Paisley Cake Forks 2013 – using old canes.

(Posted on June 23, 2013 on my new blog www.carajane.co.uk/blog)

Way back in March 2010 I made a set of Paisley cake forks – it was the first time I had attempted such a big and complex cane. I had a lot of fun and learnt a lot and had a fair bit of the cane left over due to a miscalculation and lack of experience (blog post about making the cane here). Here’s the cane after reduction (blog post about that here)

Polymer Clay Paisley cane made 2010

And here’s a picture of the cake forks I made in 2010 (blog post about making the cake forks here)

Paisley cake forks 2010

Earlier this year I was commissioned to make a pair of similar cake forks. Now I’ve just told you I had some cane left over – great! It’s over 3 years old so I was a little concerned about it but it worked very well. You may be interested to know this was Kato polyclay.
The bits of cane I had left have been stored in a polypropylene storage box (blog post here on storing clay). I reduced bits of the cane to different sizes and used up most of the smaller bits for the cake forks. I mainly had bigger chunks of cane left which meant I had to reduce them to the smaller scale needed for the cake forks. To start with I tried to reduce it like I would a ‘fresh’ cane but the cane just cracked into 2 parts. So I slowed down.I held the cane in my hand for a while to warm the clay up and working it gently pinching it all round a little at a time I was able to reduce it without further problems.
I then started making a decorated sheet  from the canes to wrap around the cake forks. Some bits of cane were the right size , didn’t need reducing, so I just sliced them – they sliced beautifully being rather firm after being sat for 3 years! I worked on a sheet of purple clay, covered it in cane slices and smoothed them in. Back in 2010 I had worked on small sections at a time and made a whole big sheet I cut parts from. Now I used scrap clay to work out what size I needed to cover the handle and just made a sheet that size. That way there was much less waste. I also just added all the cane slices at once as I know now they will all smooth in no problem. In 2010 I smoothed the slices by rolling them  now I burnish them which causes much less distortion.
It all looked great until I tried to wrap it round the fork handle when massive cracks appeared. I realised they were in the unreduced canes and between the unreduced canes – they weren’t ‘sticky’ enough to fully join to the surrounding cane slices. The sheet was useless  I had to make a whole new sheet but luckily I did have plenty of left overs and I had only made a small sheet so hadn’t wasted too much cane or time! I got round the cracking problem  by holding the unreduced cane slices in my hand to warm them and then just manipulating them a bit so that although I didn’t really reduced them the clay softened.
So I made a beautiful sheet of purple paisley patterned polymer  and used that to decorate the cake fork handle. I realised when I finished them just how much I have learnt in the past 3 years. The cane was exactly the same cane I had made but the end result was much nicer. I have a different method for wrapping the handle which means the join is not so obvious on the back – I didn’t take a photo of the back either time unfortunately but in 2010 there was an obvious seam up the back and in 2013 there isn’t. The quality of the finish was much better too, they were pretty  nice in 2010 but these 2013 cake forks are perfectly smooth and have a beautiful shine to them.

Paisley Decorated Cake Forks 2013

Whilst my photo isn’t the most amazing photo I can see looking back at my old blog posts that my photos have come quite a long way since 2010! It is good to take stock and look at where you’ve come from. Go back and look at what you were doing 3, 5, 10 years ago! Look how much you have improved! Hard to see it when you work with the same materials day to day but easy to see when you jump back in time. I hope to enjoy looking back at this at some point in the future and seeing how  much further I have progressed!

New ring bowls and new blog

I have a new blog over at my normal web address now - www.carajane.co.uk . I will continue to update this one for now but do feel free to come visit me over there.

I have been practising the intricate kaleidoscope cane I learnt on the workshop with Sarah Shriver recently. I have used some of them to make little polymer clay ring bowls. You may remember the one I made for my sisters birthday last year - you can see it here.

Small Intricate Brown Ring Bowl by Cara Jane

Intricate Kaleidoscope Cane Purple Ring Bowl by Cara Jane

I also made one with a red flowers from a cane I reduced to many different sizes. It has a textured outside. Here's a view of the inside.

Small polymer clay ring bowl decorated with red flower cane

Sarah Shriver workshops

Recently I was lucky enough to attend some workshops with Sarah Shriver organised by the London Polymer Clay Group. It was a real treat as I have admired Sarah's work for many years.

On Saturday we learnt how to make Intricate Kaleidoscope canes. They are very intricate but Sarah did a great job of teaching how to make these magical canes. Here's the canes I made I am very pleased with them! They were made from Kato polyclay

           

                              


On Sunday we made big beads. The process is complex and rather involved but produces stunningly beautiful beads. I learnt so many news skills from Sarah during these workshops and have 2 lovely finished beads that I am very proud of. Can’t wait to make a few more and turn them into a necklace.

