Thing A Day Day 1 Polymer Clay Texture Sheets

I'm excited!! Today is the first day of the annual "Thing a Day" Challenge on Polymer Clay Central.  This is our sixth year.  Seana started the challenge 6 years ago, at first it was a challenge to herself and she invited other to join in...  we did, it was fun and we agreed to meet each year and do it again.

To see the challenge... or join in... you are all invited... go to Polymer Clay Central, click on the "Message Board" tab on the left  or click on it here and then click on the TAD thread for each day.

I am also taking part in a Swap on Facebook.... the theme is "Hearts & Texture Sheets".  I've been working on textures all week.... some worked some didn't.  Here are the results.

This is the first one I made using scrap clay.  I grabbed a hand full of scrap clay, mostly Kato and Premo scraps, might be a bit of Pardo and Fimo.... ran it through the pasta machine to get an even color. This took me forever because I kept coming up with colors that I really liked and wanted to save... finally a yucky gray... so I got out assorted tools and do dads and made this.  I tested it with gold Kato clay.  I used corn starch as a release and it worked okay... but it did stick a little so I went back to the drawing board.

I have this cheapy "Craftsmart" clay that I bought at Michaels some time back.  It's not good for much but I thought it might work for a texture sheet.

Again I used assorted tools to make a design. I tried both corn starch and water for  a release but each time it stuck a bit and the the Craftsmart clay is kinda rubbery.... not what I wanted.

Third time is a charm... A few years ago some place on line was selling a whole bunch of Red Golden
and Lilac Pearl Sculpey for 50 cents a pack.... I don't normally use Sculpey but I was buying other stuff and they offered free shipping with X amount of purchase... and I have a hard time passing up a sale... so ended up with many packs of strange colored Sculpey.   I'm pretty sure I paid more for the clay than the postage would have cost but my theory is "you just never know when something might come in handy" just ask my kid... she's always saying things like "No, you do not need to save yet another oatmeal box!" or  "Mom, why do you need ALL these burnt out light bulbs"  I'm pretty sure she throws things away when I'm not looking.

To make a long, boring story shorter.... I am very pleased with the textures sheets I made with the Sculpey.  I can't show you the ones I made for the swap right now.... I will when my partner in Japan recieves them....  but here are others I made. I used a different  technique with these, I like it better than the impression I made with the ones above.  I haven't shaved the impressed sheet yet.. I experimented with a corner sample, see,  above the other two. I used corn starch for the release and it worked great.

Here are a couple more sheets I made with the Sculpey.  The first is geometric squares and the second is a row of houses...  I can see all kinds of possibilities  for this technique..... can;t you?

I tested the houses on Kato clay.... and I used it to make the big beads.

I am working on more beads that I will show you tomorrow.   It is going to be a busy month!!

Thanks for stopping by.