Valentine rose keyring
As this is my first blog post in quite a while, (many apologies), I have decided to keep it simple and do a Valentine themed post, which is quite fitting seeing as it’s February and I have been making quite a few Heart/Valentine items recently. I do work better when I am inspired.
All the creations have been created with Polymer clay and include; a very simple heart cane to use on beads which I hope you can follow, some heart themed pendants using textures and mixed colours, some Valentine key rings/bag charms, cat brooches, buttons and finally some hanging heart decorations. I hope you like?
HEART CANE (mini tutorial)
To start with I thought I’d share with you the very simple heart cane I made using only red and white polymer clay (I used Fimo Soft but any brand you are comfortable with is OK) and I used a small heart cutter (approx 25mm x 20mm).
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- Roll out enough red clay to enable you to cut out approx 8-10 small hearts, (Use thickest setting on a pasta machine to save time or approx 4-6mm in depth). Then stack them together. (pic 2).
- Next roll out the white clay on thickest setting of the pasta machine, cut to size of hearts (pic 3) then wrap around the clay hearts (pic 4).
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3. If you don’t want to put red spots around the heart then miss out adding the red clay and just roll plain white tubes. Roll a piece of red clay and then wrap it in the white clay (I’m assuming you know how to do this?). Cut into sizes to fit around the heart (Pic 6) and then fill in the gaps with pieces of plain white clay tubes (Pic 7) to give it a round appearance. Then wrap the whole thing in more white clay. Then reduce it’s size by rolling and stretching, ensuring you retain the tubular shape. Cut and slice as required.
I haven’t got around to making much with this cane yet, apart from some buttons and trying out a couple of beads.
PENDANTS
After making the cane I decided to try playing with textures on clay and joining them together. I also attempted to make some of my own texture molds from polymer clay (maybe another post soon about this). This lead me to making a number of polymer clay pendants but here are a few heart themed ones. (For these I used Fimo effect marble and granite clays and fimo soft black and Indian red)
I thought the joining of the different colours would be quite difficult, but as long as you are very methodical about what you are doing it worked out pretty well. TIP: I might have been doing something wrong but an idea I had was to use cling film between the layers of clay when cutting 2 different colours which you want to join together, this is so they don’t stick together and the colours don’t leach, it worked for me! Also, did you know that if you put cling film over clay when cutting out a shape with a cutter it will give it a nice beveled edge rather than straight sides.
Here are few extra hand molded pendants I made with the leftover clay.
And lastly a heart pendant I made with a mix of rainbow colours (scraps and leftover clay) which I put through an extruder then created this heart pendant (I also made buttons with this design).
Polymer clay rainbow heart pendant
HANGING HEARTS
I love making these and they can be so simple to make if you have the right equipment (a good size heart cutter and some alphabet stamps). I do however like playing around with the texturing, inks and stamp decoration to create a different one every time. I hardly ever make the same design twice. I also made some nice boxes to put them in so they would make good gifts. (If you want to see my box making tutorial click HERE.)
KEY RING/BAG CHARMS
Making these key ring/bag charms is a bit of a favourite of mine, I’m always trying to think up new designs or I use ideas I’ve seen on Pinterest and then try to make them my own.
BUTTONS
I have a few friends who do lots of knitting, so I like making unique buttons just for them. They are so easy to make too if you keep it simple and there is no problem with them being washed etc, as they are very durable.
Here are a few ideas for ‘Valentine’ themed buttons I’ve made.
BROOCHES
I have a friend who is mad about cats, in the past I’ve made her cat earrings, a necklace and incorporated cat charms in bracelets etc. So these cat brooches are inspired by her. The names on each of them just popped into my head as I was making them, I think they all suit their names, don’t you? I used Ranger Perfect pearls on some of them, then coated them in Fimo liquid get to set it after baking and set that with a heat gun.
That’s all for now, if you want more details or any tutorials on how to make anything above, just let me know.
Thanks for looking, I would love to hear what you think and if any of them inspired you?
Georgia P
Georgia P Designs 