Wednesday 18 November 2009

Pinched Petal Necklace - Polymer Clay Color Inspirations

Pinched petal necklace polymer clay colour inspirations book project
Pinched petal necklace polymer clay colour inspirations book project

Here is my 2nd completed project from the Polymer Clay Color Inspirations Book by Lindly Haunani and Maggie Maggio.

I decided to create the necklace to go with a simple aqua dress I purchased at the beginning of the year and haven't had a chance to wear yet (as seen in the background).

I used my colour scales of Yellow and Blue matching 1/16 of the blue side as the closest colour to the necklace. I then created a three colour skinner blend using the matched colour for the middle and using white on either side and a touch of turquoise fimo soft at the edges.

For the centre I wanted something striking so I created a two skinner blend using my primaries of Cherry Red and Sunflower Yellow. I aslo decided to create three centres rather than the one shown in the project, alternating the shades of the centre.

I am really pleased with the results and it look great on, now I just need somewhere to wear it.

More from Polymer Clay Color Inspirations Book

Monday 16 November 2009

My Finished Necklace with Microfine Glitter

Microfine glitter and polymer clay
I have spent the last two days creating my focal bead and some additional beads to finish my necklace. It has been made using a chocolate fimo I mixed up myself and my micro fine glitters.

Friday 13 November 2009

New Earrings






An assortment of beaded and polymer clay earrings have now been added to my website http://www.lottieoflondon.co.uk/.



Wednesday 11 November 2009

Pivot Strand Necklace - Color Inspirations

rand Necklace Polymer Clay Colour Inspirations Book Project
Here is my first project piece from the Polymer Clay Color Inspirations Book, its the Pivot Strand Necklace. I decided to go with Red as it's my favourite colour but also because I needed a piece to wear for my Nieces christening last weekend.
I made my usual error of not fully reading the project and missed that part that says you should round off edges of the beads once cut, bad habit of mine as I am always too eager to get started and miss something.
I am however pleased with the piece and it went great with my outfit. I have also got some more Fimo colours in Raspberry, Cherry Red and Lemon (still need some more but the local craft shops in the area seem to only stock what I am presuming they think are the most popular colours). So I have continued working on my tasting tiles to find the colour that would be my primaries for my palettes starting base which would appear to be Magenta or Cherry Red, Yellow and Pacific Blue, needless to say I have run out of Magenta but I'll have to order that online. What I have found out from doing the tasting tiles is that although two packets colours for example Raspberry and Magenta seem quite similar once mixed as tasting tiles difference in colour can be more obvious.
Also I've done some colour scales using the basic fimo classic red, blue and yellow for reference. I've pretty much read the whole book now so am going back to start working over what I've done as some bits didn't quite sink in and I have started using Maggie Maggio's blog as reference too as she has been adding some extra bits in reference to the book, it's been a great help.


Friday 30 October 2009

Colour Inspirations

Colour Inspiration Boards

For a while now I have been a bit frustrated with my colours when using my clay, I have never been getting quite the colour I have imagined in my head and have been working a lot on guess work a bit of this and a bit of that and ending up with quite a lot of mud.








I ordered Polymer Clay Colour Inspirations Book by Lindly Haunani and Maggie Maggio. Its a great book and I have been working through the exercises. Here are my collages from one one of the exercises for my interpretation of the what the colours mean to me.


Colour Inspiration Boards












From the top they are Cold/Warm, Earth/Rich and Vibrant/Hard, though these are my interpretations of these colours when asking around the family what the colours said to them they had differing feelings from the colours.
 
Colour Inspiration Boards







Tuesday 20 October 2009

Slacking off so soon

Dinan, Brittany France
Ahh but I have a valid excuse, I've been on holiday to Dinan in France and had a wonderful time. Its such a lovely place I want to move there !!!


Obviously I wasn't on holiday all this time when I got back I set about making changes to my website to allow for me to accept orders and payments direct from my site and today it is complete at last (apart from a few minor tweaks ;)


Please take the time to have a look and I hope you like it as much as I have enjoyed the hard slog of getting it up and running.


Tuesday 8 September 2009

Microfine Glitter, a more successful attempt

On Sunday I had more time to experiment with the micro fine glitters and this is my creation, also my first attempt at making a donut and I must say I am very pleased with this bead.

My first thoughts on the micro fine was that it is very limited in the ways you can apply it using a brush, dabbing and rubbing the glitter in to create a fuller colour, my initial presumption was that I would be able to create more delicate patterns using the glitter but I just don't think this is possible, that said I have since learnt other methods of applying the glitter and created some nice beads I am really pleased with and that I am planning on creating a necklace with.
I do need to try some more experiments Ii would like to know if its possible to apply liquid polymer clay onto a glitter base and then apply cane slices onto this but I haven't had time as yet to try this, I will let you know when I find out.Microfine glitter on polymer clay beads

Microfine Glitter

Microfine glitter on polymer clay beads
So my Micro Fine Glitter and Alcohol Inks (from EJR Beads) arrived Friday just gone and I didn't get much time initially to play with them but here's a photo of my testing of the first colours. The smaller beads I have coated in each colour the larger bead I attempted to do some sort of pattern on them very unsuccessfully. The mistake i made on these first trial beads was to just coat them and cook them but I now know that to achieve the best colour from the Glitter you need to rub it in.
You can also see from these beads that the base colour of the clay you are using does have some effect on the resulting colour as the bead that looks pink is in fact covered with a copper type micro fine glitter but the clay underneath was pink.

Thursday 3 September 2009

My First Attempts with Polymer Clay

Polymer Clay beads - Bulles eye cane
I am at the moment waiting for some alcohol inks and micro powders (i think they are) to arrive but the postie ain't here yet :( I got some good ideas of what i want to do with them.


Anyway I thought I'd start by telling you of my first experience with polymer clay I went out and bought one of the Fimo kids packs, the ones that contain 25g packs in about 5 or 6 colours (cost me about £10 to £12). I had nothing else no blades no roller and definitely no pasta machine. I decided to attempt a lace cane following this tutorial here.
And I was hooked !!!.





Welcome

This is my blog about my experiences with polymer clay. I have been crafting handmade jewellery for a few years now but at the start this year I decided i wanted to start making my own beads and was interested in Glass Lamp Working after my research I reluctantly decided that it wasn't for me given I had no suitable space for lamp working. Then in April this year I discovered Polymer Clay whilst browsing the forum boards on the UK Beaders site and seeing some of the fantastic beads and more that can be created using Polymer Clay.

So I set about getting myself the basics I needed and I have been claying ever since. This blog is really about my learning experience with polymer clay good and bad as I practice and try out all the different techniques used and create my beads and jewellery along the way.

All my handcrafted jewellery pieces can be seen at my website Lottie of London.