Here are some of the beads that I made with the “snake” that I extruded with the Makin’s Clay Extruder. I am having great fun.
These are simple coils that I made. I have more in the oven and am very pleased with how they have turned out. I can’t wait to string them.
These silver ones where formed over cornstarch packing peanuts. Then covered with pearl-ex powder, baked and then the cornstarch peanuts where washed away. I really like the one on the left.
These where formed over smaller pieces of the cornstarch peanuts then treated the same as the silver. I think that a smaller diameter “snake” would look better. They are pretty coll though.
I recently bought myself a Makin’s Professional Ultimate Clay Extruder. I got a chance to play with it today. It is a lot easy to use them the old extruder I have. I have had great fun today making snakes of color and then turning them into wrapped beads. Very easy to do and they are turning out way cool.
I am going to do some recycling to with the extruded snakes. I brought home some cornstarch packing peanuts from work. (They where just going to be thrown out so I might as well take some. I did make sure that it was okay first just to be sure.) Tomorrow I am going to wrap the clay snakes around the peanuts to make filigree beads. (I might even get a chance to do some tonight.) Once I bake the beads and let them cool, I will “soak” the cornstarch peanuts out of the middle.
I am thinking that I can also use the extruded snakes to decreate barrettes. Make interesting designs with the snakes, then add embelishments and maybe even some preal-ex powders.
I am having great fun! Pictures will be coming as soon as things are done.
These are my newest polymer clay friends. They where inspired by Christi Friesen. I had a lot of fun making the first turtle, so I had to make more. The starfish are a barrette, and the rest are pins. I will be doing different color scemes and try to get the turtles to crawl onto barrette backs. I am still figuring out how to do seahorses as barrettes. Maybe if I made a pair to go on one.
I can understand why Polyform would want to push their marketing of polymer clay and the Sculpey Line by bring in a marketing maven like Donna Dewberry. They see it as a way to make more money.
I know that Polyform does not have the whole market of polymer clay so that I, as an artist, will always find quality clay somewhere. I can always mail order from Donna Kato’s website and the suppliers of Kato Polyclay.
My concern is for the artists that helped Polyform develop some of their line and the higher quality clays. How many hours did those people give to the design and development only to have their “faces slapped” by not using them to help market the line. Haven’t some of those artists proven what they can do with the medium and that they can also show others how to work with it and enjoy it?
I know that I personally wouldn’t be involved in the polymer clay world if it wasn’t for people like Donna Kato, Nan Roche, Sue Heaser, Celie Fago, Dotty McMillan, Sarajane Helm, and Marie Segal just to name a few. Nor would I have learned as much as I have if it wasn’t for groups like Western New York Polymer Clay Guild and Polymer Clay Central.
No mater what Polyform does as a large company, it will never be able to touch the talent of the polymer clay artists that are already working in this wonderful medium.
The other day I got three of Christi Friesen’s sculpture series books. I had a hard time figuring out which one I wanted to play with first. It was a toss up between the Under the Sea and Welcome to the Jungle. The both have some of my favorite animals in them. In the toss up, Under the Sea won. Here is my very first turtle.
I think that he is pretty cool! I am looking forward to creating him some friends to play with. This one will be a pin but I am going to make barrettes, beads and who knows whatelse. I also plan on added seahorses, starfish and fish to his playmates. They are great fun. Check out Christi Friesen’s works at her website, http://www.cforiginals.net/ . They are wonderfully creative!