Craftside

How to make polymer clay cabochons from the book Polymer Clay 101

If you like to make art and are looking for a new surface to create tiny bits of art, try this technique for making your own polymer clay cabochons featured in the book Polymer Clay 101: Master Basic Skills and Techniques Easily through Step-by-Step Instruction. I plan on using this technique to fix a few pieces of jewelry that are missing some gems, as I bet I can make something that will coordinate at least in color!

Love this project and want to learn more great polymer clay techniques? Then grab yourself a copy of:

Polymer Clay 101:

Master Basic Skills and Techniques Easily through Step-by-Step Instruction

By

Kim Otterbein

and

Angela Mabray

Polymer Clay 101 teaches all the basics for crafting with polymer clay. With hundreds of detailed photos and an accompanying DVD, it covers tools and supplies, all types of beading techniques, and terrific projects that will get you started and inspire you to take your skills and make your own custom designs.

Angela Mabray first happened upon polymer clay in a toy store. While she quickly realized it wasn't just for kids, she still feels a childlike joy each time she finds something new to do with polymer clay. She writes about polymer clay at www.craftygoat.com.

Kim Otterbein has had a love for beads all her life and still has a baggie of seed beads from the 1960s. Kim's training as a textile designer and painter blends right in with jewelry making. To see her work, go to www.thebeadhouse.com and click on KO Design.

 

Crackle style gold leaf on polymer clay book cover from the new book Adventures in Bookbinding

I love when materials that aren't generally used in a craft are featured in such a cool way as this strip of gold leaf on polymer clay to decorate this book cover. This polymer clay book is just one of the unique and fun tutorials in the new book Adventures In Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books.

This book is so pretty with all the details. My favorite was this cool technique for applying gold leaf to polymer clay. When you run the polymer clay through the pasta maker rollers with the gold leaf, it causes it to crackle a bit. I think it's such an elegant technique! I want to try it against other colors of clay in addition to the black that is shown here.

If you like book making and want to try it with all sorts of different and unusual materials, you will love:

Adventures In Bookbinding:

Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books

by

Jeannine Stein

Each project in this book combines bookbinding with a specific craft such as quilting, jewelry making, or polymer clay, and offer levels of expertise: basic, novice, and expert.  Illustrated step-by-step instructions and photographs demonstrate how to construct the cover pages, and a unique binding technique, easy enough for a beginner to master.

Each project also features two other versions with the same binding geared to those with more or less experience.  The novice version is for those who have no knowledge of the craft and want shortcuts, but love the look.  For the quilter's book, for example, vintage quilt pieces become the covers so all that's needing in the binding.  Or if you're interested in wool felting use an old sweater.  This offers great opportunities for upcycling.

The expert version is for those who have a great deal of knowledge and proficiency of a certain craft - the master art quilter, for example.  For this version, an expert guest artist has created the cover and the author has created the binding.  This offers yet another creative opportunity - the collaborative project.  Since crafters often get involved with round-robins and other shared endeavors, this will show them yet another way to combine their skills.

No other craft book offers the possibilities and challenges that Adventures in Bookbinding does.  Readers will return to it again and again to find inspiration and ideas.

Jeannine Stein has been making books for more than fifteen years, exploring bindings, mediums, and techniques. In addition to teaching book-binding, she is an award-winning journalist, and she has written extensively about paper crafts-artists' books, scrapbooking, rubber stamping, and letterpress. She is the author of Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books with Recycled and Repurposed Materials (Quarry Books 2009).

How to sculpt and paint a pansy from the new book Amazing Clay Flowers: Creating Realistic Flowers and Floral Arrangements

I bet if you didn't see the word "Clay" in the title of Amazing Clay Flowers you would think they were real! With the amazingly detailed photo tutorials in this book you too can make blossoms this pretty. Scroll down to get a sneak peek on how to sculpt and paint clay pansies from the soon-to-be-released:

Amazing Clay Flowers:

Creating Realistic Flowers and Floral Arrangements

By

Noriko Kawaguchi

This book provides complete instruction for creating stunning life-like flowers in clay as well as ideas for creating beautiful and long-lasting floral arrangements. 22 unique flower and arrangement projects are divided into seasonal sections, Spring, Autumn, Winter, and Summer, followed by themed projects including bouquets and accessories. The book shows beautiful photography of each arrangement and then offers complete, photographic, step-by-step instruction for each. The amazing projects are full of intricate details and provide both inspiration for polymer clay and mixed-media artists as well as complete instruction.

Noriko Kawaguchi is a native of Tokyo, Japan.  Her love of clay sculpting and other crafts began when she lived overseas with her husband who was posted abroad for work. While living in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and London she studied a variety of arts and crafts. Currently, she teaches and exhibits internationally. She has authored a number of books about clay sculpting published in Japan.

