Polymer Clay Tutorial: Jellyroll Heart Cane

This pretty cane tutorial is just in time for Valentine's Day!  

Supplies:

red clay (for the heart)

black clay (for the background)

Tools:

pasta machine or acrylic roller

tissue blade

cutters in various sizes (optional)

Directions:

Condition your clay and roll both colors out in long strips with the red being about twice as thick as the black.

I rolled the red out on a #0 setting on my Atlas and the black was at #3 or #4.

Lay it on the work surface with the black on top and press your blade into the end of the clay at an angle.  (This step is optional - it just makes it easier to get the jellyroll started.)

Carefully roll the clay up into a jellyroll, pressing firmly to keep any excess air out.  Roll up about 3/4 of the strip.

Now flip it over so the red is on the top.

Make your indentation with the blade again if desired and roll up that end just one revolution or so.

Now make a long, narrow wedge of black to start filling in the inside of the heart.  I missed a photo here but I just took a block of conditioned clay and trimmed it to the shape with my tissue blade.

Make another block of clay from the black about the same width as the length of the cane.

Find yourself a cutter with a round part about the same size as the larger part of the jellyroll.  I'm using a gingerbread man head.  It doesn't need to be a full circle.

Stand your block of black on end and use the cutter to cut out a round part lining up with one corner of the block as seen here:

See?  It fits!  Now for the larger curve.

Find another cutter that will fit the curve of the black part you've already put in there and cut away at your block again.

Stick the block in there and press it in firmly.  Now, if you are at all familiar with my methods, you know I like to overpack and cut away the excess.  That's what I did here.  Line up your blade with the two jellyrolls as shown and cut away the excess black.  You should have a flat surface there with no gaps.  If the second block of black wasn't big enough, you may have a gap.  You'll need to fill that in before continuing.

Make sure you trim away some of the black on the smaller jellyroll and expose the red underneath.  If you don't, the bottom of the heart will have a gap.

Now fill in the back of the heart with black the same way.

Roll out some thick sheets of black and wrap them around 3/4 of the cane.  You don't need to do any on the inside of the heart.

Trim the inside of the heart flat again and then cut away the excess on the ends to make a rectangular cane.  I laid a second blade across the cane to make sure the two long ends were parallel.

Now you have a rectangular half-heart cane.

Cut it in half.

Put the two halves together to form a heart.

I wanted my cane to be square so I added a sheet of black to each side of the cane.  Your's may or may not need this step.

Let it rest for a while and then reduce.  Now go find something to cover with it!

I covered (yet another) pen.  I think I'll make some filigree hearts out of the red to make charms for the pen.

Hope you like it!

Enjoy,

Korrina

Fairy Trees and a Dragon

Wednesday is the day I set aside for showing you what projects I have been working on in my craft room.  Well, this week has been kind of slow for clay (and I've been working on my piece for the PCC Challenge- more about that later) so I am going to show off some other stuff I have been working on lately that I really haven't said much about.  Some of these are listed in my Etsy shop and some are still waiting to be listed.  I call them my "Fairy Trees" and the idea started with the Harry Potter Forbidden Forest piece I did last October...

This is the Harry Potter piece. 

Winter Fairy Tree- Listed on Etsy here.

Moonlit Winter Tree- Listed on Etsy here.

Moonlit Winter Tree ACEO- Listed on Etsy here.

Fire Tree- Listed on Etsy here.

Snowy Tree

Apple Blossom Tree

Spring Love Trees

Dragon Sunset.  I know this one's not a tree... the background was originally meant for a tree but after I got it made, I decided a dragon would fit much better.

Enjoy!
Korrina

Awesome Etsy Artists!

International Friendship Week ends today and in honor of this, I created a friendship-themed Etsy treasury:



Enjoy!
Korrina

Polymer Clay Valentine's Magnet Tutorial #3

This is the third and final tutorial for my Valentine's Day magnets.  You can see the first one here and the second one here.  I think this one is my favorite and it was the most fun to make.  I love using texture in my clay work but for some reason, I don't use it very often.

Anyway, here goes:

Valentine's Cut-Out Heart Magnet

Supplies Needed:

gold metallic clay

pink clay

gold metallic powder

iridescent glitter

Tools Needed:

pasta machine

tissue blade

small heart cutter

ripple texture sheet

basketweave texture sheet

stamp with the word "love"

     or blunt needle tool

Step 1: Prepare your elements.

Condition your gold clay.  Run it through the pasta machine, fold in half and run it through again several times to align the mica particles.  Rip your sheet of clay into a bunch of little pieces and pile them on your  work surface:

Condense your pile of clay pieces and mash it until you can put it through the pasta machine.   

 Run it through the pasta machine on a medium-thin setting. (The tearing and mashing should have made a cool random mica shift design in your clay.)  Cut out a 1 1/2 inch square.

Cut a heart out of the center of your square.  (Turn the cutter a little so it's not perfectly symmetrical.)

 Now, condition and roll out your pink clay at the same thickness as the gold.  Cut a heart out of it.

Use the basketweave texture sheet on your heart.

Step 2: Prepare the base.

 Roll out some more pink clay at the thickest setting and cut out a 2-inch square. 

Texture your sheet all over using the ripple texture sheet.

 Lay your gold square over the background (turned about 45 degrees) so you can see where to put the letters.

 Stamp or carve the word "love" in the space inside the heart.  (You may need to move the gold square for a moment to do this.

