Make Your Own Flexible Texture Plates

This is how to make your own flexible texture plate so you can use them right in your pasta machine afterwards.  For this technique I use ....

That's right ... Sculpey Bake & Bend.  It has some really good uses other than making bendable animals...  I found they make great texture plates -- and flexible ones at that.

I found these paper heart doilies at the dollar store.  I want to use them to make a texture sheet.

1.  First of all, make sure the Sculpey Bake & Bend is well conditioned.  I find some of the colors aren't quite as soft so I like to mix them until I get a nice consistency.

2.  Roll out enough clay in your pasta machine on the 3rd thickest setting (I used the #3 setting on my Atlas) that is slightly larger than the doily.

3.  Making a texture plate from one of the paper doilies won't make a deep enough impression so take a stack of about 4 - 5 that are "stuck" together and do not separate them.  This will add depth and make a better impression.

4.  Lightly dust the clay sheet with some cornstarch to prevent the doily from sticking.  I generally use water but with the paper that won't work so well.

5.  Change your pasta machine setting to the 4th thickest setting (#4 on an Atlas).  Lay the doily face down onto the clay sheet and carefully insert the two together into the pasta machine and roll through.

6.  Place your clay sheet facing up on a clean ceramic tile making sure there aren't any air pockets trapped underneath.  Lightly tap it so it sticks to the ceramic tile.  Carefully peel away the paper doilies and trim the edges all around so they are nice and neat.  Bake your texture sheet right on the ceramic tile following the temperature and time on the package.

7.  Allow your sheet to cool completely before removing it from the ceramic tile.  You now have a texture sheet you can use with your regular polymer clay over and over and it is flexible so can be used right in your pasta machine at your thickest setting.

These are a few pieces I made from my new texture sheet that I highlighted with mica powders.

You can use this method to make other texture sheets.  Here is one I made from a piece of vintage lace.

And some pendants I have made from it:

Oh yes, and another cool thing I found is the container from the Sculpey Bake & Bend works great for storing canes afterwards!

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and have fun with it!

One World One Heart Give Away is Coming to an End

The One World One Heart give-away comes to an end tonight at 10:00 pm Pacific time.  We will use the Random Number Generator to pick the number of the winners of two of these heart pendants.  Yes, we said if there were more than 100 comments we would give two away and looks like we more than doubled that number.

We will do the draw tomorrow (Feb 12) morning and will contact the 1st and 2nd winners right away.  If the winners do not respond by that evening, then we will do another draw the next day on Feb 13.

This has been a lot of fun and even a little overwhelming as some of you may feel as well, with so many participants -- Wow over 900?!!  We tried to visit as many of you as possible and was really neat to see so many interesting blogs and "meet" the people behind them.  We plan to drop by and visit you later when we have more time.

Thank-you to everyone who participated and took the time out to leave such nice comments. Good luck to all of you in the draw tomorrow!!

Old Love - Renew Love

I Y hearts . . .   As a matter of fact, that is the theme this blog started on and next month on Valentines day will be it's first anniversary.

This year we've come up with some new styles of hearts to sell on Etsy.  These new designs are a variation on vintage by applying mica powders, paint, inks and metal leaf to give a tapestry or brocade effect.  We adapted the technique in Donna Kato's book, "The Art of Polymer Clay - Creative Surface Effects".

This new spiral heart pendant design came about in a different manner. Sometimes the design I start out with evolves into something else.  For instance I was originally designing a heart toggle but discovered this heart made a great pendant instead.  I find my inspiration comes in many different ways. Quite often I will wake up at 3:00 am with an idea in my head.  I just can't seem to sleep so I will head to my studio for an hour or so to develop my thoughts.  I can then go back to sleep and have sweet dreams about what I'm going to do later that day!

Happy Valentines Day

                  So where do we begin? 

Well it is Valentines day and I remembered that one of the first clay pieces I made last year was this heart. And that is when I found my second love -- creating with polymer clay. (Of course my husband Dave is still my first love!)

It all began with fooling around with beads. Any kind -- stones, seed beads, crystals -- who doesn't like them? I even joined a beaders group to learn more on what to do with my beads. Then I thought, what if I could make my own beads? The lampwork ones that some of the ladies created were just awesome but that was way too hot for me as I didn't want to have anything to do with torches.

I then went to my first bead show. Wow! There were thousands of beads there! It was so hard to restrain myself! But there were some classes offered -- one was making beads from polymer clay! I never thought of that before. The instructor was Joan Tayler, who is a very talented artist. After spending only a few hours in her class and playing with the clay, I could sense the beginnings of my new love affair.

I began to read more and study up about it. Then I started dreaming about it and all the many exciting things I could make! I even joined another group -- the Vancouver Polymer Clay Guild. I learned even more about polymer clay such as some new techniques and what I could do with it. By then I decided there was no turning back -- I was definately hooked!

The first heart pendant I made represents the love relationship I've had ever since with my clay. Since it is Valentines day, I thought I would share more valentines with you.