I have been wanting to branch out with my jewelry designs and have been intrigued with the beautiful beads that other jewelry artists create with polymer clay. I bought a couple of books to read up on the subject and finally bought a colorful selection of clay. My first couple of attempts at bead making didn't go very well. It seems to take a lot of work to make the clay pliable (unless I bought old/dry clay) and this was frustrating. Someone told me that a pasta machine helps, but I'm not ready to invest in one just yet. I over cooked the first batch of beads, so I knew that I needed more practice with the oven temperature and the length of time that the beads were in the oven.
I decided to try to make a pendant for the Inspired by Nature, Feather Challenge and I'm relatively happy with how the pendant turned out. When I took the piece for the pendant out of the oven, I could see that the clay bubbled in some spots. This was probably due to my impatience with how long it was taking for the clay to soften. I'm not giving up just yet and will be more patient the next time.
Check out all of the challenge entries that are posted on Flickr.
Oh wow! That is your first bead?? It looks incredible! You must tell me which book you read to learn how to do that. I have some clay that remains unopened and no pasta machine either! Awesome job!
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