Tutorial : Super Simple Textured bead : Beginner level

Hi !

I was in a bit of rut for the past few months. Its still supremely hot here ( 42 degree Celsius) , and caning is impossible. Most of the premo I have is super soft , and I was very frustrated claying . I was watching TV and I randomly started making these. It felt so good , because it takes minimum effort & great results.
On thinking about it now , these are based on the paper bead making techniques , I just changed the medium & added texture for interest.
I have tried these with canes and I didn't enjoy them much asthe cane work just gets hidden in the spiral.


Materials needed :

1. Polymer clay 
2. Roller / Pasta machine
3. Texture implements 
4. Tooth pick
5. Cutter

In Anti-clockwise order : Roller,A jar cover with texture, Premo polymer clay , Cutters , hand made texture stamp, wooden texture stamp , toothpick

Process :

1. Condition your clay based on your need.You can make around 8 beads from .5 ounce of P.C or a quarter of the Premo! bar I have used for illustration here.

2. After conditioning your clay , roll it to out to an even thickness. In the pasta machine I used , the fourth thinnest setting is ideal or around 1.5 millimeters ( apprx). I found this was best , not too thick but thick enough to take the texture.

3. After that is done , use your stamp and gently impress the pattern onto the clay. Try using a bit of water or a bit of corn flour on the stamp if your stamp is sticking on the clay and/or tearing it.

Clay with the design stamped on it

4. Now get your cutters and cut them in such a way that they have the design on them. I prefer using the narrow cutter as its easier , but it can be easily substituted with round cutters or oval cutters
(Using an oval cutter or a circle  cutter : Cut out a circle / oval with the pattern on it and re-cut it using the same cutter again , making a crescent shape. Discard the crescent and use the other part.)

5. Take your toothpick , the lightly wrap around an edge over it . Then continue wrapping the bead.

6. Once it looks like as in the picture below , slowly ease it out of the tooth pick.Your bead is ready !

7.Alternatively ,use the toothpick to poke a hole into the bead if you are not interested in using the hole already made.If you do so , it becomes a junction bead. The secondary piercing with the toothpick is not mandatory.

8. Now bake your beads as per the temperature on your clay packet , and for the recommended time.

Here  are some baked beads !!!

Note : I had initially made these beads using cold porcelain , so that's a medium you can easily use.

Have fun making these super easy beads ! I would love you to see what you make if you use this tutorial .
Thanks for reading & have a great day !

#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 35 : caned bangles

Hi !

I discovered that I had a 2oz slab of Premo wasabi with me . I was not sure what I could do with it. I made a skinner blend of it with white and paired it with a skinner blend of navy blue & white. These were the results.
I actually liked the cane and the color wasabi waaay more than I thought I would. I unfortunately reduced the canes too much ( never know when to stop :( ).

Thanks for dropping in ! Have a great day :)

#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 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 24 : Hibiscus cane

Hi !

I am so glad this is the third week ! Every week of this monthly floral challenge is tougher than the last.I expected it to be easier as the month wore on ( as it normally happens with me) , but this was a tough week.

I decided that this week my attention would be turned towards hibiscus flowers.

Hibiscus flowers are commonly known as shoe flowers .I normally call it  Chemparathi , which is the  Malayalam word for it.Until I moved out of Kerala, I never realized how much I missed the dash of color this flower always brings , it just about grows in every garden and quite abundantly in the wild too.There many varieties and colors , mostly due to cross pollination. The most commonly found are the bright red shoe flowers , along with the pastel pinks and yellows.

Chemparathis in my memory are all tangled up with my memories of my Grandma.One thing I remember, she used to always make sherbets out of the red ones which grew in abundant profusion in our house.It was a trick of hers to give them to visitors and when they oohed and aahed oved the taste and finally when asked where to buy them from,she would tell them she made it and everyone would be surprised. Our regular visitors always had some at their home , she was not stingy about giving it away.

She  used to add the flowers to her  hair oil  , and added them for me as well when she would send me some. My grandma had thick , jet black,  beautiful curls  and hardly any grey hair well into her seventies.Now that she is no more, I buy a version from the Ayurvedic shops , but they are no match for my grandmas recipe.Eventually I hope I can make them myself.

