Crushed Velvet Technique

I've been playing with a polymer clay technique called Crushed Velvet.  It is a mica shift technique where you run the metallic clay through the pasta machine a bunch of times to line up all the mica particles, then you put the sheet of clay through the fettuccini cutter which slices it into little tiny strips.  Then you mush up the strips into a cane. You take a slice of the cane and turn it into a veneer and then make what you want.  You get a 3D effect even though you used only one color of clay.  I made some earrings and a couple of cabochons.  Fun and pretty.

A showcase of shawl pins

I've been making shawl pins using every technique I can think of.  Here are some examples:

This is a "Bend it Yourself" safety pin with silver zinc beads, silver-plated wire swirls and red glass beads.

This pin was made from black, white and gray layers of clay, imprinted with different texture sheets, and then the high spots shaved off.  Sanded and buffed so it is completely smooth.

Imprint mokume gane using Dan Cormier's wide peeler,

Mica shift with gold clay.  Imprinted with Helen Breil's texture sheet and then high spots shaved off.  Sanded and buffed so it is completely smooth.  It really looks 3-dimensional in real life.

From the cane I made in Carol Simmon's Kaleidoscope Cane class.

Design made in raw clay using various implements.  Antiqued after baking.

Imprinted with Helen Breil's texture sheet and then highlighted with Perfect Pearls while raw.  Wondering if I need to seal it.

Made using Wendy Orlowski's Feather Boa texture sheet.

Week 9 Earrings

Here are my week 9 earrings for the 52 weeks of earrings challenge.

Thing a Day- Feb 9, 2011

Today I discovered Kato Polyclay's Facebook page (click on the name to go there).  Donna Kato and Tony Aquino are thinking of adding some more colors to their line and they are looking for suggestions.

Also, Donna posted some new color formulas using Kato Pearl, Translucent and the Concentrate colors.  So far she has posted two sets.  I decided to try one of the red colors and made a sample square plus some triangular pieces which will be made into earrings.  This color is 1 part Pearl, 1 part Translucent and 1/2 part Red Concentrate.

The one thing that has kept me from switching entirely to Kato Clay is the translucent.  I did some tests a couple of years ago and Kato was the least translucent of the major brands and it had a yellowish cast.  Premo with bleach was the best.  My Kato translucent is pretty old so I'm going to get some of the most recent translucent to see if the reformulations have made any difference.  And I may try this formula again without the translucent to see the difference.

Sample of mica shift

Thing a Day- Feb 4, 2011

I tend to make post earrings, but since so many people seem to prefer dangles, I will be making more of them.  Here is a pair of mica shift earrings with gold-plated ear wires and jump rings.

This thing a day thing is a lot of pressure!  I want to do something different each day rather than multiples of the same thing.

Thing a Day- Feb 1, 2011

I've joined the Thing a Day project over at Polymer Clay Central, and this is my first day's work.  It's a pair of post earrings made with the crushed velvet, mica shift technique.  These are a kind of bronze color.  I mixed up the clay awhile ago and can't remember exactly what it is.  Sigh. 

I hate it when posts pop off the handmade earrings I buy, so I insist on embedding mine in clay so they will not come off.