#2015PCChallenge : Week 33 & 34 combo

Happy Onam everyone !

This week I am posting for both week 33 & 34. I could not post last week due to an internet issue, which is now rectified ( thank God ! ).

So,week 33 : Batik Printing on Polymer clay with Alchohol ink

I had been planning on trying out a batik effect for a while , but I kept putting it off. Recently I have been seeing the batik effect on polymer clay , popping up quite often online. Last week I was talking to Preethy ( fellow clayer & friend ) , and I mentioned this.She very helpfully explained to me the process that is followed for textiles. Keeping that information in mind , I gave this a try.

While I am quite happy with this  , I don't think it completely captures the spirit of Batik printing. I certainly could not get the veiny effect , which is something I love.I have not varnished this since I like this texture.I made this for me , so I might as well as check out how the colors fade in time.
I have a semi idea in my head to get the veins as well , hopefully it works out :)

Artybecca has a pretty great tutorial on this. She also has other amazing stuff if you are wondering. Thank you Artybecca :) I am certain that , this is the reason I was able to do this technique quite easily.

For some reason the rubber cement / masking fluid I had was not working very well with the clay , and I was rather stuck the last time.This time ,I was playing with some split fevicol and discovered that white glue does this job just fine.It worked much better than I anticipated.

Week 34 : Simple textures

I was planning on doing an Onam themed challenge , but I finally changed course and made something I could wear for onam :)
Little selfish huh ?

so here it is , week 34 :

Primary piece : Chunky  rustic earring , translucent clay with acrylic

I love translucent clay. I dont know why I am fascinated with it , but its probably tied with my love for alcohol inks. So when I realized that all stores have run out of translucent clay here I was very sad. I finally found a few bars a few weeks before  and I ordered it immediately. The clay I received was super crumbly and I was absolutely unable to work wit it.

I was very upset , so I hid it away.

This week I wanted to make a floral cane ( which I did not make btw ), and I wanted some translucent clay to fill in the spaces. Since all I had were the crumbly clay , and no amount hammering was helping me out in making them workable , I finally decided to give a go with baby oil to soften it up.

I was very hesitant about doing this , because the very first pack of translucent clay I bought was crumbly, and I attempted to soften it by adding baby oil. It unfortunately backfired. All the pieces I attempted  using that batch were crumbly after baking, even though the other pieces ( which did not contain translucent) baked just fine.

Yes , I can use TLS / clay softner as well , but the thing is , TLS & clay softners are rare here.they are impossible to find. I do not want to use TLS here , and finish my stash , so this was the only option.And with so many clayers swearing by it , it must contain some truth ,even if my first experiment was a disaster.

Anyway, this time it worked.

What did I do differently ?
 I worked the oil in without natural absorption the first time , baked it within a few hours to a day after softening it.
The second time , I smashed the clay and put it in a ziploc. Poured more oil than I planned, and forgot about it for around four days,Then made it into an oily (icky) blob and wrapped with a printer paper , and left it to leach for half a day.This resulting clay was softer , but not even. So I then worked it with my hands , part by part ( took me a few hours ) eventually resulting in an even soft texture. I left it for a day ( in another ziploc) and then took a small piece and randomly put in a few drops of alcohol ink. Baked it and Tada ! it

So the end result is not spectacular to look at , but what it stands for is pretty amazing to me :)

Secondary piece : My selfish piece for Onam

This is my great grand piece to wear with my kerala saree ( when I get to it).

 It took an awful amount of time and a nice  little boil sort of thing on my finger with all the chaffing from the mini pliers.

 I bought a few ball end pins last month.Even though it was clearly mentioned 20 mm , I happily bought it ( I didnt see ( UGH )). What happened was that they were too tiny for my original plan , so I had to scrap that . For the next trial I used some gold colored seed beads instead. They were still surprisingly difficult to wrap around.
Then I tried to reduce the thickness of the clay instead ( made other disks) , but they crumbled( after already using up quite a number of my limited stock of ball ends).So I went back to the original plan. As you can see, the wrapping is below par , some have one wrap , some have two. I am too exhausted to sit and redo it, since it only for me,I guess I will just keep fixing it if something happens. On the other hand they are quite snug , and I don't think they will fall off.

Both the earrings look quite heavy , but they are quite light weight ! The second one looks quite dressy and its gold , so hopefully I can wear it for some function soon.


Thanks for reading this lengthy & rambly post :) Happy Onam everyone ! Wishing you & your family peace & prosperity !Have a great day :)

#2015PCChallenge : Week 32 : Colorful Rustic cuffs

Hi !

This time I made a simple, yet colorful rustic style cuffs.These are the first attempts of this style for me , so will be working on this style for the next two weeks as well.
I have wanted to make these ever since I bought the Rustic beads tutorial from the BlueBottleTree blog , but I kept putting it off.I was feeling rather "off" for the last month, so I thought I shall revisit the basics and this was the result.
While I am quite happy with them , there are quite few kinks to be worked out.
Just one pic with both the bangles this time.

Thanks for reading & have a great day !

#2015PCChallenge : Week 31 : Floral Bangles

Hi !

I wanted to make something cheerful & some thing very colorful this week.I call these my adult sized kiddie bangles :)

While they look quite similar , they are not identical. They follow slightly different methods even though the end result is quite These are based on the week 10 entries , using translucent liquid & alcohol inks.

so here both the primary & secondary pieces :

Both are very colorful , but the bottom flowers look like they grow in the water & the ones one the top look like creepers on a wall. Incidentally , I wanted the blue to represent the sky ( lol ).

I am not happy with the finish of the bottom bangle , so that would go into my private stash.I shall be putting the top one up for sale soon :)

Thanks for reading ! Have a great day !

#2015PCChallenge : Week 30

Hi !

I keep thinking that this challenge will get easier as weeks pass on by, but it has not happened yet. I planned to have an easy month this time , and I set myself no boundaries at all. I experimented a bit , tried on a bit of bargello , a few faux ceramic jhimkis , a bit of mokume gane trials and made a few leaf canes to keep for later.

I wanted to make a few leafy bangles for this week , unfortunately all my flower petal canes have dried out :( . I am very very sad . They crumble when I try to cut them. I have now  put a bit of TLS on them and wrapped in a plastic sheet to rest , hopefully it shall come out fine. There is a shortage of white Premo & white translucent  in all the stores I buy from , this makes me bit wary to make petal canes again , as I don't want to waste the bit of white clay I have.

After that , I wanted to try making a mask , similar to the one worn during masquerades( shaped like a sleeping mask lol ) , I made a mess of that as well. I certainly learnt a lot , but wasted a fair bit of clay.

By now, more than half the week has passed me by. I was feeling pretty despondent by now, so I thought I shall try a mokume gane. Another failed attempt to my name :( . My color choices were terrible , and I have a lot to learn.

In between all of this , I was making a few jhimkis to list in my store . Frankly they were the only thing I am happy with this week.I did not want to list jhimkis again , but they are the only completed pieces I have , so here they are :

Primary piece : Extra large Jhimki in red , gold & pearl.This measures 4 cm at the widest.

This is the secondart piece : There are three of these jhimkis. They are quite small , measuring around 2.5 cms at the widest.

Thanks for reading , have a great day !