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Fulgorine

~ My adventures with polymer clay

Fulgorine

Tag Archives: polymer clay beads

Sample Challenge update

27 Tue Apr 2021

Posted by fulgorine in 24oz Polymer Clay, beads

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

24ozPolymerClay, artisan bead, handmade, mokume gane, polymer clay beads

I am still working through my 24 one ounce blocks of polymer clay. Here’s the next stage of my progress.

My primary reason for doing the challenge was to give myself a starting place to get making beads again. Unfortunately I was finding that trying to record the steps as tutorial videos was hindering my progress, particularly when the children were home due to lockdown (again). They are very noisy during the day so I’d have to wait till the evening to begin and by that point I wasn’t feeling very sparkly for chatting while I make. Also it was discouraging me from just experimenting as it’s hard to explain what you are doing when you don’t know yet!

Instead I have decided to crack on with the making and show you my progress as I go. If you are really interested in any of the beads I make, let me know in the comments and I may try to do a dedicated tutorial for that. I have at least one video still to edit, so that will turn up eventually.

  • I started with some mokume gane lentil beads made using the offcuts from my kaleidoscope cane together with dark brown and copper polymer clay.
  • These tab beads feature some of the mokume gane shavings placed on a plain background.
  • More tab beads, this time with gold polymer clay edging.
  • I used the offcuts from the mokume gane sheet to make Natasha beads. The thin layers from the mokume sheet give an effect that reminds me of wood grain with some hidden colours.
  • I was playing around with some tiny scraps of clay which resulted in these cute “riveted” cube beads.

I’ve got more beads to show you but I’ll save those for another day. I hope you are well and making progress with your projects.

P.S. If you’d like to set yourself a sample challenge, here’s my earlier post with the guidelines I’m using.

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New Earrings, New Backgrounds

18 Sun Jun 2017

Posted by fulgorine in jewellery

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Tags

earrings, handmade jewellery, polymer clay beads

Here are a few pairs of earrings that I have made recently. I’ve also been playing around with the backgrounds in my photos. Please let me know what you think. 🙂

Violet pinstripe barrel bead earrings by Cate van Alphen

Violet pinstripe barrel bead earrings by Cate van Alphen

Purple flower earrings by Cate van Alphen

Purple flower earrings by Cate van Alphen

Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Yellow retro bead earrings by Cate van Alphen

Yellow retro bead earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sunset square earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sunset square earrings by Cate van Alphen

Polymer clay challenge week 34 – bead

27 Thu Aug 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, beads, My work

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2015PCchallenge, bead, Cate van Alphen, handmade bead, Indigo, patchwork bead, polymer clay, polymer clay beads

I spent my clay time this weekend working on something else, so I went back to my comfort zone yesterday and made some more patchwork beads for this week of my 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge.

Polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Indigo patchwork polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

They are always fun to make.

Indigo patchwork polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Indigo patchwork polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

But what was I working on this weekend? I’ll be baaa-ck soon to show you 😉

Polymer clay challenge week 27 – bead

09 Thu Jul 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2015PCchallenge, beads, blue, Cate van Alphen, handmade, polymer clay, polymer clay beads

I spent far to long making beads this week, considering the amount of unpacking I still need to do.

Polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

I started off last week making some double-sided sequins to go with the water lilies beads. I made some earrings too which I’ll try to show you soon. (My to-do list is experiencing a bit of a traffic jam.)

Sequin beads by Cate van Alphen

Sequin beads by Cate van Alphen

Then I listed a pair of earrings on Etsy, and I thought it would be fun to make more gradient stack beads in blue.

Gradient stack beads by Cate van Alphen

Gradient stack beads by Cate van Alphen

The rustic stack beads came out longer than I had expected so I thought they’d be good in a necklace. So then I had to make some spacer beads to go with them.

Blue beads by Cate van Alphen

Blue beads by Cate van Alphen

Then, because I’d made more than 3 beads the same, I came up with these beads which I think of as “tutu beads”. I made a pair, thinking of earrings, but I think they will become the focal of the necklace I have in mind. I just need to order some findings so I can complete it. I’ll put that onto my to-do list…

Tutu beads by Cate van Alphen

Tutu beads by Cate van Alphen

Polymer clay challenge week 21 – beads

28 Thu May 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work

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Tags

2015PCchallenge, Cate Bead, Cate van Alphen, green beads, handmade bead, polymer clay, polymer clay beads

Since I was disappointed with last week’s pendant I wanted to make something really nice this week, but I’m still cleaning the old house and at one point I thought I’d have to write a blog saying I hadn’t made anything at all :(. Then I realised it was Wednesday morning not Thursday so there was still time. Whew! I took the evening off from unpacking and made these green polymer clay beads.