Even though this was a tough challenge , it was a nice one as well. I always forget how amazing my grandmothers are , all three of them , and this week as I was working on this , I was pleasantly reminded of it again and again.

I was unable to make any pieces of jewelry this time. So I am submitting two hibiscus canes. These were quite difficult for me to make as I had to visualize the flower and make it. I did see some canes , but they were single colored or dual colored , but I wanted the beauty of the colors to shine through.

I am a novice at cane making , especially floral canes . While I am satisfied with the way they turned out for trial 1 & 2 ,I now know how to improve it. I will probably go back to them and give it a try later.

Primary piece ( cane ) : Red hibiscus.

This was the first hibiscus cane I made. Took me around 5 hours. It was longer than I anticipated , and I didn't get it right. The stamen along with the pollen did not look right at all. Not to mention the green color just looked strange,
So I made the next one.

Secondary piece ( cane ) : Pink & yellow hibiscus

This took me about an hour from start to finish. Even though the other  cane didn't turn out so well , it helped me a lot with what to look out for in this cane.
This cane also has issues , such as the petals look squished and the pink area looks like the background rather than part of the petal itself.On the upside ,I am quite certain how to improve these particular issues , but I am sure the next cane will teach me some more.

Hibiscus flower

I still don't know what to make with these , so I am putting them away for now. Hopefully the tube light would come on soon and when it does , I shall update the post .

Thank you so much for reading. Have a great day :)


Update !

I just saw that the polymer clay group 52 weekly clay projects have some amazing hibiscus canes ! I unfortunately did not see these canes before I attempted mine. I sure feel stupid , because I am infact part of that group on FB.I could have saved oodles of time !
I saw a group pic upload on Pinterest and there is an indentical pink and yellow hibiscus cane right on top ! I dont know who made it ,  I would love to know :)
The canes look quite similar , but I am going to try making those to see where lie the differences.

#2015PCChallenge : Week 19 : Neck pieces , mirrored style !

Hi !

It is already week 19 for the #2015PCChallenge! Wow ! That's a lot of learning for me :)

I have accumulated a lot of scrap clay during this process , as I tend to experiment as much as I can.This particular pieces were made from a recent cane experiment.

I recently joined the 52 weekly cane projects group on Facebook.The theme of the week when I joined was homestead. A little hobbit home immediately came into my mind.This picture by Ted Nasmith is what I was thinking of.
I did not know of the artist before I searched it out , even though the picture has been a favorite for years.I feel really terrible about that.

Anyway , my cane looks nothing like I planned ( LOL) , it was pretty fun never the less. I think I should proceed like a sane person from week 1 and THEN go into the second year :)

I used up the spare pieces from making the cane and also the pieces left over after reducing it,

Both the pieces are made using the Natasha bead technique. Even though it is an easy technique on paper , I found it takes some restraint from me to form these pieces.

The primary piece reminds me of a bubbling brook ( as the saying goes) , the plants in it swaying to a rhythm unknown to us.It is finished with silver colored chain.

The secondary piece reminds me of wahat I think plants on a ice would look like.It is finished with cotton cord and some rainbow beads , I still have plenty left over :)
I had cut a rather unlikely piece for the secondary piece. I cleaned it up a bit , but I left the trailing "tail" pieces as it is.If you notice , it has two separate Natasha pieces joined together.

In case any of you were wondering , here is my cane and "the idea". They definitely don't match! I sure have a long way to go!Please ignore the spelling comedies , if you can read my handwriting.

Thanks for reading through ! Have a good day !

In the garden : Week 12 #2015PCChallenge

Hi !

Its week three of the jungle challenge and I realized one thing , that  I love my jungle leaf cane. I am almost finished with it though , hope I can make another one just as awesome :)

The plan for this week has kind of turned towards home , towards the garden in our Kochi house. Kochi , like much of Kerala is a humid place , which makes it  very green. I never quite realized what an incredibly green state I lived till I moved onto college. Kerala has a lushness that Ihave never seen anywhere else. Green is certainly the predominant natural color,the various shades of green that pop up during the year are uncountable.

