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...

More biscuits

I couldn't put all my polymer biscuits in to one post... Because I was too lazy!

Half dipped biscuits/cookies

My sister made one :D

These aren't exactly my idea because I saw a video on YouTube showing how to make them. I kind of came up with my own versions... But there isn't exactly lots I can do with this idea (I'm too lazy). I suppose something I could do is make them in different shapes and stuff...




Pretzels

No, they're not exactly biscuits. But I had the idea to make them while I was making polymer clay biscuits and the ones I made are more like biscuits than pretzels.

I made them in lots of colours, so chocolate, strawberry and vanilla flavour :) I put some 'icing' (TLS) on them so they look half-dipped and put on some sprinkles (Because sprinkles are good).

I can't exactly explain how I made the knot shape of the pretzel... I might make a pictorial tutorial later... If I can be bothered, that is XD





Anyway, I decided to take another picture of my 'Sandwich biscuits' from a different angle.

Heart shape on the top, of course :)

Now you can see the different colours (or flavours if you prefer) in my biscuits :D

Anyway, I keep getting ideas lately... So I might update a little more often... I feel like taking a break from polymer clay, actually, but I keep getting ideas for things. So it's hard :( I might make some jewellery out of paper, like origami and paper beads.

By the way... I'm soooo fed up of the spell checker on here. It keeps forgetting I'm NOT American and telling me off for spelling things the British way :( Sorry, but it's annoying!

Polymer clay biscuits

Sorry, I'm British so cookies are biscuits to me :) Anyway, I've made lots of them because they're fun and easy to make. Anyway, I understand that in places like America, some of these biscuits might be called different names.

'Sandwich' Biscuits

I never know what to call these biscuits so I just call them 'Sandwich Biscuits' because it's just basically two layers of biscuit (or clay) with a layer of filling inside (TLS/liquid clay mixed with chalk).

Yeah, I forgot to take a picture from the side so you can't see the bottom layer is a different colour. Anyway, basically what I did was on the first one (the smiley face one) I used a plain biscuit base with a red filling, and then cut the smiley face shape out of the top layer. I stuck it all together and it came out like that :). On the others I did the same think, except with different colour layers, filling and shapes.

I don't know if it counts, but here's a different sort I made:

Yeah, I got brown TLS everywhere...
I think I did it wrong, I cut out a heart shape for the base (with a craft knife and a piece of paper cut in to the shape I wanted. I don't use cookie cutters!) On top of that I put a layer of brown TLS. This is where   it went wrong... I wrapped two pieces of clay around each other and tried to used them to outline the biscuit, but of course it all went wrong. I learnt my lesson. But it does look kind of cool!




Cookies!

Here in Britain, these are what we call 'cookies'. Biscuits with chocolate chips (or chunks or whatever) are called cookies. I don't know anyone who calls any other sort of biscuits 'cookies'. I suppose some kids call any biscuits cookies, but that's just because of all the American kid shows they show over here...

I guess the one in the top left corner doesn't really count as a cookie, but it's there anyway. (I suppose it falls under the category of 'dipped biscuit', but oh well)

I suppose plenty of people already know how to make cookies... So I won't go in to too much detail.

I just took a base of polymer clay and shaped it. Then rolled a ball of foil over them to give them their texture. (I don't know what Americans call foil, but I think it's different) I dusted them with chalk to make them look cooked, then added the chocolate chips and decorations.

Mikado/Pocky sticks

Where I live, we don't have Pocky Sticks. We have Mikado sticks. They come in lots of different flavours,but not as much as Pocky Sticks. My friend (who comes from Hong Kong) showed me Pocky. They're pretty much exactly the same as Mikado :)

Yeah, I soon gave up on these... I took a stick of 'biscuit' then rolled them in TLS. Bad idea. Mum angry at me for messing up the foil on the tray. (I have to use the same strip of foil for all my polymer clay. If I mess it up, I get in trouble for 'wasting foil'. I have a strange family...)

Anyway, I suppose I could have just painted them instead of using TLS. The only thing is, acrylic paints seem to leave a shine. The chocolate on Mikado doesn't really have much of a shine. I guess I'll have to come up with something...




I'm going to make another post about more biscuits when I feel like it. Now, I'm bored of writing and my sister wants to play Sims 3.