Green polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Green polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

I made a cane with layers of green which I sliced/squashed using a credit card. Then I used my method of making a Natasha bead round (do you think I can call them Cate Beads?). The two patterns below are from the same cane, but I used different orientations of the Natasha cube to make the poles.

Green polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Green polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Green beads by Cate van Alphen

Green beads by Cate van Alphen

Green beads by Cate van Alphen

Green beads by Cate van Alphen

I finally got round to making a pair of head pins for earrings. I also made another earring pair by making the beads oval and adding gold mica powder tips. They looked a bit lonely in their own photo, but they are there in the top right of the first photo in this blog.

Green headpins by Cate van Alphen

Green polymer clay and coloured copper wire headpins by Cate van Alphen

Maybe next week I’ll have found all my tools and have time to make something amazing. 😉

Another Oddment necklace

18 Sat Apr 2015

Posted by fulgorine in My work

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

art bead, boho, bronze, Cate van Alphen, gold, handmade, lampwork beads, necklace, polymer clay beads, purple

I had so much fun making my Oddment necklace, I made another one in slightly different colours. This necklace includes polymer clay beads made by Rebekah Payne which I won back at the start of 2014. Can you spot them?

Bronze Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

Bronze and Gold Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

I also included polymer clay beads that I made myself, glass lampwork beads and filigree metal beads which I reclaimed from jewellery that I found in the charity shop.

Oddment beads by Cate van Alphen

Oddment beads by Cate van Alphen

Here are a few more photos since the necklace looks quite different depending on the rotation around the neck.

Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

Bronze and Gold Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

Some of the beads I used to make this necklace are currently available in my Etsy bead shop.

Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

Bronze and Gold Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

I’m collecting up a few more stashes of beads so I expect there will be more of these necklaces soon 😉

Polymer clay challenge week 14 – bead

09 Thu Apr 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work, WIP

≈ 4 Comments

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

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

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

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

Retro tile beads by Cate van Alphen

Polymer clay challenge week 12 – bead

26 Thu Mar 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work

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Tags

2015PCchallenge, bead, Cate van Alphen, handmade bead, polymer clay, polymer clay beads, yellow, yellow beads

This week I made yellow beads for the 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge. I made some more of my patchwork beads.

Yellow patchwork polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Yellow patchwork polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Yellow patchwork polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Yellow patchwork polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

They’re beads, they’re yellow – enjoy!

Polymer clay challenge week 8 – beads

21 Sat Feb 2015

Posted by fulgorine in 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge, My work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2015PCchallenge, handmade, kaleidoscope cane, orange, polymer clay beads

I usually post my weekly polymer clay challenge piece on a Thursday, but I decided to do it early this week as I wanted to make some kaleidoscope humbug beads and today is the last day of orange. 😮

Polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

I didn’t manage to get the beads the same size as each other, but I did get better at not distorting the kaleidoscope pattern. I also got the corners sharper on the later beads (if you compare with the first bead on the right).

Polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

Polymer clay beads by Cate van Alphen

I can’t believe it’s already time to change colour palette! I thought I’d get bored after a week, and need work with several different palettes based around orange. As it is I feel I was only just getting warmed up and I’m a little sad to be saying goodbye to orange.

Sherbet Beads

27 Tue Jan 2015

Posted by fulgorine in My work

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

earrings, handmade beads, jewellery, polymer clay, polymer clay beads, sherbet beads

A couple of years ago I made a necklace of multi-coloured polymer clay beads. I call them Sherbet Beads because with the hint of shimmering clay and the rough texture they remind me of the sweetie necklaces I had as a child.

Sherbet Bead Necklace by Cate van Alphen

For some reason, although I love the beads, I never wore the necklace much so I decided to take it apart and use the beads to make earrings. Here are some of the earrings I made…

Sherbet Bead Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sherbet Bead Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sherbet Bead Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sherbet Bead Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sherbet Bead Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sherbet Bead Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sherbet Bead Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Sherbet Bead Earrings by Cate van Alphen

Some have already made it to my Etsy shop, some are on their way, and some have already found new homes :).

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Fulgor, n.
Dazzling brightness; splendor.
Fulgorine, n.
One who creates that which dazzles.

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