Playing With Clay

A couple of weeks ago I took a polymer clay class and made my very own beads! I had never worked with polymer clay before so I was thrilled to get the chance to learn something new and make my very own beads (look out HGTV's Carol Duvall). I did have the forethought to bring my camera, and here are a few pictures I took.

Here is my pendant after I had worked the clay, which really means running it through a pasta machine a few times.

The instructor is very resourceful, here we have the beads on copper wire skewers, I just loved her "baking boat" for the oven.

Looks like a toaster oven, right? I thought so to, but alas it is a polymer clay and craft oven.

Here, the handy-dandy get the hot stuff out of the oven paddle is a shoe box top! Recycle and reuse is the name of the game - love it. Here are my pretties fresh out of the oven.

Ta Da... The final product after they have had their clear coat. I used rubber stamps to get the swirls on the front and back of each bead, I also used some embossing powder to give the beads some shimmer. Right now I'm not sure how I will use the beads, I do have enough to make a necklace, bracelet and earrings, or perhaps I will make a necklace and earring set, still pondering what other beads I will use as well.

My instructor does fabulous work, and I could not resist buying these two pendants. She originally planned to make them into pins, but I asked her to drill a hole in the top so that I could use them as a pendant, the lighter background one looks like mother-of-pearl, so tweet.