Introduction to Polymer Clay Canes

If you're new to polymer clay, you might find this introduction to polymer clay canes useful. When I just started out I assumed they were those red and white Christmas candy canes, but I promise you they're much more interesting than that!

How to Make Chocolate Charms with Polymer Clay

I made this delicious-looking chocolate charm by following this great tutorial by chat-noir (browse through her gallery, she has quite a few other cool tutorials too!). I only made a couple of changes: I used a scone/cookie cutter to make the teeth marks, and I mixed the pink clay with white translucent clay for the filling. It's the first time I use translucent clay so I'm not sure if it will work, but hopefully when it bakes it will look a bit like Turkish Delight - that's my favorite kind of chocolate! :D

I made four of these to turn into polymer clay jewelry, but I'm not sure what to make yet. I think maybe I will use two of them to make a pair of earrings, or all of them to make a charm bracelet ^^

First Creations with Pasta Machine

I had a lot of fun with my new pasta machine this past weekend! It's so much faster to condition the clay, and getting my sheets of clay to a perfectly even thickness is effortless! The only problem I had with it was the wonky motor (even with the stand to steady it), so I had to put a book underneath to stop it from shaking so much. Quite insignificant considering how much faster and easier it makes things! :D

In the photo below you can see a checkerboard cane that I made in shades of purple and pink - my mother says that any purple jewelry she has is always popular at the markets she goes to, so I thought I'd make some purple polymer clay jewelry for her to sell as well. In the photo it looks mostly pink, but it's actually half pink and half purple.

Electric Pasta Machine

Last week I posted about my first pasta machine that I bought for working with polymer clay, and that I was disappointed with the quality and was going to take it back. Well one of the hypermarkets around here just had a huge sale, and one of the products on promotion was an Imperia Electric pasta machine for €60! Of course I had to get it! So we went in the morning so I could buy one before they sold out, and I'm super happy that I now have an electric pasta machine rather than a manual one. I'm so tempted to start using it immediately, but I've got a ton of work to do so I'll have to wait until the weekend. I'm really looking forward to it! ^__^

Polymer Clay Jewelry

Fimo Haul

I bought some Fimo Soft yesterday - unfortunately I realized afterwards that the white is actually Fimo Effect, and apparently it's transparent! It seems completely opaque in the packaging though, so it will be interesting to see how it looks when baked - it might actually turn out useful if it really is transparent :) Has anyone reading this used transparent Fimo before, and if so how did it turn out?

Polymer Clay Jewelry

My First Pasta Machine - For Clay!

I bought my first pasta machine yesterday for my polymer clay creations. They are so expensive, especially the ones with a motor - most of them were about €200! We went to a whole bunch of shops, and finally I found this manual one at a hypermarket for €15. There was a photo of an adorable pink pasta machine on the box, but unfortunately they were all sold out so I got this blue one instead. However once we got home and set it up I realized it wasn't very good quality, so I'm going to return it. I hope I can find a good affordable one soon - I can't wait to try making some polymer clay jewelry with Skinner blends! :)