We haven't lived in the Kochi house for years , but I still remember the garden and my parents' constant struggle to keep it weed free. It could have been a house build in the rain-forests , ok probably not, but there was a small pond right next to us, and beside it grew huge towering bamboos , tall cotton trees ( teeming with little orange warrior insects) , wild cashew, wild almonds ,cassava plants and  yam plants with giant leaves.This bounty also meant , varieties of birds and snakes (hanging very picturesquely from the branches of some tree)  came to visit, and mongooses too.It was a tiny spot , but I could have spent the whole day studying it and the designs and patterns it presented to me,
This tendency meant we had a lot of Anthuriums and orchids growing aplenty in our garden. Roses never took too well.

This pendant was meant to be  jungly one , but somewhere along the way it went home :)

That was my primary piece , and here is my companion piece. This is an attempt to make Jhumkas.
Lots to fix in that prototype , but I am happy my idea worked out , so presenting it as my companion piece.

Thanks for reading ! Have a good day !

Some trials and failures

Hi !

This was a rather strange week. A lot of excitement on the shopping front and a lot of disappointment from the results front.
Last week , I finally splurged and a bought a lot of supplies for my polymer clay addiction. I bought six shades of Adirondack alcohol inks (6 !!! ) , a booklet each of imitation copper leaf and gold leaf ( I couldnt find any in silver ) ,a few tutorials , a few polymer clay books ( through Kindle for PC ), amazing mold putty and a Dremel , which hasn't been delivered yet.

What I did not count on was my natural tendency to spaz out. I went mad. I was trying to do everything , all together , my brain coming up with  new ideas every other second.I could not keep a track of it. I could not sleep , my brain was spamming me with strangest possibilities. AAArgh! I do appreciate my spontaneous brain , but it was very tiring.I have a been a mute person more less , this whole week. If talked it was only of polymer clay gobble de gook.

So in effect , I had a lot of trial pieces and a fair bit of learning.For one , dont always start sanding with lower grits.Sometimes its just not needed. Turns I needed  a experiment to finally keep this is in mind.

This is my first time trial of copper imitation foil and alcohol inks , which apparently leads to crackling technique. That was a pleasant surprise. I liked how this turned out. However , I sanded it a
bit too much and I thus sanded out the foil. There is a thin layer of translucent clay on top of it , then I applied Acrylic gloss varnish. This is the first time I have used any sealer / gloss on polymer clay. I ended up with brush strokes ,not easily visible to others , but glaring enough for me . To see if I can rectify it , I baked it again.The acrylic does seem smoother.

Another thing that I experimented with was my photography technique. I have a Fujifilm S 3300 , one of my most favorite possessions. People make fun of me a bit , because I tend to shoot pictures of tiny flowers and play of light rather than people.I don't like my photos being taken either , I am too fidgety, standing still is a total trial.My camera is fabulous for outdoor photography , which is what I do best.
 After shifting to Hyderabad a few months back , I discovered something I deeply disliked. There are no light spots. I always keep a few spots around the house as designated light spots , where the natural light is most ample , where my dog would fight me for it , if I had a dog.I  These light spots are my temples and my new house does not have any save one.That one light spot is on the tiny side grill of the entrance to my apartment. There is a stone there , on which I place my jewelry and shoot. I have taken all the PCChallenge photographs to date , on that circular - ish stone , maybe around 7-10 inches across. If I miss something , my jewelry would fall down 3 floors and break. Thankfully this has not happened yet , but I worry.

When I tried to take the photos of the blue-green ( earth ) cabochon outside, it took me forever to get the copper glints.On some half baked memory of reading  how to set up a jewelry photo booth , I improvised and shot these.I am not a big fan , but hey, practice right.

Remember the weekly challenge ? Well , I could not do anything. I had to try all the toys , all at once. Now I have basically nothing to show as a completed piece for my weekly challenge.I am thinking of  sanding and polishing my sister color bangles to submit.I made it last week , right after the jungle flower cuffs and bangles  , week 8 challenge. While the base idea is complete , it still has some work left.

Thanks for reading this lengthy post :)
Have a good day !

New toys

Hi !

