“In a Quandry… I decided polymer clay might come to my rescue again.” ~Laurel-B
These “Spot” features are for you guys to display your accomplishments and share stories of inspiration. The projects are based on techniques learned from articles here at the blog, as well as from tutorials at the Polymer Clay Video Library. My hope is for these “Show and Tell” features to help you guys get to know each other better through your wonderful creations. I am soooo… proud of everyone’s work!
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I wanted to share this little story. So I was wearing a wire wrapped donut stone the other day and a friend of mine saw it and loved it and wants 3 of them done for her and as gifts for her two sisters. One sister’s birthday is next weekend. She wanted some kind of pink one for that sister. Well, here I am in a quandary. Hard to find a pink donut stone in a few days. So I decided polymer clay might come to my rescue again. I made a faux stone Rhondite donut bead and wrapped it. I am pretty happy with it. Thank goodness for polymer clay!!
Here’s how it is made. I took a couple shades of pink that I liked and a tiny bit of white and mixed those a little bit but not so much that they blended. I just wanted them marbled some. Ratio was about 1 part each pink, 1/2 part white. Rolled that into a ball then cut the ball up into various sized chunks from about 1mm to 4 or 5 mm. Just take your blade and cut away. You don’t want uniform, you want a bunch of small various sized chunks. Then I took about 1/2 of these chunks and painted them black with acrylic paint. Let them totally dry. Then mix together the pink pieces of clay, with the other pink pieces that were painted black. And crumble some gold leaf into the bunch.
Separately, I took translucent clay and added some beige colored sand and mixed the sand into the translucent real well.
I then took the translucent / sand clay and dropped some lines (not chunks but more like smooshed snakes) into the middle of the pink mix and then made a ball. I flattened the ball enough to put it through the pasta machine on the thickest setting one time. I then folded it and hand rolled it because I wanted my donut thicker than my thickest pasta machine setting. This came out nicely variegated. I rolled it to the thickness I wanted, and then used Cindy’s tip of using plastic wrap between the clay and the round cutter so I would have a smooth rounded bead edges. Cut out my donut, then baked, sanded, sanded, buffed, then coated it with Magic Glos because I wanted a domed affect. Cured the resin and I was done with the faux Rhondite donut. Then I just wire wrapped it and my customer LOVES it.
~Laurel-B
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If you are interested in sharing pictures of your polymer clay projects with the community, please follow these 2 simple steps:
1) Email several of your photos to me as attachments. My email address is shown in the “From” line of the weekly Polymer Clay Newsletter that gets sent out each and every Friday morning.
2) Include a description and/or story about your pieces, being sure to reference the tutorial(s) or blog article(s) that provided at least some level of inspiration for your work.
Don’t be shy. Everyone is VERY friendly here.
In the comment section below, please do compliment each other; Offer encouragement; Ask questions about the techniques used; And in general… be social. This is your community! It’s up to you to make it a fun and supportive place to hang out. All of you are amazing and it’s wonderful to have everyone here!
Faux is freeing — you don’t have to mimic nature exactly. In fact, this is one way you can improve on nature!
~Phaedrakat
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** Did You Know… Members with current subscriptions to the weekly tutorial videos are always entitled to a 10% discount when purchasing 6 or more back issue packages in a single transaction. If you are interested, let me know which back issues you would like and I will send further instructions on how to complete your order.
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That is gorgeous! Thank you for sharing it AND the tutorial.
Absolutely beautiful!! I don’t know which I love more, the stone itself or the way you have it presented with the wire wrap. Your sharing this piece and how you did it has me itching to try one, although it would take some practice to come up with a piece like this. It really is superb, Laurel.
I love your work a true professional and thank you for the tut i would love to have a go amongst so many other things i have learned on this blog Cindy Doug and all of you are just great.
This pink stone and your wire wrapping are really beautiful! Thank you for showing it to us and for your detailed description of how you made it. You have one lucky customer! :)
This is so pretty! Love the stone and the wire work. Thanks so much for the how to also!