 Next, get out your gold metallic powder (I'm using PearlEx- I think it's the antique gold.)  and very gently touch the surface of the powder with your index finger.  You just want a micro-thin layer of the powder on your finger.  Touch the pink clay with your gold-plated finger a few times.  Keep touching the powder and then the clay until you have a sort of splotchy gold design on your pink clay.  I made the gold fingerprints a little thicker around the letters to make them stand out more.  Do this to the pink heart as well.  (I added some clay where the corners of the gold square will hang over to support them during baking and give them added strength.)

 Step Three:  Put it all together.

Lay all of your elements on the base and press down gently to get it all to stick together.

Now you get to add the glitter.  See my notes about the glitter here.  (Scroll down about 3/4 of the way.)

Step 4: Bake and finish.

Now it's time to bake.  Put your piece on something flat (I have several pieces of broken stone tile that I can bake small things on.)  and bake at 265 degrees (or whatever the clay manufacturer recommends) for about 30-45 minutes.  I like to err on the side of caution and bake longer than may be necessary.

So now you're ready to add the magnet to the back.  I'm just using what I have on hand, which is some of that thin, flat, rolled-up magnetic strip with the sticky back.  This is not my first choice but as the magnets are light and I seldom hang stuff on the fridge with my magnets, it will suffice.  I cut a piece slightly smaller than the back of the magnet, peeled off the paper, and stuck it on.  If I were to sell these, I would use the stronger round magnets and adhere them with a suitable glue.

 Reverse side:



There you go!  Make a bunch and give them away for Valentine's Day or keep them for yourself.  If you do, feel free to send me pictures and I will post them here.  I think I might give mine to my sister who has a magnet collection dating back to her junior high school days.

Korrina

P.S.  Do yourself a favor and don't sell any of the stuff you make from my tutorials.  When people buy handmade, they want a story and "I followed some instructions online" is really a lousy story.  Do feel free to use my ideas as inspiration or a "jumping-off point" for your own creations.  Besides, if anyone is going to make money off my ideas, shouldn't it be me?  :)

Polymer Clay Valentine's Magnet Tutorial #2

Okay, I know I promised this for yesterday but, you know, stuff gets in the way.  I've started back on my antidepressants again after 5 years and they always make me a little loopy the first couple of days.

Anyway, so here's the second magnet tutorial I promised:

Valentine's 4-Heart Magnet Tutorial

Supplies needed:

pink clay
pearl clay

gold clay

gold metallic powder
iridescent glitter
magnet

Tools needed:
tissue blade
pasta machine

heart cutter

stamp with the word "love" or blunt needle tool

Step 1: Prepare the Base

Condition the pink clay and roll it out on a medium-thick setting:

I can see I had some air bubbles in this sheet but the magnet is so small and there will be enough stuff covering the base that it doesn't really matter right now.  If you really want to get rid of the air bubbles, you can pierce them with a needle tool, then flatten them a little with a finger, then fold the sheet and run it through the pasta machine again.  I keep doing this until I can't see any more air bubbles in the sheet. 

Anyway, now cut an irregular shape out of your clay for the base of the magnet:



Now use your stamp or blunt needle to put the word "love" across the bottom.  Next, get out your gold metallic powder (I'm using PearlEx- I think it's the antique gold.)  and very gently touch the surface of the powder with your index finger.  You just want a micro-thin layer of the powder on your finger.  Touch the pink clay with your gold-plated finger a few times.  Keep touching the powder and then the clay until you have a sort of splotchy gold design on your pink clay.  I made the gold fingerprints a little thicker around the letters to make them stand out more:



Step 2: Make the hearts.

Now condition your gold clay and sort of knead in your hands a little to disalign the mica in the clay.  Roll it out really thin and cut out 2 hearts.  I didn't have a heart cutter the size I wanted so I used a leaf cutter and trimmed the wider end so it looks like the top of a heart:

Next, condition your pearl clay and either roll it into a long string or extrude it through a fairly small hole in the extruder.  Take a piece 4 or 5 inches long and fold it in half.  Kind of squish the fold between your fingers a little.  This will be the top of the heart:

Now bend the two long ends back around to each other and pinch them together to form a heart with two tails:

Trim the tails and reshape the heart the way you want it.  I think the next time I do this one, I will curve the point at the bottom a little so it matches the gold hearts better:

Step 3: Put it all together.

Lay your gold hearts on the background and press them down a little:

Now add your string hearts:

Now you get to add the glitter.  See my notes about the glitter here.  (Scroll down about 3/4 of the way.):

Step 4: Bake and finish.

Now it's time to bake.  Put your piece on something flat (I have several pieces of broken stone tile that I can bake small things on.)  and bake at 265 degrees (or whatever the clay manufacturer recommends) for about 30-45 minutes.  I like to err on the side of caution and bake longer than may be necessary.

So now you're ready to add the magnet to the back.  I'm just using what I have on hand, which is some of that thin, flat, rolled-up magnetic strip with the sticky back.  This is not my first choice but as the magnets are light and I seldom hang stuff on the fridge with my magnets, it will suffice.  I cut a piece slightly smaller than the back of the magnet, peeled off the paper, and stuck it on.  If I were to sell these, I would use the stronger round magnets and adhere them with a suitable glue. (And here you get a preview of the other magnet I'm going to tutorialize- Is that a word?):

Reverse side:



There you go!  Make a bunch and give them away for Valentine's Day or keep them for yourself.  If you do, feel free to send me pictures and I will post them here.  I think I might give mine to my sister who has a magnet collection dating back to her junior high school days.

Korrina

P.S.  Do yourself a favor and don't sell any of the stuff you make from my tutorials.  When people buy handmade, they want a story and "I followed some instructions online" is really a lousy story.  Do feel free to use my ideas as inspiration or a "jumping-off point" for your own creations.  Besides, if anyone is going to make money off my ideas, shouldn't it be me?  :)