Its incredible that somehow during the  past six months I am almost only working with polymer clay.I  have totally abandoned all other experiments.I might have to  change the description of the blog also, considering I am not doing a whole lot of experiments other than with polymer clay.

I am on a shopping spree this month ! Polymer clay related of course. I bought some Adirondack alcohol inks , the amazing mold putty and Imitation copper and gold foil. Yaay ! I am very excited.And I put in an order for my Dremel :)

Lets see what experiments I can do :)

Have a good day !

Week 7 : Polymer Clay Challenge : Dragon Cuff & Bangle

Hi !

I am presenting both original and companion piece together : My dragon cuff ( primary) and my dragon bangle ( companion)

This is a bit of miracle as far as I am concerned , you see this is a floral bangle that got burned. I had somehow turned the temp knob up and I did not notice it. My nose isn't too functional ( myriad allergies) so I did not smell it out.When I happily went after an hour, opened the oven and saw it spewing out the toxic smoke , my heart was broken.I mechanically went through the crazing process, that's what dunking it in ice cold water is called, and waited for the smell to go away.

After a few sad hours I went back to the bangle / bracelet and I looked at them. Strangely , I liked it. I wore it for a few hours, then my husband came back from office and was all " whoa , that's a cool dragon bracelet ! " I was a happy girl.

I am also a lazy girl , I hate sanding.So this was lying around for a few weeks now and I found it a while back and I tried to fix it :) I love the end result !

Thanks for reading :)

Week 6 : Rustic style necklace

Hi !

This challenge is turning out to be real fun.I have an excuse to sit and play with clay all the time now , and this makes me a happy girl.

This is what I have for week 6 : A purple and yellow rustic style necklace , inspired by the Rustic beads tutorial from the blue bottle tree. I am lousy at naming my creations , have to somehow learn how to do that.

This is just the first one , making a few more companion pieces as usual.Shall post them soon.

Thanks for reading :)
Have a great day!

Week 5 : Polymer Clay Challenge 2015

Hi !

Here I am with my first post for the #2015PCchallenge. Hopefully , this challenge is not only going to help me push my creative boundaries , but also teach me some discipline !

I jump started directly on to the week 5 , but this is my first submission.

I had started with 2 bracelet / cuffs last week before entering the contest , I was able to complete one for this challenge.

As usual, all I can see are glaring mistakes and lack of finishing. While these are a pretty good improvement over my very first trials ( you can see the disastrous earrings in the first few entries) , their finish still leave a lot to be desired.

It was very difficult to sand the little bumps.I completely changed the shape of most them trying to get the original colour back. The tiny snakes and bumps were linty and I was lost quite lost trying to clean them up.

If anyone interested in polymer clay is reading,this I would appreciate it if you could share the way you clean out and sand tiny crevices in your polymer clay projects.

There is a partner bangle to this blue fellow , I am trying to clean up that one without distorting the original form. I shall try to put my final version soon .

Thank you for reading.I appreciate comments and feedback. :)

Have a good day!

Polymer Clay : Experiment 2 : Simple canes : Bulls eye

One of the most fascinating things about polymer clay is the ability to make canes.There are many types of polymer clay canes , however for my trial here I have chosen to start off with the bulls eye cane.This seems to be the easiest cane to make.

Items I have used: Detailed explanation here.

1.Polymer clay : I have used purple,gold,black and white colors from Premo! by Sculpey.
2.Dedicated cutter
3.Dedicated blades
4.Rolling pins
5.Plastic sheets
6.Tooth picks
7.Aluminium foil trays : 2
8.Binder clips : 2
9.Oven Thermometer
10.Toaster oven
11.Wire : I have used 20 gauge
12.Cornflour
13.Zip Loc bags


Process : These are very simple to make.I have not followed any tutorial here.I have made some bulls eye canes then just cut them and rejoined them.In two places I have wrapped them again in other colors such as black and white.
It does take a bit of time , but its fun :)

1. I cut equal sized pieces of purple and gold clay.Just mash them with your fingers to soften them , then roll it in your palm to make little globes.Once they are merging seamlessly , the clay is conditioned.Store unused clay in separate Ziploc bags.

