Polymer clay challenge week 18 – toggle

07 Thursday May 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work

Tags

2015PCchallenge, Cate van Alphen, green toggle, handmade bead, leaf button, leaf cane, polymer clay

This week I made the inevitable leaves for my green polymer clay challenge. I started off with something else that was a complete disaster (I’ll see if I can rescue it some time). So I started again by making a leaf cane using this free tutorial (which was actually one of the main reasons I bought and extruder) and then I made lots of leaf buttons.

Leaf buttons by Cate van Alphen

It was fun trying different shapes and sizes. Some of them (not pictured) were too thin and snapped. I couldn’t resist adding a touch of silver acrylic paint to highlight the vein texture.

Leaf button toggle by Cate van Alphen

I made wire loops for some of the buttons. The oval-shaped loop worked best for being large enough to fit the button through, but not so big that the button fell out by accident. I also like that it looks a bit leafy too.

Polymer clay and wire toggle by Cate van Alphen

I made a sheet of patterned clay using slices of leaf cane which I cut into a doughnut shape. I used silver coloured wire to make a bar and loop to complete the toggle.

Green bead toggle by Cate van Alphen

Then I spend a ridiculous amount of time figuring out how to add a shank loop to the back of the bead that I made using the hole from the doughnut. (Sorry I forgot to photograph the back.) The wire loop is one of the round ones that was too big for the leaf button.