Dragon Fruit cane

I love dragon fruit, or any exotic fruits really :) Unfortunately, I'm the only one in my family who likes them!

(picture found online)

Here's what they look like, in case you haven't seen one before. I know it might sound strange,but a lot of people I know have never even heard of dragon fruit! You eat them in a similar way to how you would eat a kiwi fruit: you basically cut them in half then take out the fruit. They taste quite similar to kiwi fruit, they're a little bland but sweet. The fruit has a soft and slightly slimy texture, but there's also lots of tiny seeds in fruit.
Anyway, I've only seen ones with white fruit before, but you can also get them with purple fruit. I don't know if they taste any different.







Now we've got that out the way, let's start with the tutorial! 

We're going to be needing the following colours: black, translucent, and a bright pink colour mixed with a little white.










Start by rolling out the black. then cut it in to equal size pieces.

What I did with the translucent clay, I rolled it in to a ball then flattened it out. Then I cut it in to quarters. I rolled out one of the pieces and used it for the centre. I put 4 rolls of black clay around it. Then wrap it up.
Keep doing this until you've used up all of translucent clay quarters.

Now we've finished making the fruit :) Now for the flesh. Take your pink clay and roll it out. Wrap it around the clay (or 'pack' the clay) and reduce it in to a cane (start by using your fingers to reduce/squeeze it down and after that you roll it).

Now you cut the ends of carefully with a good blade. Don't just push the blade down or you'll mess up your cane (typical beginner mistake!). Instead, sort of roll the cane with the blade as you push in through gently. 

And, you're done :D When you bake the slices, the white part will go translucent. Sorry, I don't have a picture of a baked slice just yet.

I don't recommend baking the cane unless you know what you're doing. If you want to use it for Decoden or nail art, I think it'll be best if you make as much slices as you think you'll need and bake them as normal.

'Millefiori' Shamballa bracelets

I don't know if anybody's come up with this idea, but I've basically come up with another scrap clay idea :)

I love shamballa bracelets, they're really easy to make, the only problem is that they take a long time to make.

I used a thicker cord than usual because the craft shop only had this cord. But it looks really good, and it's so smooth :D


Another thing is, as I was making the square knots, I noticed they were twisting around. I think this was because the cord was too thick. But it looks really cool, I think XD It makes it look more unique!









The beads

I made the beads out of scrap polymer clay. I put slices from canes I'd already made on them and rolled the beads until they were completely flat. I used quite thick wire to put holes through them. Also, if you make these, remember to make two smaller beads for the end of the cord. Make sure you make them out of the same scrap clay so it all fits together :).

I baked them on gas mark 1 for 15 minutes. It might be better if you bake them on gas mark 1/2 because if you're not careful, the clay will darken. (Lol, why don't they just say what gas mark you need to bake it at on the packet?) I glazed them with Studio by Sculpey glaze this time (You probably won't be able to find it anywhere in the shops because they don't make it any more... Even though it's the BEST glaze ever!)

The pattern

The pattern is very simple once you get used to it, all you need to know is how to make a square knot. I used this website for the pattern at first: http://www.beadbarmy.com/2012/01/the-bead-doctor-tutorial-shamballa-bracelet/ It's a very simple tutorial on how to make the bracelets. When I was first starting out, all on the other websites I found seemed pretty complicated... But this was the one that finally taught me how :D

Another idea I had was to use memory wire to make hoop earrings that have this technique in them. Shamballa bracelet earrings! But it seems some people have already had that idea:

http://rumorsaccessories.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=1&products_id=171

Note: I'm only making this post for people to use as inspiration... If you want to make something like this just do it :) Same goes for all of the ideas I put on here, unless I say otherwise.

Millefiori canes

I've been watching Italian polymer clay videos lately! There are some Italian girls on YouTube that are pretty much perfect at making canes and jewellery...

Anyway, I've been inspired :)
Here are some of the Millefiori canes I've made. You can't exactly see them very well in this picture. They're not nearly as good as some of the people I've seen... But they're a start, I guess (and they're better than my very first canes).

I made the one in the middle quite a long time ago, actually. I made the other two on Tuesday and Wednesday...

I haven't put a cord on this yet...

I also made these pendants and earrings using these canes :)

Anyway, these are pretty straight forward to make, and you don't have to just use Millefiori canes to make them. You can use fruit canes too :) So if you only have fruit canes, and you don't want to make anymore, I'm sure it'll look great using fruit canes. The only problem is, if you bake your canes, it might not work. 

What I did was, I made my cane, then used the waste clay from making the cane to make the shape of the pendant/bead/earrings. Then I took slices from my canes and put them on the pendant, and used a rolling pin/rolled them so the slices looked like they were part of the design. Then I baked them and made them in to the jewellery :)

If you're interesting, have a look at these YouTube channels (sorry the channels are Italian). SweetBioDesign and MissiClaus. I suppose those two are like the best I can find right now since my computer's being slow...