2. I made snakes with all the separate colors.Then I used the rolling pin to flatten them.Do this till you have two identical pieces of flattened clay. I cut both the flattened snakes into half.

3.I took one half of both the flattened pieces and rolled it again into equal sized snakes.Wrap the purple snake with the gold piece and gold snake with the purple piece.Ensure it gets covered completely,only leaving the ends free and then cut off the extra from the sheet.

4.This is a bulls eye cane.But I didnt like the look of it a whole lot , soI then rolled them into longer but equal sized snakes.I cut of the ends.

5.You can see how the cane has turned out. I got through the very first step when it comes to making polymer clay canes , not very neatly I am afraid.

So that's the bulls eye cane !

Now that the boring bit was done , I had lots of fun re-arranging them,putting on different colored layers and squishing them to different shaped canes.And this is the fun part , this also takes time though.I used basic colors because I dont really how colors combine in polymer clay and these were safe options.

I made a base of scrap clay, thinly sliced the canes I made , stuck them on the base , used slight pressure on the rolling pin to blend it.I then used cutters to make them into even sized bits and baked them.

Baking

I have baked the items between two aluminum foil pans.I pre-heated the oven for ten minutes for 130 degree Celsius, then baked them for 45 minutes. 

Thankfully , nothing got burned and I was a happy girl !

The very first one is lightly sanded and polished by hand , the other two are quite raw.They do not look professional by any standards yet.

Thanks for reading.Your comments are always welcome :)

Polymer Clay : Experiment 1 : Baking

The story so far :

The first time I stumbled on to polymer clay was during my 12th standard board examinations.I am not quite sure how , but suddenly there were these Google pages full of polymer clay and cool things made out of polymer clay.I saw stars and dreams in a millisecond.Just looking at the fascinating possibilities kept me in check for a little while , then I decided I wanted it.

Accordingly I started searching for its availability in India.Even as I searched  extensively, I drew a  complete blank .There was nothing online and nobody in any craft shops knew what I was talking about.I reached out to some Indian artists working with Polymer clay, I learned that  :

1. They were settled outside of India, where polymer clay is easily available.

2.They have friends/ family settled outside India , who bring the P.C to India or ship it in.

3.They buy it from web stores based outside of India.

At first I was greatly excited by the 3rd option and I thought ,"Wow! I shall now buy it from web stores !".I calculated the conversion charges from foreign currency to Indian rupee." Hmm", I thought",Expensive ? Yes.But not super expensive !I can totally buy this ! ". 

Unfortunately for me , I had not looked through the shipping charges involved.The second I did so, there was a big BOOM ( in my head ). My dreams blew up , and floated down to the earth in little realistic pieces.
You see , the shipping charges were 5 to 6 times the value of the clay.I could not afford it at all.

That rude awakening happened around seven years back.I still found P.C fascinating,I read up as much as I could anticipating the wonderful day where it would be affordable for me.At first ,I checked the prices every few weeks,then every few months , but seeing no remarkable change, I became resigned to my fate and stopped looking at all.

In the meanwhile ,I found cold porcelain around 2 years previously.Its pretty great , and absolutely affordable .The only hitch is that  I don't trust the durability for making jewelry.I found that sometimes, metal corroded in reaction with it.Clearly the metal needs to be put in after the clay has cured (air dried ) completely, but if the metal is not put in immediately , it may not stay in.It was a bit of catch 22. I still love making beads with it , I leave it to dry for a few days and make sure I don't put any metal in it during this time.

Last month we were shifting houses and to alleviate my nervousness and snappy behavior, I started looking at polymer clay art (which calms me down),and somehow I stumbled onto  yahoo answers with the link to where polymer clay can be bought in India.I thought it would be fake or at least misleading ( a lot of links go back to non Indian websites that ship it to India at a very high rate ).This particular link was real enough though, and affordable and I bought a sampler pack !

I was very excited.I tried to make canes, needless to say,it did not turn out great.In the meanwhile I read that toaster oven temperatures are not very reliable so ,I ordered for a oven thermometer to use with  the Croma toaster oven I purchased.
So everything's good till now , except I got impatient. And that's how my first experiment with P.C came in to being.

Note: I did not take any before pictures for the first lot, so only the outcome pics are here for that.
     
