Gifts given

Tags

faux ivory, handmade bead, lentil, polymer clay, stained glass

Here are the gifts I made this year.

Stained glass lentil bead necklace by Cate van Alphen

This lentil bead necklace is a descendant of one of my earliest necklaces, and was actually a Christmas gift for the same sister. I hope she agrees it’s an upgrade. This one was a very easy baby to make :).

The next necklace was for a Boxing Day birthday. looks simple but it took a huge amount of time to make.

Egg bead necklace by Cate van Alphen

The first issue what the fact that the beads are ivory and white, so I had to work really carefully to keep the polymer clay clean and free from specks. The next issue, which I really felt when it was time to sand, is that the beads are…

Egg bead necklace by Cate van Alphen

BIG! Each bead is about the size of a bantam egg and there are a lot of them to make a long continuous necklace. As they say on the cookery competition programs: “Something this simple needs to be executed perfectly.”

Faux ivory egg beads by Cate van Alphen

For the surface decoration of the beads, I made a marbled cane using ivory, lots of white and transparent polymer clay (I had to redo some of them since my first cane was too yellow – doh!). Here is a tutorial I did for a marbled cane which in turn was based on this tutorial for mother of pearl.

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!

Gradient colour mixing

Tags

colour mixing, Fimo, gradient, polymer clay, skinner blend

I mentioned in my previous post that keeping my colour recipes in percentages helped with mixing gradients.

Sometimes I don’t keep track of my gradient mixes. The one above is made up of coordinating scraps of colour…

which becomes a lovely skinner blend…

that ends up as beads.

At other times e.g. for the Art Bead Scene challenge pieces, I want my gradient to include specific colours to match the inspiration painting.

Here are my colour recipes using Fimo Classic:

• Brick = 25% bordeaux, 25% yellow, 50% white
• Rust = 10% bordeaux, 90% yellow
• Mustard = 2.5% bordeaux, 47.5% yellow, 50% white

I take my grid paper, and using 1 square to represent 10% of the recipe, I mark out the target colours. I leave spaces between them to allow for a gradient blend. I chose to put the bordeaux in the middle for the mustard colour on the right because it was such a small percentage I thought it would be difficult to cut accurately if it were on the bottom.

Then I mark diagonals for the blends. I chose to fade to white on the edges.

Then I cut out the paper shapes to use as a template for the clay.

Here is the resulting blend. I’ve included the target colours – there is a slight difference as the swatches have been baked while the blend is still raw. This method means I can mix the colours at the same time that I make the blend (instead of mixing the 3 colours separately and then blending them).

And here are the beads I made (with an additional magenta colour).

Pearls of polymer clay

Tags

art bead, Art Charm Swap, Cate van Alphen, handmade beads, kanji, mica powder, pearl, perfect pearls, polymer clay

I recently discovered that some mica powders (e.g. Perfect Pearls) have an added resin which means they do not need to be varnished to seal. WOOT! I love the shimmer, but I have been avoiding using them because I find varnishing such a hassle – all that washing brushes and waiting for it to dry…

Since then I haven’t been able to stop myself adding pearlescent powder just about everything.

Kanji pendant by Cate van Alphen. The symbol means “friend”. It is available in my Etsy store.

Blueberry frit beads by Cate van Alphen

These are Stroppel round Natasha beads. See my free tutorial for how I made them.

Yes, I only have one colour of mica powder at the moment, but I have ordered a few more… so watch this space for more pearls of polymer clay.

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In other news, I have received my Art Charms 🙂 but you will need to wait till after the reveal on 14th November 2014 to see my treasures as I want to include some of the artists’ inspiration.

Rustic stack beads

Tags

beads, earring, free tutorial, gradient, handmade, necklace, polymer clay, rustic, Sonya Girodon

I was inspired by Sonya Girodon’s necklace “Skeleton Coast“ to make beads by stacking layers of polymer clay.

I was quite pleased with my efforts at the time but unfortunately now that I look at them in comparison to hers they look horribly juvenile. Or maybe it’s just because I’m having an “everything I do is horrible” day? 😦

Gradient stack bead earrings by Cate van Alphen

Earrings with dangle by Cate van Alphen

Anyway check out Sonya’s work, she even shares a tutorial for making beads similar to the focal ones in the necklace.