Gorgeous, Laurel! Thanks for the tut, and for showing us your lovely, wire-wrapped donut. Your Faux Rhondite is really nice. Congrats on your creativity & sales!
Fantastic, Laurel! And thank you so much for your precise details on how to make this stone. This obviously was not something just ‘thrown together’. A great amount of effort, knowledge and talent went into creating this beautiful stone. I will have to attempt your technique. In fact, I copied your wonderfully detailed instructions and pasted them into Word so that I could print them out. Thank you so much!
Laurel this stone is wonderful and the wire work is fabulous you must be very experienced to have figured this out. Thanks for sharing ,and if you have anymore brilliant ideas please feel free to share them also.
Way, way, way cool Laurel..!! It’s easy too see how much work and thought went into this piece. It is absolutely beautiful… And thanks for the tute! That black acrylic paint – is it the craft type? or from a tube? and if it’s not the craft type, do you think the craft type could be used? Thanks for sharing your work with us!
Clay On,
~Lisa :)
Laurel, this is magnificent. One of my granddaughters loves pink so I will have to have a go at this. Your explanation in the tute is wonderful. I hope for success. Thank you so much for sharing. You are one talented lady. Happy claying.
Joyce M
Hi Laurel and all, Just love how you made this beautiful Pendant from your Faux Stone. wonderful colourings. Would love your wirewrapping skills.
Thanks for the tut which is an extention of all the things Cindy teaches us so we can go ahead and have confidence to do these things. To me Polyclay can be made to look like any other thing you can think of in the jewelry world and many other things too. you didnt have to go looking for the right stone for your pendant, your own creativity did it for you.Great!
Once again thanks for the how to, must try it .
love
E XXX.
May I say your stone is STUNNING and with much gratitude, thank you for the tut on how to do it!!
Oh yes, Laurel, your faux Rhodonite is a ravishingly gorgeous pink wonder! Thanks so much for the tips on how you did it. It lead me to read up on rhodonite and to have a look at real rhodonites. Strictly no competition with your rhodonites! Rhodos is Greek for ‘rose’, so I guess ‘rhodonite’ is ‘rose-like’. Yep. Yours certainly are, you clever girl. More to show?
Laurel, your rhodonite pendant is fabulous. Thanks for the tutorial too. Will have to try it some time. I love working with wire but your wire wrapping is stunning.
Gosh! Thanks all. I am glad you liked my stone and glad you liked the tutorial. I didn’t even know Cindy had spotlighted this. I have to chuckle though because as Cindy can tell you. I really haven’t been doing this all that long either. About a year and a half. That’s how fast you can get good with Cindy’s excellent instructions and all the wonderful support from all the great members on here.
Lisa: You can use just craft acrylic paint. You know the nice cheap kind you can get on sale for .99 cents. Nothing fancy. :)
Thanks again for all the compliments. It sure makes a gal feel good.
@Laurel: I love it! And you’re in good company, I started claying in August 2008, so I’ve been doing this for 19 months.
@Silverleaf:
I agree with everyone else, always find myself staring at this and marveling at the ingenity of the combinations. Sure would like to see this one tutted as well, Laurel, if you’d agree to let Cindy put her spin on it.
@Laurel: I love it! You did a fabulous job on it. Who would have thought to use Pink…… When I seen it I thought I want one :) I hope you made a bunch that should sell fast! Really, I would love to purchase one from you. as a gift to my Mother inlaw. She is fighting cancer right now, and ya know its all about the pink :) let me know ok ….
Congrats on a well done work Laurel! It’s pretty!
@Brenda: I would be happy to make you one for your mother in law. I will let you know when it is finished. Go to my webpage and send me a message on there and then I can respond directly to you.
@Jocelyn: Cindy is welcome to take my information and put her spin on this if she would like to. I’m sure she could improve on it with all her exptertise. I would love to see what she came up with.
@Laurel: Laurel, that is so generous and kind of you. How about it, Cindy?
Laurel, this is a spectacular piece, love the embellishments and intricate exacting wire work. So encouraging to hear you are a new clayer/artist. Cannot wait to see what else you come up with!