Polymer Clay Zentangles

Doras Explorations Polymer Clay Zentangles

When I saw the tutorial on how to make polymer clay Zentangles I thought: ‘Wow! What a great idea!’

Up until now I only sketched my Zentangles and made a lot of things with Fimo and I even thought about making the polymer clay letter cane ;-)
I still have some black and white polymer clay canes, perhaps I can make something with them.


Links:
Polymer Clay Zentangles (Let’s Zentangle !! Making a Zentangle with Polymer Clay) – with a slide show where the steps are very well described

Here at unikatissima:
Zentangles
Polymer Clay Letter Cane
Entries with the tag ‘fimo’
Entries containing the words ‘polymer’, ‘clay’ and ‘cane’

Drinking Straw Jewelry and Ornaments

unikatissima Drinking Straw Jewelry and Ornaments

When I saw the drinking straw pin I thought: ‘Oh yes, I want!’ ;-)

 

unikatissima Drinking Straw Jewelry and Ornaments It is quite easy: I took two different coloured drinking straws, cut them (veeery carefully!) into spirals with an X-acto knife und knotted them (not too firm) together.
This way my little ball stays in form without glue, sewing or the like.
I wanted to cut them first with scissors but I got ugly edges, the cut must be made with a really sharp cutting tool.

I find it cute as well as jewelry as well as tree ornament ;-)


Links:
Drinking Straw Pin (curly elastic brooch)

Peyote Medaillon Beads

unikatissima Peyote Medaillon Beads

While surfing the internet I found this necklace and found it amazing.
I thought that it should be easy to made: you make the mdedaillons with flat round Peyote (see links below) just as for the bottom of the beaded bottle, but then you work the pattern back again.
This way you get a slightly thicker medaillon in place of a flat disk.

Unfortunately I’m not so good concerning colours and so I’m not really satisfied with my own medaillon (see photo).
Perhaps I should have printed and coloured in one of the graphs (see links below) to use this as template?!
One day I really will do this ;-)


Links:
Tutorials for flat round Peyote and graphs:
Flat Round Peyote Stitch Step by Step Tutorial (English) – tutorial
Flat Round Peyote Stitch – Beading Graph Paper (English) – graph

Hexagonal Flat Peyote Worked In Rounds (English) – tutorial and graph

Rundes Peyote mit variabler Perlenanzahl (German) – tutorial, click there on ‘Rund-Peyote’

Google search result for ‘flat round peyote’
Google image search result for ‘flat round peyote’

Here at unikatissima:
Beaded Bottle
Peyote Variations
Wrap a Rock

Entries with the tag ‘Peyote’

Polymer Clay Skewer Beads

unikatissima Polymer Clay Skewer Beads

Some time ago I presented the Skinner blend beads necklace, the ‘skewer’ beads shown here are made in the same way.
I call them ‘skewer’ beads because I made them by rolling polymer clay sheets which I wrapped around wooden skewers. Then I cut the sheets in sections before baking.

 

unikatissima Polymer Clay Skewer Beads
For the beads on the photo I

  • used a rest of white polymer clay as support,
  • mixed some green and blue rests and used as base,
  • cut razor-thin slices of my canes and added them as decoration and
  • smoothed the surface carefully with a glass rod (it was meant to stir one’s tea ;-) But after I used it for polymer clay it won’t touch food anymore!).

Afterwards I threaded the beads on a simple leather string that matches wonderfully the colour of the beads.
The used polymer clay canes are mostly transparent just as for the egg and the flower canes of the polymer clay box.

 

unikatissima Polymer Clay Skewer Beads
I still enjoy this necklace.
I really wanted to play around a little with ‘jade’, especially because this is a wonderful way of using up rests of coloured, perhaps self-mixed polymer clay ;-)
As for the subject ‘jade’: Glassattic was a great help to me.

 

unikatissima Polymer Clay Skewer Beads
For the beads on the photo I

  • mixed transparent polymer clay with a little blue green polymer clay to get ‘jade beads’,
  • made black polymer clay beads that I carved slightly with the back of a knife after cutting them (but before baking them!) and
  • made wire beads by wrapping the wire tightly around a metal rod (a metal kebab skewer) and cutting it with sharp wire cutters in regular intervals.
    If necessary you must file the ends a little bit!
 

unikatissima Polymer Clay Skewer Beads
For this necklace I

  • used up the ‘rest jade’ of the carved candle holder and
  • made silver coloured mica beads (metallic polymer clay) that I carved slightly with a credit card (the dent is larger than for the black beads further up).
 

unikatissima Polymer Clay Skewer Beads
But of course you can embellish the tubular beads that are made on skewers with other techniques and in other widths, also (as you can see at the Skinner blend beads necklace ;-)).

 

unikatissima Polymer Clay Skewer Beads
Here I varnished the black polymer clay sheet to be wrapped around the skewer (with I don’t remember what) in red, let it dry and pushed then the whole sheet through the pasta machine to let the varnish crack.
Additionally I made some black-only beads of the same width.
I still find this combination beautiful ;-)


Links:
On the topic of ‘faux jade’: Glassattic — Faux many => click there on ‘jade’

Here at unikatissima:
Skinner Blend Beads Necklace
Transparent Polymer Clay
Polymer Clay Flower Canes
Carving Polymer Clay
Entries containing the word ‘cane’

Socks Necklace

flickr tabychan Socks Necklace

Na, doesn’t this sock necklace look great?! ;-)

And about the advent calendar: you can insert here easily little paper strips into the socks just as for the simple spool advent calendar and wham!, ready is your advent calendar ;-))

So, that’ve been the advent calendar ideas for this year, now you may begin…
;-))


Links:
socks necklace
More photos of recycled socks of tabychan

via: tabychan recycled work
via: Fiber Jewelery – Summer Fashion
via: art for housewives

Here at unikatissima:
Simple Spool Advent Calendar
Entries with the tag ‘advent calendar’

Foam Tray Plaster Casting

unikatissima Foam Tray Plaster Casting

The tutorial about plaster casting in a simple foam tray is meant again as kids craft.
But I have some buttons and stamps with interesting surfaces – I should be able to use them to make some cute plaster pendants from, shouldn’t I?

I’m looking for this foam trays for a certain time, but I can’t get them here.
Seems as if I have to resort to play dough or even to carving them myself ;-)


Links:
Foam Tray Casting

Here at unikatissima:
Plaster Relief
Carved Plaster Plaques

Paper Roll Jewelry

CraftyPod Paper Roll Jewelry

Such a great idea again: simply begin just as for the coiled paper basket but stop quite soon and make from the rolls little pieces of jewelry.

I really have to try it with the folded paper strips of equal width!


Links:
Paper Roll Jewelry (Kind of a half-baked idea, but still…)

Here at unikatissima:
Coiled Paper Basket
Folded Paper Strips of Equal Width

Herringbone/Ndebele Necklace

unikatissima Herringbone Ndebele Necklace

Some time ago I made a Herringbone or Ndebele necklace.
I find it beautiful, it is wonderfully sleeky and simply elegant.
And I found the bead weaving itself downright relaxing.

To make sure that the necklace doesn’t look boring I simply made a little Peyote bead like for my paper beads bracelet, pulled it over the necklace and worked little bead fringes on the bead like for the pages 9 & 10 of my artist book – looots ;-)
Well, I like it ;-)


Links:
Herringbone/Ndebele Necklace(Beaded Herringbone Cord)

Peyote Beads (Beaded Bead)

Here at unikatissima:
Making Paper Beads
Artist Book
Pages 9 & 10 of the artist book