My 'Charming' Starflower tutorial published!

The latest edition of the wonderful and colourful  'From Polymer to Art' magazine is out, it's the Black and White edition and I have a tutorial in it! I just received my copy, my kids were so excited to see me in the magazine - I was pretty excited too ;) You may remember that I also had an article in the Purple Edition too, about my curing experiments.

Here's a little sneak of what else is in the magazine, there are some fantastic projects I can't wait to try!

My tutorial is to make the flower beads I demonstrated at the London Polymer Clay Guild in January, I blogged about them here. Here is a charm bracelet I made with the 'Charming' starflower beads in black and white. I must credit Zuleykha for the inspiration to make charm bracelets, if you haven't seen her charm bracelets you should go check out her Etsy shop.

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I haven't had much clay time so far this month :( but I am really looking forward to heading off to  Polymer Pamper Play next Friday - 3 days of bliss! I will of course tell you all about it!

London Polymer Clay Group Demonstration

I will be giving a demonstration at the next London Polymer Clay Group meeting which is on Sunday 29th January on how I make this background less star flower cane and then form them into cupped flower beads. I must credit Zuleykha for showing me how to make the flower beads but the cane is my own, from a fabric pattern (to match a top, which I might even wear to the meeting if I remember) and I will demonstrate how I make a small flower cane with no background, without playdough!

Here are some of my creations using this technique, my own favourite bracelet that matches the top with these flowers as part of the print.

You may remember these blue and brown ones as being my sisters wedding jewellery if you have been following this blog since the summer.

I am also running a trial with some friends to see how long it takes to make these in a workshop so I can offer it as a workshop locally (Bristol UK) later in the year.

Only 7 more followers til I hit 100 and share that cat tutorial! Thank you!

Charming

A friend of mine was admiring my charm bracelet but doesn't wear bracelets so asked me to make a necklace for her. The original idea was to just add a bit of chain to either end of a bracelet but I made the charm section quite a bit longer in the end so it didn't look 'mean'. There are 6 different types of pearl and crystal beads in turquoise and green to pick out the colours on the petals. I am pleased with how it turned out (although I think I may have found a possible improvement, yes it could be even better lol - I'll try it out and let you know)

The charm necklace

Here's a closer view

Charm bracelet in same colours

I must thank Zuleykha for the inspiration and tutorials on her blog for this style of bracelet, I am a great admirer of her charm bracelets.

Emerald green custom order

 I had a custom order for a flower pendant in Emerald Green. I had some similar style pendants (the technique is from Ayelet Beads flower tutorial which I would highly recommend!) but I found it really hard to know if the customer would like them so I made a few variations. Hopefully she will get to see them this week (I have a sale on Saturday so I want to put the ones she doesn't choose on display then) so I will let you know which one she chooses. My favourite is the top one.

What I've been up to

I can't tell you about the main polymer clay project I have on the go as it is for my mum's birthday and she sometimes reads this blog. I'll tell you about it early May!

Whilst I was with family over Easter the kids, my niece and I had a quick polymer clay play. This is what I made having been reading Polymer Clay and Mixed Media-- Together at Last by Christi Friesen

Fimo polymer clay flower with beaded centre

 The beads were inserted before baking. It was a bit rushed but I decided it was worth baking. I tried out a few others that I did scrap before baking. It's soft Fimo Soft hence all the finger prints. I didn't sand it but gave it a light patina with silver acrylic paint. Not sure what I will do with it now.

I am trying to be a bit more strict about not baking stuff I am not sure about it. If you aren't sure before it's baked that isn't likely to change once it is baked. Unbaked scrap is more useful than baked scrap!

I also gave the bead I made the other day a patina whilst I had the paint out...

Not sure why I chose the light blue but it called to me when I went to my paint box. I think it works. I shall make this up into a bracelet with those chip beads I showed you a while a go.

I had another go at sanding those fopals a bit more too, I think they might come good with some more sanding, got fed up so will carry on another day.

I have a load of things I want to try out and lots of half finished things but the kids are back at school Monday so I hope to have time to do some.