Click on these images from Amazing Clay Flowers to enlarge and see how to sculpt a pansy.

This last page on how to make a clay pansy from Amazing Clay Flowers shows you how to paint the details.

Happy bloomin'  sculpting!

Kristin Muller in a Consequential Tea, Opening reception May 21 at the Causey Contemporary

I wish I still lived in Brooklyn so I could go to this cool event:

 

Kristin is the author of this comprehensive book:

The Potter's Studio Handbook
A Start-to-Finish Guide to Hand-Built and Wheel-Thrown Ceramics

By Kristin Muller

Like blacksmithing or hobby farming, pottery-making appeals to individuals who like to be creative, work with their hands, and don’t mind getting a little dirty. However, it is a hobby that is largely underserved by the publishing industry, but difficult for someone to learn without a comprehensive guide because the tools and techniques are quite complicated. The Potter’s Studio Handbook guides readers through the process of setting up their own studio and teaching them how to master the techniques at home. Once techniques are mastered, The Potter’s Studio Handbook will remain an invaluable resource to the clay artist when looking to create beautiful, yet functional projects, at home with nearly 25 projects that build upon previously learned skills.

This book teaches the three most popular techniques: wheel throwing, hand building, and slipcasting.
Teaches readers how to make many functional and beautiful projects at home.
Step-by-step photos guarantee success.

Kristin Muller has been a ceramic artist for twenty years and an arts administrator for ten. Currently the education director for Brookfield Craft Center in Brookfield, Connecticut, she has been teaching ceramics there for more than thirteen years. She holds a bachelor of science in studio arts with a concentration in ceramics from Southern Connecticut State University. Kristin has attended countless seminars and workshops with leading potters and clay artists and is currently an MFA candidate at Hood College. She has a studio and wood-fired Anagama kiln in eastern Pennsylvania, and she exhibits her work nationally and internationally.

Here is a great tip from The Potter's Studio Handbook for throwing multiple bowls you want to be the same size.

 

Poke a brush in a chunk of clay as a guide.

To see more inside peeks with more clay tips from The Potter's Studio Handbook pop on over to this post.

Silver Metal Clay Wing necklace made using a technique from the book Jewelry Arts Workshop: Pure Silver Metal Clay Beads by Linda Kaye-Moses

I go out to photograph my new necklace to share with you and who strolls over and simply has to sit right in the shot, why Pumpkin the neighbors' cat. So you get a bonus picture today of some cat cuteness.

Here is a better photo of the art clay silver wing necklace I made using a fab technique from the book Jewelry Arts Workshop: Pure Silver Metal Clay Beads.

 

The author Linda Kaye-Moses laid the clay out on a rubber stamp to get a texture so I thought I could make a wing texture by making a mold from an existing wing earring. Well it worked so well I made another in the opposite direction.

 

So now I was off to Cathi Milligan's studio of Beadbrains and I prepared my molds with a bit of olive oil to help the clay come out of the mold.

Here are the molds on top of the kiln helping the silver clay dry.

Once it was dry we very gently removed the wings from the molds and let them dry a bit more.

Then they were fired and then quenched.

 

Last step was to polish them up to make them shine and then onto making a necklace with them.



I landed on using one of the Blue Moon Beads Tokens heart shaped locks in between the wings. I drilled a few holes in the wings and linked it all up.

UPDATE:

 

I had to run to the craft store and check out this cool acorn charm from the Blue Moon Beads Enchanted Planet collection I scored! I will probably put the heart back on after fall is over but for now I am going to be rockin' the acorn!

If all this pure silver clay action is looking cool to you, grab yourself a packed full of ideas and techniques copy of:

Jewelry Arts Workshop: Pure Silver Metal Clay Beads

By:

Linda Kaye-Moses

Metal clay is an innovative material that combines the workability of clay with the beautiful finish and durability of precious metals. The material is easy to manipulate and shape by hand to make beads for bracelets, necklaces, and other jewelry.

Jewelry Arts Workshop: Pure Silver Metal Clay Beads contains 15 projects for creating fine silver beads and a design gallery of 25 additional jewelry pieces. Intro chapters include information about tools and techniques. Projects are organized workshop-style, to build skills cumulatively.

Linda Kaye-Moses’s (Dalton, MA) work and articles have appeared in Lapidary Journal, Step-by-Step Jewelry, The Crafts Report, Metalsmith, Ornament, Art Jewelry, American Craft, American Style, the New York Times, and Craft Art International, among others. Her work has received several awards. She has also participated in numerous juried and invitational shows and is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Craft Council and the Society of North American Goldsmiths.