![\"Polymer](\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/2008-05\/19-polymer-clay-sea-urchins-heather-power.jpg\")
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A beautiful mold for polymer clay can be made using real seashells: A cool trend I’ve noticed lately in polymer clay circles is the use of shells and sea shore finds as shapes to create molds for making polymer clay<\/span> beads.<\/span><\/p>\n One very beautiful example of this idea is from Heather Powers of the Craftgossip Blog<\/a> and Humblebeads<\/a>. She uses sea urchin shells for making molds.<\/span><\/p>\n I’m guessing she must have made the mold in two parts to make a complete sea urchin bead, but whatever she has done they are gorgeous! I also think she probably used an acrylic paint as an antique finish to get that wonderful, realistic chalky look!<\/span><\/p>\n You can make your own polymer clay molds by pressing sea shells or other objects into a lump of raw clay and then baking the clay to harden the form. Remember to use a release agent like water or cornstarch on your shell to keep it from sticking. After your mold is baked, dust with cornstarch or spray the mold with water and press raw clay into your mold to form a bead. Don’t ever bake your raw clay right in the polymer clay mold, or they will bond together.<\/span><\/p>\n In a future post I will give you more details about how to make polymer clay molds, so stayed tuned. Meanwhile, give it a shot on your own and "sea" <\/i>what you can come up with!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A beautiful mold for polymer clay can be made using real seashells: A cool trend I’ve noticed lately in polymer clay circles is… 15<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,28,21],"tags":[2597,2776,528,1761,1162],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feature-guests","category-inspiration","category-techniques","tag-faux-bone-shells-pearls","tag-painting-coloring-distressed","tag-release-agents","tag-releases-cornstarch-baking-soda-water","tag-molds-stamps-stencils"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n![\"Cindy](\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/cindy-sig.jpg\")
![\"Polymer](\"http:\/\/www.beadsandbeading.com\/images\/blog\/polymer-clay-tutor.jpg\")
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