#2015PCChallenge : Week 36 : Resist attack!

Hi !

I am back to playing with alcohol inks this week. While I liked the bangles I made a few weeks back using the resist technique , they don't look very batik-y to me. So I have been pretty much experimenting for a bit now.

Clearly I haven't gotten a handle of how to get it right. But this particular experiment may  slightly, very slightly help me progress. At least I haven't traveled backwards this time ( I think ).

I was too tired to photograph them separately , so I just did it together :) .

Thanks for reading !Have a great day !

Also :
 Please pardon my late posts. We are having intermittent rains and frequent power cuts here , and its frustrating to upload and fail multiple times.I am thinking of even posting just once every month with four items , but I wont do it simply because its the next step  to posting once in three months and so on.
Thank you guys who still bother to read :) 

#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 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 !

Trial : Jhimki Caned and textured

Hi :)

As this week continues with the set challenge , I did not want to start anything new.I was going through my pieces stash   ( which is  full by the way) , and I saw a few half done pieces.I thought it was time to fix them up!

Since I rediscovered jhimkis last week , I sat down and made a few  caned jhimkis.I shall put those pieces up soon for sale.

These were the few pieces that were already completed. I made these in November. I was terrible at making canes , and these are the very first canes I made.These are not for sale , just for my reference.

As you can see , they are not perfect.
There are spots around the dome structure devoid of any cane and just showing the scrap clay.
The wire work is quite terrible and uneven.I had made the holes in the dome with a toothpick and this led to hole sizes of uneven sizes.I used 22 gauge of wire for wrapping both , this meant that for one piece it was just right , but the other one the wire work  just sank through.
I had not added the balls at the end as they were not staying on for me.

I have no intention of selling  them , but they are easily wearable as long they are tweaked a bit, These are the results.

I also made a few more Jhimkis before trying out the new caned versions.

These were fun to make as well.I shall try to update on the newer cane jhumki's as soon as I am done.

Thanks for reading :) Have a great day!