing you ways to play really.
I've got a whole box of polymer clay sheets and this is just a basic stripey blend.
I can see this being gorgeous.
Just all these different things with all these different possibilities.
So let me show you how to do it.
What I'm starting with today are just two different sheets.
You can definitely have more than two, but just to keep it simple, I thought I would
stick to two.
I took some of this, you can see I chopped off a chunk of this turquoise and copper sheet
and then rolled it through the pasta machine on the number nine.
Oops, I'm making a mess!
That's okay.
And then this is also rolled on the number nine and that's important, that they're both
rolled through on the same thickness so that when you make your veneer it's smooth.
Unless you want it lumpy, which might be a whole other look that you want.
Here I also have some black clay that I just rolled out on, I think I rolled it out on
the thinnest setting.
It can be any setting really.
It doesn't have to be particularly thick.
And then this is some scrap clay, this is a million times more than I'll need, but I'll
save that for later.
And then you just need a clay blade.
So you can see already I started here.
First I just used my blade and cut a clean edge off of that veneer and then I used my
nice rigid clay blade to cut a piece.
If these had been sitting for awhile, you might find that they're a bit crumbly and
brittle, but you can actually just kind of piece them back together if they fall apart.
But I'm just going to lay that on the backing piece and now I'm going to bring in my gradient
bit.
And again, just trim off a bit so that you have a nice, clean edge.
Now you can cut perfectly straight strips.
You can cut them at an angle.
You can cut them all the same width.
You can cut them in varying widths.
I think it looks much more interesting to have widths that vary.
Oh, and that's okay.
See how that popped off on me?
That's alright.
I'm just gonna, now you can feel this right here.
I can feel it.
I mean when you do it you'll be able to feel it if it was overlapped or if it was right
next to it.
So make sure if it feels like it's overlapped, just lift it up.
I'm just gonna stroke that a little.
I'm not gonna stress about it because it can be interesting.
Can be an interesting opportunity for adding texture or something.
So in this case I am just alternating back and forth.
I think I'll make this one a little thicker and it's good if you can use your blade to
help pick it up because they are very thin and like I said, if they've been sitting around
for awhile they're fragile.
I found the blade was an unreliable helper and I have to kind of keep just picking it
up with my fingers and if it falls apart, I will piece it back together.
Use the blunt end of your blade rather than the sharp end because it goes all the way
down instead of being tapered and just kind of get in there.
Give it a press and that will close up those gaps between the pieces.
Now if you're doing a gradient like I am here, you can have all the gradients on one side
or you could actually alternate them.
Just like on these, on most of them I think I, yeah, I kept the pattern going across,
but you don't have to.
I just kind of wanted to where there was a pattern in there.
I thought it was interesting to have it continuing across.
You don't see it much once you cut out a cabochon.
I kind of like that maybe.
Oops, the blue is falling apart.
Get on there.
And also I forgot to mention I pulled out a bunch of cutters that corresponded to the
shapes.
You want them a little bit bigger than your cabochon because your cabochon has depth.
I didn't have any triangle cutters because triangles aren't a shape I love.
So I pulled out a heart cutter, which actually works quite well for the triangles and again
a circle, just a little bit bigger than the one you need.
And that will help you as you're working on this to decide where you're gonna put parts
that are favorites that you really want to feature in your piece and what section you're
going to cut.
So just keep checking.
Definitely need a few more strips.
I was just having a great time.
Like I said, I spent the last couple of hours experimenting and playing and making all those
samples I just showed you and I just had some music on and I had a favorite beverage.
I just had a great time.
It was so much fun and I don't know if I came out with anything that I'll love for long,
but it was a great time of just playing.
So never feel like when you are making things and you maybe have a bit of left over or maybe
you're not actually 100% thrilled with it, when you're done you just don't love it.
Never feel like it's a waste.
First of all, you're learning as you play and experiment and try things.
You're learning about the clay.
You're learning about your medium and how it works and different things you can and
cannot do with it.
There we go.
And then you're learning what you like and what you don't like and you're just growing
in your creativity.
So never, ever feel like it's a waste.
So once you have as much veneer on there as you need to fill up your shape, this is great.
You can use parchment paper, you could used waxed paper.
This is deli paper.
They go between hamburgers.
I got them on Amazon.
I'll have a link on my blog and they're just really handy because they come in these little
square shapes.
And I'm using either the pad of my middle finger or the side of my thumb and you can
really feel the lumps through the paper and so you can very much feel as you smooth it
down.
Now that is all nice and smooth.
Let's see what we've got.
That's pretty cool!
So I'm gonna use my cutter and here's another place where you have decisions to make, which
part do you want.
I like that.
This is a double sided cookie cutter.
It's got a round, just a smooth round on one side and a serrated on the other.
It's a little painful to press on so I just use an acrylic block to press down and that
saves my fingers and gives me a nice clean cut.
Then use your stiff blade to make sure you get under all of it and lift it all up.
I like to peel away the excess and now I have this.
That orange looks so much like tiger stripes.
I was thinking it would be fun to do something else that looks like animal.
Maybe zebra stripes or leopard spots and combine them all together.
Maybe it would be too much.
I'm not sure, but it sounded like fun.
So now once I have that done, I'm gonna place it in my mold.
Since it's round the orientation doesn't matter, but of course, if I was putting it in the
teardrop you have to decide would you want it straight up and down, horizontal, at a
diagonal.
In the round it doesn't matter.
I do my best to center it in there and then just grab some bits of scrap clay and stuff
them in there.
And I like to definitely over fill it a bit.
So I hope that you have enjoyed and benefited from this video and all of my videos at YouTube.
If you're new to my channel, be sure that you check them all out.
I have lots of creative tutorials for jewelry and polymer clay and often polymer clay jewelry.
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So my patrons get a lot of extras.
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to continue.
So you just watched me there.
What I did was I filled it.
I definitely over filled it and then I wrapped the edges up and around and I'm just trying
to make this smooth and to trim this, I like to use my flexible blade.
Not so much because it's flexible, but because it's thin and very, very sharp.
So lay that as flat as you can.
I usually put one finger on the center to kind of hold my cabochon in the mold and just
use that to slide it off.
And if you need to, you can kind of pull in from the edges and get those edges evened
out.
Now you can bake this right in here, but I'm always impatient and curious to see what it
looks like.
And that's kind of cool!
So I hope you take these ideas and run with them.
Use the polymer clay pieces, bits and pieces that you have.
Maybe make a crackle sheet based on the video that I showed you last time and then start
experimenting and playing and looking at all the different possibilities and combinations
that you can make.
This can then be put in a bezel.
You can add clay around it.
Turn it into a pendant and add dangles to it.
All sorts of things and have yourself some really beautiful polymer clay jewelry.
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Happy creating!
Bye bye.