Art Vessel – week 39

Tags

2016PCchallenge, ArtVessel, polymer clay

It seems my grotto bottle (which you may remember from week 23 and 24) has been waiting for the Art Charm Swap reveal*. Perhaps there is some quantum resonance as I planned to add some similar tiny frogs around the outside?

* Unfortunately the Art Charm Auction has been slightly delayed while Jen Cameron arranges a venue that will ensure all the proceeds go to Beads of Courage. I will share the link as soon as it starts… after I’ve made my bids 😉

Grotto Bottle WIP by Cate van Alphen

The decoration is STILL not finished, but it is starting to look more interesting. I’ve added some glass gems, which I originally prepared for my Art Charms before deciding they were too big and starting again. I’ve linked them together with swirls of “silver” coloured polymer clay. I was thinking of them as metallic bones in the landscape, except they now look more like liquid mercury. Perhaps the rocks are bones, and these are more like veins.

I’m planning to add some moss and plants for the little quantum frogs now on my work board. There may be bugs and a fungal infection or two before I’m finished. I’ll see how it grows.

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Polymer clay challenge – week 19

Tags

ArtVessel, beads, bracelet, mosaic, polymer clay

This week my Art Vessel is still a work in progress, but I do have a bracelet that I made.

Work in progress by Cate van Alphen

I made this bracelet mainly to practice knotting beads.

Polymer Clay Challenge week 10

Tags

2016PCchallenge, art bead, ArtVessel, bracelet, handmade bead, polymer clay

This week for my 2016 Polymer Clay challenge I have a sneak peek of a lantern that I’m making and another ballet-time bracelet.

Polymer clay and glass lantern WIP by Cate van Alphen

I decided to do another lantern since the previous one I made was a bit disappointing when illuminated. This time I’m using glass nuggets so it should be more exciting when lit. I’ve only completed a small section, but it’s promising. I just hope it will hold together when I’m done since I’m intending to leave some gaps.

Yellow polymer clay bead bracelet by Cate van Alphen

I used beads from last year’s Yellow Palette to make this bracelet. It’s available from my Folksy shop.

Buried Treasure

Tags

ceramic, pottery

Unusually the sun came out today so we went for a walk down by the river. I always love finding interesting bits of pottery (it slows down my gardening considerably), and with all the recent flooding there was a bumper crop today. Here’s a small selection of what I found:

I don’t know how to tell the age of the shards, but some of them look pretty old to me. I find it amazing to think that pottery and its use has not changed much in centuries. Perhaps 100 years ago some of these shards were used for someone’s Christmas dinner.

I’ll clean them up and see if I can wire-wrap some of the pieces or incorporate them with polymer clay in pendants somehow.

Polymer clay challenge week 50 – focal WIP

Tags

2015PCchallenge, crushed helix, damascus ladder, focal bead, polymer clay, red

I’ve had to accept a work in progress for this week’s focal bead. All the extra Christmas activities have been taking their toll on my time.

Focal bead WIP by Cate van Alphen

The pattern on the bead is a crushed helix (or reduced Damascus Ladder). I still need to finish the ends (I’m going to wrap a string of polymer around the domes) and sand the bead.

Maybe I’ll finish next weekend (sometime after I finish making Christmas gifts, and beads for next week’s challenge but before we go Christmas shopping)? Hmmm, ok, maybe not NEXT weekend, but surely before the end of the year? Oh wait, that’s only two weeks away!

Polymer clay challenge week 42 – bead

Tags

2015PCchallenge, handmade bead, Indigo, necklace, polymer clay, violet

My beads for this week of the 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge are not particularly exciting. I made spacer beads to finish off a necklace I started back in Indigo.

Indigo necklace and spacer beads WIP by Cate van Alphen

I also made spacer beads from the other colours in my Violet palette.

Violet palette spacer beads by Cate van Alphen

I was going to make some more interesting beads to go along with them, but I didn’t manage to get to it.

Polymer clay challenge week 39 – WIP

Tags

2015PCchallenge, flower cane, fold bead, headpin, polymer clay

I’ve had to settle for a work in progress this week of my Polymer Clay Challenge. I was supposed to be making a focal using my new violet colour palette, but I got a bit waylaid.

Cat Therien’s frangipani cane

Every time I start a new colour palette, I think I should make a cane that I can use throughout the weeks that follow, but I’ve never managed to do it. After watching Cat Therien’s frangipani cane tutorial on the Virtual Retreat, I was REALLY itchy to make a flower cane.