Experiment 1 :

Materials used : (Please go through here for a more detailed explanation of the basic tools).The materials italicized are not mandatory for making a bead , I had them so I used them.
1.Polymer clay : I bought Premo! by sculpey. Its a sampler set with 1oz of 12 colors. The quantity as you figure is not much.I just mixed up some colors to use for my first baking trial.
2. Toaster oven
3. Plastic sheets
4. Rolling Pin
5. Dedicated clay knife
6. Dedicated Cutters
7.Oven thermometer
8.Fire extinguisher ( not used , only for emergencies )
9.Some wire : I already had some 20 gauge, color coated copper wire that I purchased from a hard ware shop. If the shop person does not know the gauge,look for a thickness approximating earring posts.Again,any gauge can be used,its just easier to work with this gauge.If you can get regular copper wire ( without color coating) , that is always better
10.Jewelry pliers

If this is the first time you are doing this please set aside at least an hour or two.It is lots of fun , and you know how time just passes by without you knowing anything about it when you are having fun.
I am not going ahead into the making a bead part of it , mainly because I already conducted the first experiment before making this blog and I only have the outcome pics.

What did I do :

1.Condition the clay : The clay is quite stiff when left alone.Before using it for any project , roll it in your hands , or using the roller so that clay softens. Using your hands works out well, because the  heat from your hand  warms up the clay a little , which in turn softens it.Once it becomes soft knead it well, so that all air bubbles ( if any) are released , which ensures that cracking will reduce.

2.Make the bead :I just rolled up two identical pieces of pc in my hand , of a color I liked.I wanted to make a pair of earrings , so I shaped them identically into something vaguely resembling a dagger. Trust me, its quite easy to do.

3.I made a little horse shoe shaped wire piece, and put it into the bead.(One end of the wire is a loop , then it comes together and then separates out).This is not a mandatory step as this further requires jewelry making pliers.You can just poke a hole in the bead and be done with it.

4. Now this has to be baked at 130 degree Celsius (275 Fahrenheit). I thought frankly this was going to be the easiest of the whole job.Oh boy! To put it simply , I set up the rack of the oven , set the dial to 130  and the timer to 30 mins and then I went about my merry way.

5. This was the result :

While I tried to prettify it ,as you can clearly tell, this is an experiment that did not go well.To put it simply it was major burrrn for my "I can get everything done right, the very first time" attitude.It looked like bird droppings hanging from a wire.The whole kitchen smelled really toxic , and I had to open all the windows and doors.While it did put me back in my place ( that of a novice who has no practical knowledge) , I was thankful that it did not poison anyone else and did not set fire to anything.So another thing added to my list : fire extinguisher.

The reason I put up the picture was because there are hardly any pictures of what happens when things go wrong.Hopefully I will get better in time and I wont put up such gruesome pictures anymore.Anyway, to proceed ,

What I learnt : ( After going through search results for " why did my polymer clay get burnt")

1.Invest in an Oven thermometer.Even though your toaster oven may have a temperature dial , its accuracy may be well off. ( My oven is off by around 50 Celsius )

2.Try to keep temperature consistent.Ovens have a tendency to both spike the temperature and cool down sporadically to maintain the temperature on the dial.But this may mean that the oven may heat up to a higher degree than 130 and burn your clay before cooling down.

a. Keep the polymer clay inside two aluminium foil containers ( such as the ones restaurants commonly use for packing food ), clip it and then cure it.The temperature inside the aluminium foil remains more consistent.

b.Preheat the oven before curing clay .I did not know this at all, since I have never used an oven before this.

c.Use ceramic tiles to line the oven and containers that are being used.

d. Do not disappear after putting on the timer.Be physically present so that you may check the temperature to dial it down if required , or to remove the item if it starts burning.

e.I also cook it for an hour at least now.I have found my oven is more even tempered while cooking longer duration's.But do not put pre baked and then painted pieces in for an hour , 10 mins is sufficient.( updated : 19.02.2015)

That's all for today ! In case you were wondering, I did make the beads once more , and it came out all right.I shall update on how exactly I did that very soon.
Thanks for reading.Please do drop in with your comments , they are always welcome.