Another scrap clay idea...

I was bored... So I made these hearts out of clay and put some fruit cane slices on them. :) I put some white chalk on them too, because it looks kind of like icing sugar, well too me it does ;D

They're pretty simple and they're quite small so they're good for charm bracelets. I might make some     earrings using this sort of technique in the future, I think it would look nice :)

Another thing is, I was bored of the shape of ordinary eye pins, so I made up my own. I get bored   way too easy... I was thinking of making some heart shaped ones, too.

Summer

Yay, it's the summer holidays! Six weeks (well now five weeks) of summery fun! Of course, I absolutely hate  hot weather and end up wasting lots of sun cream because I'm so paranoid about skin cancer...

Anyway, it was my sister's birthday last week :) She's nine now. (Yeah, there is actually a seven year gap between us... I don't appreciate that.) I made her a necklace out of wire that had her name on it. I also made a charm bracelet.

Here's a picture I took of the charm bracelet on my NEW camera! ;D

I made a close up of this cake charm, because I managed to actually put her age on it. I worked hard on the flower, to! Anyway, I assumed that most people do know how to make polymer clay cakes by now seeing as there's so much tutorials on how to make them.






By the way, I love making those little polymer clay plumeria flowers. They're beautiful and really simple to make. I'm planning on making a slide show style tutorial (I'll explain why I can only make that style video in future) to show how to make them.

Anyway, (caution: moving away from subject) the Olympics started yesterday :). As a British girl though, I found the opening ceremony a little disappointing :( I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly, but it just seemed a little... well... disappointing that they put seven years in to preparing for the Olympics, and this was all that happened. I guess I'd like to know that the Chinese think so far because they had the Olympics last time. They probably came expecting something similar to what they did... And when they leave they'll know a little bit more about British history... lol.

Personally, I've been worrying about the terrorist threats... They keep saying about the security on the news and it's really bugging me.

Anyway (before I over use the word 'anyway' anymore), I've been playing Sims 3 lately and forgetting to update this! I ought to make a Sims 3 blog or something. In fact, I probably will at some point seeing as I gave up using the Sims 3 website so long ago.

First YouTube video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4hQJ3twKek&feature=plcp

I made a slide show of my 'best' clay creations so far :) Now all I need to do is make another Deviant Art account... Yes, I've had about 3 in the past... And always ended up closing them! 

But now I've decided I'm not just going to close everything because that's a waste of time. I will also make a slide show of my drawings when I can be bothered :D

I couldn't stop myself from adding a picture of my cat :)

Idea for Scrap Polymer Clay...

I have a LOT of scrap clay at the moment. I'm not sure why, I try not to waste too much clay because all together, clay can become quite expensive, but recently, I had a pretty cool idea (well I thought it was cool) about what I could do with it. Sorry about the low quality picture, by the way, I don't have a very good camera.

I like the Shamballa style bracelets I see everywhere lately :) But I thought it might be better to make my own, since most of the ones in the shops are made in different countries and I thought it would be fun to make, especially since I have no coordination (lol).

I'd like to make a proper tutorial at some point :) (but first I need a decent camera!) But basically, for the beads, I took a lot of scrap clay and rolled it all together. I cut ten equal parts and rolled each of them in to the shape of the bead. After that I used my thicker wire to push a hole through them, because everything else I tried just made the whole bead go a different shape (I guess that's just part of it being 'Soft' clay!). I also made two smaller beads, for the ends of the cord. I baked the beads all together, after that. I cooked them for about 15 minutes, since they are only very small.

I painted them all using acrylic paints. These paints also have a slight shine, so I didn't have to glaze them (I don't know if this is the case for all brands, but I use Studio by Sculpey - which is bakeable, but it stinks and the fumes really get me!).

I used the thinnest P'leather cord my local craft store sells to make it in to a bracelet. For the knotted part, I found some great tutorials on the internet :) I found this video on Youtube, which is very well made. It doesn't show you how to make a square knot, but it has a link to another video that shows you how. I also found this website, which is quite informational :).

For people who make charms with polymer clay, I also have an idea. If you find your white charms often get dirty and you have to paint them, try making them with scrap clay instead and paint them white. I thought it might be a good thing to try :D.