Monday, May 28, 2007

SKINNER BLEND GANE
Here is a twist from Dominique's extruded clay technique. Roll out the skinner blend jellyroll until it was about 5 mm in Dia. Cut in to 4-5 pieces, lay them next to each other, with a brayer, press down lightly until it flat.
With a stamp sheet of your choice, stamp on the clay, make sure you get a good, deep impression. With the thin blade, slice off the relief portions to reveal the colors underneath. Isn't that surprisingly pretty?
Don't forget the keep the scrap clay and make the matching beads for your pieces. Enjoy ;-)

Thursday, May 24, 2007

LAVA BEADS

I mixed the caramel color clay with some gold and a little bit of glitter. Roll it into a ball. Push as many rock salt pieces (Morton-ice cream salt) into the ball. Textured with my favorite texture tools. Baked and put them in the water until all the salt get dissolved.
I dabbed the Burnt Amber oil paint on the surface of the beads to make it look darker and shinny. That's it, really. They look really cool.





















Monday, May 07, 2007

HOW TO MAKE A FRAME FOR THAT THING

You probably have a piece of clay that is small but so pretty and you don't know what to do with it. Why not bake a piece, put a frame around it and turn it into a pendant. All we need are 2 sheets of clay, running through the thickest setting on PM and that special piece of clay just like I have here..

















Lay the design piece, face down, on top of the small sheet of black clay. With the blade or an x-acto knife, cut around the piece. Carefully lift both pieces up.


Trim the top part of the frame to the thickness you want. This is important because this top part can not be adjust later. The other three sides are adjustable and can be trimmed for smaller or larger size or even the different shape.


Lay the second piece of Black clay on top of the frame, press lightly then carefully flip it over.




Put the design sheet back in the frame, press it down and adjust the side accordingly.


Trim the sides and the bottom as shown.







Turn the pendant around so you can work on the top part. Trim the side of the top as shown, then cut the very top part in angle. With knitting needle as a guide, roll up the strip until it touch the edge, press down lightly or glue them together with TLS.


Here's the finished pendants. You can lift the design sheet off and dab some TLS on the backing and then bake. You can also add the texture to the frame and baked. Then use Rub&Buff to make it looks like Metal frame, or regular sand and buff will do.
Remember you can trim the sides and the bottom part , so you can cut them into curves, poke a hole or 2 or 3 so you can dangle some more beads. Embellish it as will. :)

Thursday, May 03, 2007

This is how I make my , "Cherry Blossom" texture plates. Roll a sheet of clay at the thickest setting om the Pasta machine, Fold in half. I like red because it is easy for me to keep my texture plates together in one pile. :) Trim to the size you want. This one is about 2"x3".

The tools I use are the Leather texture tools. I borrowed them from my friend and never returned them. So I put them to the good uses. (Be careful if you ever lend me something, I even dog-sitting for my friend and did not return the dog to her.) Also I use Ball point stylus, knitting needle, screw driver, and what ever I can find around my table that looks interesting. LOL :0

Make a sketch to see where the arrengement is going to look like. At this point I put the clay on a square ceramic tile so I can move it around.Stamp the big flowers first, keep the distance between those flowers by following the sketch.
Stamp the big flowers first, keep the distance between those flowers by following the sketch.
Keep adding more details with those tools and stylus.
I roll the Micro Beads pen over the top to give it a nice texture.
It's look pretty good at this point.

Just trim the edge and baked.
Now, if you don't want to make it yourself, Just email me. I sell them for $8.00 and each one is different. :) Some lucky people already have their. Thank you, guys. You can make a nice pendant with it. Just split it with water and put the sheet of clay on the top, press it down with your finger, then carefully lift the clay up. I used Metalic powder on the pendant.


Happy claying.