However a few months ago I saw Debbie Bulford demonstrate mixing jewel enamel powder into translucent polymer clay on Jewellery Maker TV and so loved the results that I bought some clay and had a go.
I have documented my efforts on this blog....they were relatively successful but not awesome, indeed I still haven't made up any actual jewellery with the resulting donuts.
I had bought a few basic polymer clay tools and then got the opportunity to acquire some more as part of a box of supplies for mixed media work.
So today I have made my first foray into the world that is polymer clay.
I used some deep blue and white and conditioned it well. This was easier than last time and I quickly had workable clay.
I wanted to try a simple cane to make some beads with a Delph blue pottery look. I made a sausage of white and covered it with the blue and then made a sort of geometric attempt rather than just circles. I covered some leftover bits to make beads. They came out a bit bigger than I expected so I only made three. I used the rest to make a sort of marble effect and finally used the very last bits all mixed together which created a pale blue.
I have a special polymer clay bead baking tray so I pushed pins through the beads and baked them.
I had no real idea what to expect when I opened the oven...they didn't look any different! But once cool it was obvious that they were quite hard.
Although they looked fine in a matte finish I decided to glaze them which actually brought put a nice quality in the pale blue beads.
I have simply strung them onto beading thread to see what they might look like at the neckline.