 

It was great to meet up with old friends and meet some new friends. It was a great bunch of people to spend a couple of days with and we had a lot of fun. Sarah is an excellent teacher as you can probably tell by the result.

Sarah Shriver and Cara Jane, London, April 2013

You can see some more pictures on the London Polymer Clay Group Facebook page

Work is underway on the new website. I look forward to sharing it with you soon.

Blue Thing a Days - Delft inspired cane

It's all been a bit rushed this week but I have managed to make some canes for my Thing a Day Challenge. I chose blue as a theme as the lovely Sarah of Beadscrumptious was challenging herself to create something blue this week too.

Here's the canes I've made over the last few days - inspired by my recent trip to Delft!

Day 1 I made a fairly simple flower cane with a crinkly centre

 Day 2 I made what I call a flourish - the bits you get at the corners or the sides of the main delft pattern - or on the corner of tiles

Day 3 I put them together. It wasn't my original plan to put them together like, I was originally going to make a square cane with flourish corners but... this just happened.  They seemed to fit so well

I carried on and put them together a bit like a flower cane. I like the way it's turned into a flower within a flower, with a flower on each of the large flower petals. Now I just need to decide what to make with it!

I'm going to have plenty of making time over the next few days, I am hosting a kids polymer clay party for one of my daughters friends (much to my daughters delight as she will of course be the expert and my helper!) and then I am going to be demonstrating polymer clay for a couple of days at a trade fair - I'll tell you all about that when I get back!

Black and Grey Flowers

A good friend of mine was making a new dress to wear to a wedding - so I offered to make her some new jewellery to match. It turned out just beautiful! Here it is

If you are familiar with the polymer clay work of Ayelet you will notice my inspiration! I made the grey beads and textured them with salt, they match the colour of the dress.

I'm busy working on some Christmas gift and ornament designs, I hope to be able to share some soon. I hope you are having fun whatever you are doing.

Peacock Cane

I started this peacock cane ages ago. I looked at several images of peacock feathers to get the colours and the shapes. It has to be simplified a little as I didn't want to replicate a feather exactly - too delicate. I did the centre fairly easily but was then uncertain how to deal with the outer green and gold layers. I wanted to hint at the feathers structure but didn't want to get too complicated.

Finally I tackled it and I'm pleased with how it worked out. Here's the cane

I then decided I had better make a pair of earrings from it (as I am now rather behind with the earrings a week challenge on flickr). I made then from a simple slice but decided they needed a little something to make them more interesting so I added some score lines to indicate the feathers structure and then scored a line down the centre and used that to folded them slightly (as you see I couldn't resist a little peacock too ;)

 I then remembered some brilliant design advice I got from Inga - Kni.Kni about changing the little silver balls on the ear wires with tiny beads - boy did that change the look of the earrings for the better! It lifted them from being ordinary earwires to being special. I could of chosen any of the colours in the feather but decided to pick a nice bright blue to match with the centre as I had pretty seed beads in the colour. Thank you for the tip Inga!

 My kids are still home for the summer for a couple more weeks then I hope to get a little more clay time and update you more regularly again! I hope you are all having fun.

Cara

Bettina Welker's Pixelated Retro Blend Cane

I was so excited when I saw Bettina Welkers Pixelated Retro Blend Cane Tutorial - it looked so cool! Loads of people have been trying it and it's great to see all the variations popping up on flickr and facebook.

Finally I found some time to try it. Here's my first cane

I then decided to use it to catch up with the earrings a week challenge on Flickr and made these earrings

 Which ones do you like best?

They are all available to purchase direct from me. Please email me if you would like more details.
It is the school summer holidays so I have my children home. We are having great fun and enjoying some lovely weather! Hope you are all having fun!

Manly polymer!

Today is my wonderful husbands birthday. Off course I wanted to make him a present but what do you give a man? I have already made him a keyring and a rather special polymer clay covered pen. He would rather something practical and useful than something decorative. So after a look round a DIY store looking for inspiration here's what I made him

Yes it's a screwdriver! The handle is decorated with a black and white geometric cane (which did get a little distorted conforming to the shape of the handle but I hadn't quite made the cane big enough so had to stretch it in places rather than fill the gap - that'll teach me to make a small cane!). I decided to give it a textured surface rather than polish it as it may be hard to grip a shiny handle. I textured the surface with 120 grit sandpaper, this gives a texture that feels nice to hold. Needless to say having learnt the hard way several times I now remembered to test cure the object I am thinking of covering to make sure it will not have a problem in the oven.

Not sure what I will make him next year - do share any ideas you have for mens gifts using polymer clay in the comments!

Happy Birthday Richy!