I decided to start by mixing up decent quantities of polymer clay, since it’s really annoying to run out of a colour part way through a cane. Then I realised my work board was pretty clogged up with sheets of veneer from previous palettes and other scraps of clay. So I decided to use up some of the left overs.

Indigo mokume gane beads by Cate van Alphen

I made fold beads, and pillowed headpins. There are still some pieces of green kaleidoscope veneer that I haven’t used yet, and I want to do some sanding to finish them off.

Blue kaleidoscope cane headpins by Cate van Alphen

Finally I started to measure out my colours and when I got to the last one, magenta, I discovered that I didn’t have a lot of it left. This was a bit of a problem since all the colours in the palette use it (yes even the grey green)! I had to start the colour measuring all over again to make smaller quantities (I decided to keep the larger quantities I had already measured aside to finish when my new magenta polymer clay arrives). In the end, I managed to mix a little of each colour, but by this point I only had time to make two petals for my flower cane.

Flower cane WIP

So although I have made some things with polymer clay this week, my official target is still a WIP.

Polymer clay challenge week 33 – toggle

Tags

2015PCchallenge, Cate van Alphen, chunky bead, handmade component, Indigo, marble, polymer clay, toggle

I was tempted to make more shank buttons this week for my indigo colour palette toggle, but then I realised time was running out for me to try some of the more interesting toggle mechanisms I’d planned at the beginning of the year.

Polymer clay clasp by Cate van Alphen

This clasp is formed from two hooks. By aligning the angular cut holes of the two pieces at 90°, they slide together to form a chain link. It’s very satisfying to open and close :D.

Indigo link clasp by Cate van Alphen

The clasp is based on one from a chunky wooden bead necklace that I found in a charity shop, but I’ve made mine from polymer clay instead of wood. It took a few prototypes to get this far, and it is still a work in progress.

Prototype clasps

The first couple of clasps were a bit too flexible for my liking, but I didn’t really want to make everything a lot bigger and thicker. I put wire inside the third attempt as reinforcement, but you can just see it peeping through on the inside of the hole.

Clasp Doh! by Cate van Alphen

From the photos above it looks like I’ve cracked it, but turn one of the hooks over and there’s wire sticking out. I lost track of which side had the gap in the wire for cutting the hole through, and I chose the wrong place. Doh!

I’ve given the link a good pull apart and although the loops do flex open slightly (the one without the wire noticeably more so) I think a necklace made using the clasp would survive a tug from a toddler. So on the bright side cutting the wrong side helps to prove that the wire does provide some support, but also that I need to think of a way to keep track of where to cut ;).

Polymer clay challenge week 14 – bead

Tags

Cate van Alphen, handmade bead, polymer clay, polymer clay beads, retro, tile bead, watercolour, yellow

This week I made yellow polymer clay beads again. I started off with some macaroni beads with random patches of colour made from leftover mokume gane sheet rolled to the thinnest setting and torn into small pieces. The result reminded me of painting watercolours onto wet paper.

Watercolour macaroni beads by Cate van Alphen

I also made a curved piece that I was going to cut up into smaller beads, but I like it too much as a whole. I think I’ll make it into a torque necklace once I’ve done a bit more sanding and tidied up the ends.

Torque necklace – WIP by Cate van Alphen

Then because it was the Easter weekend, I decided I had some time to revisit the retro beads I made earlier in the year. I thought perhaps if I made several all together it would be quicker and more efficient. It wasn’t really 😐

Yellow retro tile beads by Cate van Alphen

Almost as soon as I’d made them I wanted to switch some of the colours around. I have an idea about what’s worrying me with these beads and I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve figured out how to articulate it.

Retro tile beads by Cate van Alphen

Dry stone wall and sheep – WIP

Tags

Cate van Alphen, dry stone wall, pendant, polymer clay, sheep, stone walls

I live in a beautiful place. One of my favourite things is the way lovely surprises peep out from behind the ubiquitous dry stone walls.

I love the texture of walls too!

For a while I have wanted to make a polymer clay pendant combining the rugged stone walls with the local sheepy views.

I decided to make a window dome like I did for the daffodil necklace with a sheep peeping through.

I used a heat gun to create a crackle texture to represent the stone walls. It came out just like I wanted, so I made a selection of matching components.

I reused the sheep mould I made for Sheepfest and then I spent a bit too much time creating an environment for my sheep. Because when I put them together…

all the details get hidden :(. I don’t think I can bring myself to trap my sheepy in such a small space, so I’ll have to rethink. I’ll probably use the two pieces separately, and end up with two pendants instead (or maybe more if I need to proceed to plan C or D…).