I was a bit disappointed with my cane last week and then I remembered that previously when I’d made a similar cane I had used clay that I had made into a skinner blend first. I used the same quantities of each colour as I did last week and the same extruder die. I think the new cane is more subtle and interesting, although perhaps it could do with a few solid lines as well as the blended ones.
Green polymer clay canes by Cate van Alphen
Again I didn’t have much time this week to make my green beads, so I only made 6 using the new cane. I added the same green iridescent mica powder.
Green beads by Cate van Alphen
I was really disappointed to find that they all cracked when I baked them 😦
Cracked beads by Cate van Alphen
The worst part is – I’m not really sure why. Previously when my beads cracked I thought it was because the clay was only partly cured while I did multiple bakes. It did take a few days for me to finish off these beads, but they were raw clay throughout and sitting on a glass board, so they shouldn’t have leached. Since the cane was made from blended clay, I didn’t think it was a conditioning issue either. Now I wonder if the temperature of the oven spiked more because with only six beads, there was less polymer clay in the oven than usual.
Green beads by Cate van Alphen
Anyway they look ok in selected shots 😉 I don’t know if I’ll be able to cover them with something else since the cracks may result in air bubbles.
Fulgorine 
Before recovering with another decorative layer, how about filling the cracks with very soft (paste-like) clay first and re-baking… as an experiment? Any time I’ve had noticeable cracks seemed to be when using scrap as a core (albeit well-conditioned scrap). I do like these colours very much, Cate 🙂
Oops, too late. I couldn’t bear looking at the cracks, so I covered them again last night.
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