Thursday, April 25, 2013

Latest Cobblestone Canes & Beads

I made a couple more Cobblestone Canes.

First I made bullseye canes in a variety of colors. The first one is light gray and black. The others are mustard yellow, purple, rose, peach and turquoise. I put a band in a darker shade of each color around each of the center colors, then a band of light gray and a band of black.

Click on the photos for a closer look.


Using the extruder I made 3 sizes of each color and cut them into 2" logs.   The center disk came with the extruder, the other 2 sizes are washers that I bought at the hardware store.  The clay has to be the right consistence to work well in the extruder so I mix Kato and Premo.... 


Here are all the finished logs.  That pile in the back on the right are scraps..... the really fun stuff. I was itching to get my hands on those. 




After sorting through the scraps I put this cane together. 


I can't show you the final cane as I used it to make items for a swap.... I'll post photos once my swap partner receives the package. 

For the first Cobblestone Cane I used the  colorful bullseye canes, rose, peach,  purple and turquoise, a touch of mustard yellow along with some green from a previous project....  none of the black & gray. 


I used the end pieces of the above cane to make Cobblestone Beads. 


Close up of the beads.  I like these beads, they are happy beads, they make me smile. 


I used the black & gray bullseye canes along with all but the rose bullseye canes to make this Cobblestone Cane. 


I then used the above cane to make these. I resisted reducing them down to make kaleidoscope canes, instead I will cut 4 slices and make tiles with a kaleidoscope pattern.  I was determined not to over reduced this time!!


More canes from the large one above. I will make tiles and beads with these too.



And finally this is a pendant I made from the scrap end of the scrap cane above.... I do love my scraps!! The background is black textured with sandpaper.  It measures 2 1/4" x  2 1/4" 



My next project is making beads.... lots and lots of beads. I have loads of canes and I need to use them, or at least some of them, before I make more canes. I am out of storage space for canes. If I get enough beads made I may open another shop on Etsy... just for beads.  I'll have to think of a shop name, that is always the hard part. 

That's it for today. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Textured Cabochon pendants & more

I know, it's been a while since my last post.  Several folks emailed they were getting Malware warning when they tried to access my blog.... I've had it checked and nothing was found so hopefully the problem was solved. I removed the link to Polymer Clay Etc, which was said to be the source of the problem.  I will give it a try and see what happens.

I made a couple more Cobblestone canes but first I want to show you the pendant and brooch  I made by using the bottom of a FUZE bottle to form the base. I have a gazillion texture sheets but I still get a kick out of finding "found items" that make cool textures and shapes. I will post the cobblestone canes tomorrow.

Click on the photos for a closer look.


My daughter brought me the bottle, she thought the design on the bottom would make interesting cabochons.


Here is a close up of the bottom of the bottle.  It makes a dome shaped cabochon with radiating dots going out from the center.


I used eyepins, glass beads and chain to create the center of the pendant on the left and headpins and tinted cultured pearls for the center of the brooch of the right. I highlighted the raised areas on both with PearlEx




 I have also been playing a bit with Premo tinted translucent clay.

I made a pendant in green and air filled beads in peach.


I made a thin sheet of green with gold flecks, #7 on my pasta machine,  I folded it over, gathered it on wire, added goldtone seed beads and chains. I will complete the necklace with matching chain. As you can see the clay is a little singed on the left side, I started to trim it off but I kinda like the way it looks.


The air filled beads are an experiment. I wanted to see if the design inside could be seen.
Not sure how... or if, I will use these.


I will post the Cobblestone Canes tomorrow as soon as I get the photos edited.

Thanks for stopping by.