Polymer clay challenge week 45 – toggle

Tags

2015PCchallenge, handmade bead, magnetic clasp, polymer clay, purple, violet

This week of my 2015 Polymer clay challenge I decided to have a go at making a magnetic clasp. I’ve always had trouble with magnetic clasps pulling open. I figured that two magnets are strongest when you pull them directly apart as opposed to bending them open like a book or sliding them sideways. So I tried to come up with a design where you have to pull the pieces apart as there is no sideways movement available.

Magnetic clasp by Cate van Alphen

The two pieces are a bit like teeth with interlocking roots. There is a tiny magnet in the centre. Both pieces are the same.

Polymer clay clasp by Cate van Alphen

I’m pleased with how it looks, and it’s very satisfying to click the pieces together, but sadly I don’t think it’s strong enough to use as a clasp. It could be because there is still some scope to tilt the magnets apart, so maybe longer spikes would help? Or maybe the magnets are just too small? Maybe magnetic clasps just don’t work? 😦

Polymer clay clasp by Cate van Alphen

I need to let the idea simmer for a bit. In the meantime I’m struggling with my red colour palette. I thought I’d add a sixth colour to match the previous palettes, but now some of the colours are not sitting together well.

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Polymer clay challenge week 44 – bead

Tags

2015PCchalenge, handmade bead, polymer clay, violet

This week my beads are pretty simple. I made some stack beads using my violet palette.

Gradient bead by Cate van Alphen

I started off using just the six colours in the palette, but I wanted more of a gradient blend. So I mixed up more colours to go between by combining half each of the colours on either side.

Violet gradient beads by Cate van Alphen

That’s it for my Polymer Clay Challenge this week.

Polymer clay challenge week 43 – focal

Tags

2015PCchallenge, doughnut pendant, polymer clay, purple, violet

This week I made a purple polymer polka-dot pendant. 🙂

Hollow polymer clay doughnut pendant by Cate van Alphen

I have been rearranging my work room, so I had to keep things simple for this week of my 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge.

P.S. I wrote a tutorial a while back for making the hollow doughnut shape (just use your favourite method to decorate a sheet of clay). Here’s a polka-dot tutorial (it’s similar to what I did except I made some dents in my background sheet of clay first).

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 – focal

Tags

2015PCchallenge, flower cane, focal bead, polymer clay, purple, violet

I have now finished my polymer clay focal beads for week 39 of my Spectrum Year (see the WIP in my previous post). The beads are thick slices of stylised flower cane. I drilled two parallel holes so they could either be used double stranded in something like a bracelet, or if only one hole was used for a necklace it would be off centre so the beads would not flip over.

Flower cane bead by Cate van Alphen

They are a bit clumsy in comparison to what I had imagined. My slicing is still not very accurate – the lines framing the picture are wobbly and the bead slices themselves are not very straight or even. I think I could do with a cane slicer 😉

Flower cane beads by Cate van Alphen

I suspect they would be improved with some sanding, but it will probably be ages before I get round to doing that. They are an inch square so they count as focal beads by my definition 🙂

Polymer clay focal bead by Cate van Alphen

P.S. The flower background is actually pale dove grey, not just poorly exposed photography.

Violet colour palette

Tags

colour mixing, colour palette, Fimo, polymer clay, purple, violet

I’m a little late with the start of violet since I wanted to finish my indigo beads. Here are the colour recipes I plan to use. I’m using Fimo Professional and the numbers represent percentages. Previously I wrote a post on how I mix colours.

Light Grey

• 95 white
• 1.5 true magenta
• 3.5 true blue

Grey Green

• 61.5 white
• 3 true yellow
• 10 true magenta
• 23 true blue
• 2 true green
• 0.5 black

Indigo

• 30 true magenta
• 70 true blue

Dark Purple

• 59.5 true magenta
• 39.5 true blue
• 1 black

Violet

• 80 true magenta
• 20 true blue

Purple

• 50 white
• 40 true magenta
• 10 true blue

 

Let the purple-fest commence. Yippee!