More Biker Chic - Woven Faux Leather

I fell in love with these woven leather shoes and decided I needed some tough, biker-style earrings to go with them.  The earrings are all clay including the studs.  They are about one and a half inches in diameter.  I need to find a big, rusty chain to hang them from next time I photograph them.

The inspiration, and yes, I do wear them.

It took a long time to lay out the woven strips just right so that I could cut out a circle and not have any gaps in the outside edge.

Lots of Earrings

I haven't been blogging much, but I've been very busy with a lot of different projects including making a lot of earrings.  Every 18 months, I rendezvous with 11 fabulous women all of whom were in my freshman dorm in college.  We always have a blast and usually exchange small, inexpensive gifts, so this time I'm giving everyone earrings.  They will get to choose from the ones shown in the photos.  These are all post earrings, but I hope to make some dangles this week.



I made these using a crackle technique: pearlescent paint on clay which is run through the pasta machine when dry.  Although they look large in the photos, the trapezoidal earrings are about the size of a U.S. nickel.  The small round ones are less than 1/2 inch in diameter (12.4mm).

My new tool rack

I have a really bad habit of putting down tools everywhere but where they are supposed to be, and if it isn't VERY easy for me to put them away, they can be lost for days.  Since I have accumulated quite a few pliers, I decided it was time to get some kind of holder.  I tried the flat kind with the two rows of  holes for the handles, but a lot of the pliers wouldn't stand up in that.  Since I couldn't find anything else, I decided to make my own.  Not bad for about 3 hours of work - just don't look too closely.  It even has a bottom but it is a thin piece of white melamine and doesn't show up against the white background.

Biker Chic - Faux Leather

I don't really want to be a biker - I just like the outfits.  Studs on leather is the big thing this year, so I decided to make my own version.  Everything here is polymer clay, the "leather" and the "studs."  I know, I'm a little compulsive.  Making and attaching all those little studs was time consuming.  The post earrings look big here but they are only one and a half inches in diameter, so you can imagine how small those little studs must be - just over 1/16th of an inch!!  The bracelet, which is formed over an aluminum blank,  is one and one-eighth inches across.  It even has faux stitching.

Image Transfer in Electroformed Bezel

I wanted to try a couple of things here.  First I made a bezel using the CaBezel mold, baked it and then electroformed it with a light coating of copper.  That came out looking terrific.  I put a Jax Brown patina on it to give it a slightly antique look.  Next I wanted to see if I could make a cabochon with an image transfer.   I put the image transfer on raw clay, then placed the CaBezel mold for the cabochon over it.  Placement was easy because you can see through the mold.  The image came out great - no distortion and it didn't stick to the mold (unlike the first one when I forgot to use water as a release.  LOL.  Guess I was in a hurry to see if it would work).  The cab is quite small, only 7/8 by 1 and 1/4 inches, but I got a lot of nice detail in the image.  Next I put the cab into the bezel and gently smoothed the top edges down to cover the cut sides of the clay and make it completely fill the bezel.  That little bit of extra space and the process of smoothing down the top is what gives it a real cabochon look.  I purposely didn't make the cab super thick because I knew I would be stretching the image in order to smooth the edges.  After that I baked it, sprayed it with PYMII to protect the transfer and keep the copper from darkening further and VOILA!  (That's for my Francophone Clayamie friends.)

For anyone interested in the CaBezels, they are available exclusively at Shades of Clay.

Patina on Electroformed Copper

I've been experimenting with patinas.  I tried Liver of Sulfur on copper but wasn't wild about the colors I got, so I purchased some Jax patinas.  I definitely like them better.  The Brown patina gives a color similar to the brown on purchased "Antique Copper" findings.  Here are the before and after pics of my Madonna pendant experiment.

Confetti Style Bottles of Hope

At one of the meetings of my clay guild, Barbara Bowman taught us a fun technique called "Confetti Spaghetti".  I used it to make these Bottles of Hope for local cancer patients.