Polymer Clay podcast and TV

This week, we will show you how to take boring and ugly scraps of clay and turn them into beautiful objects by covering them with slices of canes. In Polymer Clay Classroom, available on the 7th, we show you how to make the cane pictured and create a fan pull. Enjoy!

This week, we had some news- Amaco and Staedler are joining forces to bring you the Spring Bottle of Hope awards at CHA in California, and we will again be covering the show. We will also be going to Synergy soon, and then the Clay Fandango retreat in Orlando. Studio Clay by Sculpey is going to be $2.99 a bar for 2.8 ounces. A pretty good deal (unless you're used to getting your clay at Michael's on sale, unfortunately Michael's isn't carrying it- yet.) We discuss the Jan/Feb Belle Armoire Magazine, graciously given to us by Stampington and Co, and there will be links to two polymer clay artist's blogs for you to learn more about color- come check out polymerclayproductions.com to find out more about that. Finally, our topic for today is covering lumps of scrap clay with slices of cane. A very useful technique. In Polymer Clay Classroom, we show you how to make a bullseye skinner blend cane and then cover clay and shape it to make a pretty fan pull. A great way to decorate!  

This week, Ilysa went-it alone for our video. I am studying for the Florida teacher's exams, and felt a little stressed about meeting for a weekend to film our next episodes before the test which is in early January. We hope you enjoy the show, and later next month we'll be filming the next series. Ornaments are fun- you can cover glass, or just use clay. Use all the techniques you have learned so far- texture them with texture plates or stamps, run pigment powders and inks on them for sparkle and color, embed things into them- I wonder how much cinnamon you would have to put into the clay to make it smell like cinnamon even after curing? If someone wants to do an experiment and share the results with us, drop an email to polymerclaypodcast@yahoo.com- Ilysa and I will randomly pick a winner and I'll send you a New Year's gift.      

This week, we talk about making ornaments for the holidays or just to hang on your walls, we review Donna Kato's book "My Favorite Things in Polymer Clay," and we have a discussion regarding the new Studio by Sculpey clay- because Kira talked to her Regional Trainer, Jane Zhou, about it. Enjoy! Come back next week for the video demo on ornament making.

Enjoy this week's footage from the show we went to. Next year, if you're in Orlando, make sure you email us first so we can get together!

This week we bring you an interview with Tamara Marble, who created the company Design Canes. She makes very cute small canes, in shapes (no filler around the shape). For example, a fish cane would have the outline of a fish, a bunny will have a bunny outline, etc. She then bakes the canes and cuts them into 1 inch pieces that are sold on her site, www.designcanes.com, and at various retailers. We saw some at the Orlando show being sold by a company called Sparkle n’ Sprinkle (we talked about her millions of colors of glitter and embossing powder, which you’ll see next week in part 2 of our video tour of the show.   Tamara tells us how to use her canes, how she got started, and about her success. With a simple creative idea, this interesting lady has created a business – Think about what you could do!   Enjoy the podcast and be sure to visit Tamara’s site to see the hundreds of canes she has designed. If you live in her area, she is now teaching classes, too. Be sure to Sign up for our Newsletter, and you will be entered to win the generous prize Tamara gave to us this month- three sets of canes and a slicing board.

In this episode of Polymer Clay TV we attended the Bead & Art Glass Fest in Orlando, FL and we want to share an interview we did with Poly-Tools, Sue & Gale Lee. Sue also does a demonstration on how to work with Poly-Tools bead rollers that you won’t want to miss. You can check out their products at the Poly-Tools website. Sue & Gale were a delight to talk to and were so willing to share. Sue also shares with us how they got started making bead rollers. Sue & Gale have also given us the same bead roller that Sue demonstrates in this episode of Polymer Clay TV to give away to one of you lucky winners. Make sure to sign up for our newsletter to automatically be entered to win. If you leave a post on the website we will also enter you in the drawing. Good luck! Hope you enjoy the video and for all our listeners and viewers who celebrate Thanksgiving, we hope you have a happy healthy Thanksgiving. We are thankful for all of the support you have given us and all of the suggestions and comments, they mean a lot to us, so thanks!!!

Judy is the current President of the National Polymer Clay Guild- npcg.org. She is very interesting and a great talker, so we hope you enjoy listening to what she had to say about her art, being the big-cheese, and the Synergy conference (where we will get to meet her!) We also discussed her book and dvd, which she was kind enough to donate to us to watch and read, and she also sent a signed copy of each- which we will be giving away to two lucky newsletter subscribers, so make sure you sign up.

Enjoy this week's video on using inclusions! Don't forget to listen to the podcast next week, when we share our interview with Judy Belcher.

