Faux Lampwork Glass Beads with Liquid Polymer Clay

As some may know before discovering polymer clay, I was very keen to try glass lampworking,  alas in my tiny apartment it was not to be and so I discovered polymer clay in my quest for making beads.

Well it is possible to imitate lampwork glass beads using liquid polymer clay, if you search the internet you may find tutorials and projects limited for this technique and having tried it once before myself and failed I can see why, its very tricky and fiddly though the clayers that have perfected this technique the results are amazing.


I am going to use a project from my book Polymer Pizzazz by Bead & Button.  The project is Grapevine Beads by Carly Seibel and uses translucent liquid clay with oil paints, its also worth noting that this method uses a different technique in that the oven is used rather than a heat gun.

For this project I'm not going to be doing the grapevine as specifed in the project I'm going to try some poppies instead.

Translucent Liquid Polymer Clay TLS

Its important to mix only a small amount of liquid clay with a fair amount of liquid clay in the desired colours you will be using, as I am going to be doing a poppy design for me this will be red, black and two shades of green.

My acrylic painted background sheet on polymer clay

My background sheet used to cover my bead bases was painted and decorated using Lumiere acrylic paints.

My polymer clay beads bases are wrapped in my background sheet

Once dry i covered my bead bases and shaped them into the bead shape I wanted to use, in this case ovals they are cooked for the time recommended for the clay you are using.

My polymer clay beads are painted with the TLS & oil paint mix

Once the beads are cooled they are ready to be decorated with your liquid clay and oil paint mix, here is my decorated beads almost complete











And here are my final finished beads the two smaller beads did'nt quite turn out right and the flowers where too close together.

My faux lampwork beads with polymer clay

My finished larger focal bead, its worth pointing out here that once you add the varnish to the beads it really does add to the appearance, also my photos have been lightened considerably to show you the effect, the beads are actually quite dark.

My faux lampwork focal bead with polymer clay

This is a great technique for achieving the faux glass lampwork appearance with polymer clay though possibly more suited to an advanced clayer and those who are familiar with liquid clay.  Personally I feel the beads came out too dark, this I believe is to do with the black background I used, with better planning of colours and a white background the end results could be quite different.
 
If you would like to learn this technique with the full detailed tutorial instructions please refer to my resource list below, I would highly recommend this technique as its a great one to learn and once you do and have the time you could really plan to create some amazing beads.

I have a couple tips if you are going to try this project.

• Make sure you use the smallest amount of oil paint to liquid clay as it will only cause problems when cooking and not dry properly.  The balance is very important as I found out with my lighter shade of green.
• I would highly recommended when taking on this project you make sure you are undisturbed, get rid of the kids and any other disturbances that will distract you from this project it is time consuming and requires your full attention as I unfortunately found out when I had to start preparing dinner.

Resources

• The book Polymer Pizzazz by Bead & Button Magazine
• The Grapevine Necklace Tutorial available as download from the Kalmbach Bookstore

This post is part of Handmade Monday with Handmade Harbour Pop on over to see more great handmade blogs

Playing with the Combing / Feathering Technique

Following my inspiration from Stephane Rolland dress I have decided to try out the Combing/Feathering technique.  The tutorial I have used for this comes from my very first polymer clay book How To Make Polymer Clay Beads by Carol Blackburn.  She has two tutorials for this technique in her first shes uses clay and calls it combing, which I have actually used before in my early days of claying as you can see below

Ocean Beaded Necklace - Combing technique using polymer clay

Ocean Teardrop Pendant - Combing using polymer clay

Her second tutorial is called feathering and she uses liquid polymer clay for this, I did also try this method first time round too but my piece would not dry and had to be scrapped.

This time round I will be trying both again but using only three colours mainly black and white with dashes of red. 

Feathering technique using liquid clay 1st attempt

Feathering

Here is my first piece ...
and although it looks great it just did'nt dry and I had to scrap it again.

I think I may have used too much oil paint which can take days to dry

Feathering with liquid clay 2nd attempt

Second attempt...
at first seemed better but after leaving it to dry it all blurred into each other and the feathering pattern was lost.

I think too much liquid clay this time, its obviously a real balancing act and one I will have to try again after all practice makes perfect.

If you have tried this effect and have any tips to help me get it right I would love to here from you.

Combing with clay 3 colours used

Combing

Here is the results from my combing technique using 3 colours of clay.

Its looking good, the pattern is larger than when I first tried this technique but I have put that down to using just the 3 colours this time.











Despite looking good its not been so easy to apply as this time round it lost its shape and pattern when applied to beads or onto a cabochon.

Combing sheet applied to pebble shaped beads

Combing sheet applied to a raised cabochon

It looks much more effective when kept flat so the pattern can't be altered, so I am still toying with some ideas of what to make with my remaining sheet.

Combing a section has been used to create a part of this pendant

Busy Busy Busy

Well I have been away for a while ;) but I've been very busy working on some commission pieces so here is the first of my finished item

Gold & Amber Toned Charm Necklace

Gold & Amber Toned Charm Necklace

Gold & Amber Toned Charm Necklace

Etsy Treasury Feature

My Molten Rocks Pendant has been featured in Aurelia's Treasury on Molten

Molten Treasury by Aurelia

My attempts at a Bettina Welker Technique

I fell in love with Bettina Welker's Nightgarden Pendant when I first saw it on Flickr and when I saw she had a book coming out with the Nightgarden Pendant and lots more I had to have it.

Once it arrived my first thing I did was chck to see I had what was needed to create my own pendant.  I set about searching the internet for coloured liquid clay here in the UK and I couldn't find a supplier anywhere, so I decided to improvise! here are my attempts at using translucent liquid mixed with the smallest amount of oil and acrylic Paint.

Actually some of them don't look too bad, but just not quite right.  So for a few months I put it aside and then recently decided to trawl the internet again for liquid clay determined to get some even if I had to purchase it from overseas.  This time my luck was in I have found a UK supplier, I was so happy I ordered a few colours and once they arrived I started practising the technique again, it's not as easy as it would seem.  I just fell like I am missing something maybe from the amount of colour I am using or the technique in spreading.  One piece I was happy with and created this pendant from it.

This technique reminds me of looking at the clouds and finding shapes from them and every time I look I see something different.  I also tried it out on a round bead just to see what it would turn out like here

I am pleased with the bead too, needless to say further attempts at the technique have just not turned out quite right so lots more practise will be needed.