Making your background better

Tags

background, handmade paper, how to make paper, paper, photo backgrounds, photography

A while back, with the help of this blog post about photo backgrounds, I decided I needed to pep up my plain white cartridge paper backgrounds.

The photo on the right has a better sheet of paper which I think is warmer and more interesting, but it also looks like a fly has been rather busy! I had a scrap from a lovely sheet of handmade paper with wonderful texture, but…

I thought the purple inclusions were just too distracting. So I decided I needed to buy some handmade paper. Then I thought: “Hang on, I have hands, I can make paper!”.

I don’t think this is the proper way to make paper, but it works. 🙂 A few years ago, I even used this method to “paint” landscapes (excuse the retro quality of the photo).

Scatter a layer of torn up cotton wool squares and scraps of toilet paper or tissue on a sheet of sculpting mesh.

Then I separated the fibres from an off-cut of gold organza fabric and scattered these over the top. I think you could use strands of cotton thread if you don’t have fabric off-cuts lying about.

Repeat the layers of cotton, tissue and fibres several times until there are no holes.

Cover with a second sheet of mesh.

Now rub wallpaper paste through the holes of the mesh. Turn the whole lot over and repeat on the other side. You want to make sure that the glue saturates all the layers.

The next step is the most difficult – waiting for it to dry. Once it is dry, carefully peel off the mesh (try not to stab yourself on the edge of the mesh – no one actually wants to see the blood, sweat and tears on the finished creation).

While I was waiting, my little owls flew off to a new home, so I chose the next most neutral earrings I had to photograph with the new background.

There are a few hard edges from the cotton squares which I should have shredded more thoroughly. What do you think? Better?

How to make mobius Christmas ornaments

Tags

christmas ornament, Christmas ornaments, craftworkshop, decoration, extruder cane, free tutorial, how to, jelly roll cane, metallic clay, ornament, polymer clay

Here are some videos of the demo I did at Craftworkshop making mobius Christmas ornaments.

The first video has some information about using metallic clay, and I made a jelly roll cane.

Next I made a surface sheet with an Easy Peasy Extruder Cane thanks to Ron Lehocky (see this article about him – he’s made over 24,000 hearts to sell for charity!).

Finally I make the ornament and… it all goes wrong!

I used a different brand of clay for the second try ornament and I had some issues when I baked it 😦 I’ll try to do another post about that with images, but in the meantime I suggest you do the following:

1. Put a drop of liquid clay on the tips before you pinch them to make sure they stick together
2. Don’t rest your ornament on a tile to bake – suspend it from a bead pin or try to support in some way (perhaps with balls of foil).

* Edit: see my follow up post about the problems I had *

Mokume gane doughnut video

Tags

donut pendant, doughnut pendant, hollow pendant, mokume gane, polymer clay, tutorial, video tutorial

Way back on the 18th of September I did a demo at the Craftworkshop in Sedbergh (there are weekly demos in the shop and a range of lovely craft items for sale, so pop in if you are in the area). The pendant was designed as my focal for the ABS September challenge, but due to unforseen circumstances I haven’t been able to blog untill now (or make any further progress on my challenge piece).

There are three videos, the first one is making a sheet of mokume gane from polymer clay:

The next video is making the hollow doughnut. The last step is missing from the video but it is to turn the cutter around and cut off the excess clay. There is also a step by step doughnut tutorial here on my blog.

The last video is an optional step – putting a trim around the edge of the baked pendant. This can hide imperfections or become a design feature by using a contrasting colour.

Finished pendant after sanding and stringing.

Enjoy!

How to make veneer beads

Tags

beads, how to, how to make polymer clay beads, make beads, marble, polymer clay, polymer clay beads, scrap clay, thin veneer, tutorial, veneer

This gallery contains 16 photos.

This tutorial shows how to make polymer clay beads using a thin veneer of cane over scrap clay. Because some …

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Fine marble cane tutorial

Tags

cane, free tutorial, how to, marble, polymer clay, tutorial

This gallery contains 15 photos.

Here is a marble cane that I first made for baby’s lantern. I always get stressed when marbling beads about …

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