This week, we are talking about inclusions- that means putting something that is not clay, into the clay to change it. You can use lots of things- including baked bits of clay. Spices such as oregano and parsley create great faux stone effects. Make sure if you use anything organic (once alive, such as plant parts) that they are completely dried out before including them in clay. Otherwise the water content could bubble or cause "mooning," especially in translucent, which is the best color of clay to use with inclusions. You can tint translucent clay with a bit of colored clay, and then add inclusions. You can also use the following things to change either the color, or the interior look, of the clay: chopped up crayons play sand, or colored craft sand inks- dye or pigment powdered pigment, chalk, makeup, spices, metals acrylic paint glitter, metal leafs and foils embossing powder crystals, beads, micro-beads (beads without holes) The way you add inclusions makes a difference too. If you mush and twist it in with your hands, you will get a swirly marbled effect. If you use your pasta machine and keep rolling, you will get even distribution. You can harden your clay in the fridge and grate it into piece with a cheese grater, then add your inclusions and mush it all back together just enough to stick- then you can create convincing stone-matrix effect that mimic marble, lapis, jade, and turquoise. We decided to review Judy Belcher's book, Polymer Clay Creative Traditions. In it, Judy has created projects that showcase the incredible versatility of the clay. With practice, you can make polymer clay look like almost anything else, and you can emulate techniques used in different media, such as quilting, batik and fabric crafts, paper crafts, metal crafts, painting, stone and jewelry craft, enamelling, almost any other art media you can think of. The galleries in this book are amazing and there is plenty of inspiration here. We highly recommend it, and we thank Judy for sending us a signed copy. This also led us into a discussion regarding the "value" of polymer clay artwork. Some people still see it as an intrisically worthless art media, saying things like "I can't bring myself to spend that much on something my kid could have made at summer camp." Well, we encourage an open mind when viewing all kinds of art- the worth of the materials used may be close to nothing- but the skill and creativity of the artist who made it may be priceless. Art is largely subjective- being an art teacher, I could say that I can objectively view a piece of artwork and tell you whether the composition, use of color, balance, harmony and unity are "good-" and even if they are, I might not like it because I don't relate to the message, or the colors, or whatever. When viewing or creating polymer clay art, think not only about the dollar value of the clay used, but about the color, the finishing, the overall presentation- is it worth something to you? Or does the artist need more practice? That is important- just because you can make something, doesn't necessarily mean it's ready to be sold. You need to be your own critic first. You can read a great thread over at Etsy.com regarding the value of polymer clay beads- http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5288983 Enjoy the show, and be sure to come back next week for the demo on Polymer Clay TV.

Halloween is just around the corner and you can make your own mask this year, we show you how to get started.  Hope you have lots of fun creating some masks with polymer clay!

This week, in preparation for the American holiday of Halloween on the 31st, we decided to explore the making of masks from clay. Remember to make them light and thin if you want to wear them! You can use all clay, or embellishments like scrapbooking brads or metal parts, glitter, metal leaf, Jones Tones foils, crystals and stones, anything you want! Here's a tip- buy a simple plastic mask to use as a template, that way your eye holes will be in the right spot. Enjoy, and come back next week for the video!  

A great video showing you how to use a mold made from polymer clay. You can mold almost anything, using either scrap clay, or products made especially for moldmaking like Superelasticlay or silicone rubber. For a clay mold you will probably need a mold release- this gets between your clay and your mold and helps the clay to “pop‿ out of the mold, instead of getting stuck in it. You can try cornstarch, powdered pigments, water, or a silicone spray. Enjoy the video- later this week we will release our full-length downloadable tutorial on how to make buttons and pendants, and how to make your own mold. Don’t forget to enter our Call for Creativity- if you didn’t listent to last week’s podcast, please do to get all the details!

This week we want to encourage you to work with molds. Molds are fun, you can take them of almost anything. You can use polymer clay to make a mold, or silicone rubber, or SuperElasticlay (a sculpey product). I mix superelasticlay with premo, about half and half, to get a flexible mold, and Ilysa prefers a hard mold so she just uses clay. You must bake your polymer clay molds before using them! Be sure to return next week for our video demo. We invite you to listen to our discussion with Lisa Clarke. She operates a Polymer Clay (mostly) bookstore, a blog, and her own radio podcast at her site, www.polkadotcreations.com. She also has an Etsy.com shop for her own polymer clay creations. Lisa is an great person with interesting experiences to share. We hope you enjoy our interview with her as much as we did. Don't forget- the Call for Creativity starts this month. We encourage you to try out translucent clay and effects, using a fall palette of golds, reds, oranges, and turning-greens (think leaves). If you need more direction, feel free to create a votive candleholder. If you crave an open challenge, make anything you like- using translucent clay. Then load it up on the forum board or our flickr account, and later in the month I'll be making a collage out of them to display here for everyone to see. Last but not least, the PCAGOE had our monthly Challenge, based on our Favorite Books, in September. The winner was humblebeads- check out her work. http://humblebeads.etsy.com.    

For ipod subscribers- sorry it took so long to load this one up! A great quick video on how to use composition leaf with your polymer clay.