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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!
Great idea, thanks for the tip.
Thanks Amanda! I know you are in Australia and that most people leave near the coast. Does that mean you live near the ocean too? You could make lots of sandy beads, if you did!
I’m thrilled to have found your course! I had played with polymer clay for a short time a few years ago but set it aside. Your course has helped to ignite a passion, and I’m very grateful for the work you put into it, along with your blog and your library.
You see, I had a stroke in 2001. I’m okay physically, but the depression can really get in the way. One day in February was unusually warm, and I decided to go out and run a few errands (which is sometimes difficult when depression rears its head). I stopped by our local Barnes and Noble to have a cup of coffee at the café, and of course I had to find a magazine to read while enjoying the coffee. PolymerCAFE jumped out at me. Reading it caused me to feel something I hadn’t experienced in a long time – enjoyment! When I got home, I googled polymer clay, and found your course. Cindy, I’m hooked! I’m a rank amateur, but the passion is there.
This feeling – being passionate about something – is one I haven’t experienced in many years, and your work has played a big part. I simply cannot thank you enough. Serendipity is always such a wonderful surprise, and that’s what happened – the warm weather, the magazine, your course. I never expected any of them, but together they have set me on a course that I’m thoroughly enjoying.
What I love about your course (and your library videos) is your wonderful down-to-earth, chatting-with-a-friend attitude. Your depth of knowledge comes through, but it’s in a quiet way that I appreciate. It leaves me feeling encouraged, not intimidated (as many experts often make me feel). Thank you so much for being there!
Good reminder of some of the uses for sand with polymer clay! I haven’t tried any of these yet, but they look like fun…
Now if only I could go to the beach, and enjoy it like I used to before my back decided to hurt all the time! Instead, I’ll see how it goes with the pool. They need to get going again (there’s some kind of bottleneck in the scheduling, I guess.) There’s no denying it’s summer, though. The AC’s been on every day for the last 4. The hot’s here!