Sometimes I just want to have a barrette come out looking nice but with out a lot of work or time. I recently found a faux burl wood recipe in one of my many books on polymer clay (Faux Surface Treatments by Irene Dean). I had to try it. It is simply mixing three different colors of clay and then chopping them into pieces in a food processor. Then you press the clumps together and roll them out. Very easy and also quick. This is one of the barrettes that I made.
This barrette is one that I made earlier this summer. It is blue clay covered with foil and then textured. I used foil that I got from www.coveredinclay.com . The people who run the website are very nice and knowledgable in polymer clay. The texture is from a sheet that is used to texture candy but does really well with clay.
I have recently gotten a number of questions about barrettes for thicker hair. In my personal exprience, a slightly larger barrette back will hold more hair. With either of these two barrettes, I can put my braided pony tail, folded twice, up on the back of my head. They hold it with no problems and with stand a lot of movement.
The barrette on the left is on a 3 1/2 inch barrette back, so it is a little longer then the barrettes that you find in the local store. The barrette on the right has a wider space between the back of the barrette and the piece that holds the hair in the barrette.
This picture is of the barrettes on the side. It shows the difference in the space in the middle of the barrette.
I have gotten a number of empty Altoids tins recently. I figure, why not cover theme as well. Here is the top of the second one. The first one got burnt in the oven. I am not really sure why but some of the cane slices turned brown on me. Oh well, it happens sometimes. So I did another one.
I am working on the bottom and the sides as well. I am covering them in a faux wood and need to do some sanding. I have four feet on the bottom and plan on making a knob for the top. I will also be doing soem fancy triming on the sides.
I can see how covering tins can become addicting. But then working with polymer clay is addicting.
After seeing all of the wonderful pens that every one seems to be covering, I thought that I would give it a try.
I found some pens that I thought might work and not melt. They where also only .60 cents for 20! I figured, if they don’t work with the temperature, I could always use the rest for school work. I took the ink out of the barrel and put the plastic part in the oven when I was baking other things. It did not melt and was perfectly fine. So I decided to cover a few.
I have a few more that I want to sand and finish before I take their picture.
The other day my husband got me a “new toaster oven. Well, it is new to me. He spends some time on free-cycle and some one in the area was giving away their old toaster oven to the person with the best recipes. My husband sent a few recipes but the one that “won” was his cheesecake.
He went and picked it up and brought to home for me. I really like it.
It is larger then most of the ones that I have used. I am sure that a pizza will fit in it! The feature that I really like is that I can set the temperature and leave it there with out having the oven turn on. I spent about 2 hours getting the oven to stay at the temp for polymer clay, 275, and left it there. I now only have to turn the oven to “always on” and let it warm up. The oven also has a timer that will turn the oven off, as well as “ding”. That feature will be nice for the last baking of the day.
I still an going to use my smaller oven. I can run both of them at the same time and have many batches going on different times, if I need to.