Thank You Rainbows

Tags

cane, earrings, handmade jewellery, polymer clay, rainbow

Here in the UK rainbows are now a Thing. At the start of lockdown, children put them in the windows of their houses for others to spot on their once-a-day-permitted exercise outing. Now they are everywhere, from painted rocks to banners with messages of thanks to the NHS and key workers. As lockdown eases and I can (often) look at them without crying, I have decided to make my own rainbows.

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Polymer clay rainbow beads by Cate van Alphen

Believe it or not, it took me ages to work out how to make a cane without a background. I even bought extra translucent clay so I could build up around the outside of the bow to make a square cane that I could reduce. While I was waiting for it to be delivered I was inspired by a solution that made me feel pretty silly…

All I needed to do was make a bullseye cane around a transparent core and it was already ready to reduce. Then, if required, I could remove the central core and cut the circle in half. Voila – a backgroundless bow! It actually took me a whole weekend to mix up 14 colours for this: the seven main rainbow colours and then seven intermediate colours to blend. You can just about see them on the big cane, but it’s not really visible on the reduced rainbow bead. But they are so cute and tiny, I don’t really mind.

I made myself a pair of earrings with my first rainbow beads where I left the translucent clay core. The main lentil beads are hollow so these are really nice and light to wear. I forget that I have them on (not so good when trying to put a mask on/off for shopping)!

So once again from me: Thank you NHS and key workers.

I wish you all a happy day. Stay safe.

Sedbergh Sheep Fest 2015 – part 2

Tags

cane, cross stitch, earring, handmade bead, polymer clay, sheep

I have been making sheep for this year’s Sheep Fest in Sedbergh. I’ve already done one post, and here are some more of the sheepies I’ve made.

Cross stitch sheep pendant by Cate van Alphen

I still had some of the polymer clay cross stitch sheep cane left over from last year’s Sheep Fest, so I reduced a length to make into beads.

Cross stitch sheep jewellery by Cate van Alphen

Cross stitch sheep earrings by Cate van Alphen

I had an odd number of beads, so I also made some phone charms.

Sheep charms by Cate van Alphen

These sculptural sheep are from a mould of an original sheep I made. I put some off-cuts from a sheet of green cane veneer on the back to keep them interesting from all sides.

Sheep earrings by Cate van Alphen

I have some more painterly sheep pendants in progress. They might feature in a WIP post soon if I don’t get them finished.

Patchwork, dangles and spangles

Tags

bead, blue, cane, earrings, handmade, kaleidoscope, patchwork, polymer clay, purple

Here are some of my latest earrings…

These earrings feature a pair of my handmade polymer clay patchwork beads.

Patchwork earrings by Cate van Alphen

These are extra long earrings with sliced kaleidoscope cane beads.

Long earrings by Cate van Alphen

These earrings have crystal spangles, just to rhyme with dangles. 🙂

Crystal earrings by Cate van Alphen

And because every day needs more sparkle.

September Sheep

Tags

bag charm, cane, cross stitch, earring, polymer clay, sheep, sheepfest

I have been making some more polymer clay faux cross stitch sheepiness for Sheepfest. Well, when you’ve spent a whole weekend making a cane, you simply have to!

Cross stitch sheep earrings by Cate van Alphen

Cross stitch sheep earrings by Cate van Alphen

Cross stitch sheep bag charm by Cate van Alphen

I also made some matching pendants, but I forgot to photograph them before I took them to the Craftworkshop.

Baaa-ye for now.

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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Christmas, presents, past

Tags

bead, cane, christmas gifts, gift, kaleidoscope, necklace, polymer clay

Unusually this year I did not make Christmas gifts for all the family (actually I have hardly made anything this month). But I was commissioned to make a custom necklace using a given design, which now that Christmas is over I can show. It was an interesting challenge to make a cane to a specific design as I usually just make them up as I go with the only requirement being “to be pretty”. While I was confident that it could be done in polymer clay, I was slightly less convinced that I could do it!

In the end I did manage to do it by working very slowly. I made one 6th of the design which I flipped and joined up to complete the kaleidoscope pattern. I was fairly pleased with the results, although I miscalculated the height of the cane so I had to reduce it before I could cut and join up the sections resulting in some visible “seams”.

I hope you had a joyous Christmas. Wishing you all the best in the New Year.

My first polymer

Tags

buttons, cane, gradient, kaleidoscope, pendant, polymer clay, reducing

I’ve just been invited to a new Flickr group, Your No.1, sharing the first things we made in polymer clay. I thought I’d show them here too. I started off fairly reasonably with something simple – buttons to match a multicoloured cardigan I was knitting.

Success! I managed to get the colours matching pretty well and they are not too mutant either (I did make a mold off an existing button to get them all consistent).

Then I got more ambitious and decided to make a complex kaleidoscope cane… less successfully.

The main error with this cane was that I didn’t cut the ends off after reducing. I added scrap to the ends which got sucked into the centre of the flower cane as it reduced so when I cut it to make the kaleidoscope repeat I ended up using bad cane throughout. (Also note the poor photo taken in direct sunlight).

This detail image shows more clearly the problem. There are supposed to be two flower canes surrounded by concentric circles mirrored along the yellow diagonal. The lower flower has a blob of scrap obscuring half of it and the top one has almost completely disappeared and is mysteriously much smaller.

I do like the colours in this one so perhaps I should see if I can make something similar again. Hopefully my skills have improved a bit since 2009.

I need more time

Tags

cane, flower, mandala, nature, petal, polymer clay, shell, tutorial

I have just been given a link to some wonderful mandalas made using flower petals and found objects. I’m feeling inspired to dig out the flower canes and try some myself using polymer clay. I found a lovely mandala tutorial a while ago, but I still haven’t tried it yet – there just isn’t enough play time in a day!

Here are a two of my favourite in situ images.

How to make a hollow doughnut pendant

Tags

cane, doughnut, hollow, pendant, polymer clay

This gallery contains 14 photos.

This is my variation of Page McNall’s air-filled bead tutorial (I use a slightly different method for getting a dome …

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