I have finished editing another video which has been quite a feat now that it is school holidays. It’s an offshoot from my previous tutorial where I go off on a tangent and start carving the beads.
Here are some boho earrings I made using the finished beads.
I have finally managed to get another video tutorial filmed and edited. It’s a pretty simple tutorial since I’m still practising the video making. It’s mainly a tip I learned the slow way when making the heishi beads for my Thunderbird necklaces.
Hopefully I’ll get some more tutorials made soon. That’s if I can figure out how to get a longer video clip off my phone!
Let me know if there are any techniques you would be interested in seeing.
Here’s a video showing my method of making polymer clay beads using a core of scrap clay and a decorative veneer on the outside. Previously I did a picture tutorial of this technique.
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.
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:
Put a drop of liquid clay on the tips before you pinch them to make sure they stick together
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 *