Sandy Polymer Clay Beads… Yet Another Reason to Go to the Beach

Creative Ways for Adding Texture to Your Polymer Clay and Jewelry Beads:

The days are starting to heat up around here (finally), and it's time to start planning some trips to the beach! Next time you head out to the coast, or down to your favorite lake shore, be sure to grab a bucket of sand for doing some creative polymer clay inclusion techniques.

Ordinary (washed) beach sand, like the sand in the picture above, is wonderful for adding texture to polymer clay.

Sand can be added to translucent polymer clay (plain or tinted with a touch of colored clay), to make wonderful faux stone and faux granite.

It can be mixed with acrylic paint and used for veining in faux turquoise or faux marble beads and canes.

And it can be pressed into the surface of your beads and then rinsed off again after baking. This technique adds a creative a pebble-like finish to your beads.

A word of caution though… the grit of the sand is very hard on your blades and pasta machine. Use an old tissue blade and an acrylic roller instead of your good tools.

So the next time you feel the sand in your toes, just think how cool it would look in your clay! Man, I'm looking forward to Summer!