I made some nice necklaces from very narrow polymer clay beads where the bead colours are blended – and I wanted to present them now.
That’s what you do:
First make a Skinner Blend (a ploymer clay slab with a colour blend).
I blended it from light green to blue.
Cut the slab in stripes and wrap them around one or more kebab skewers – not too firm or you get problems taking them off, later.
Join the edges thoroughly and with care so that the beads won’t fall apart later.
At the top of the photo you see a piece of light green polymer clay, that will become contrasting beads.
By the way: If you don’t have a pasta machine for the Skinner Blend (never use a pasta machine used for polymer clay for food again!) you can find hints on how you can manage without it via the links below.
Cut the wrapped slab with a small knife down to the skewer at regular intervals, I made my future beads about 3 mm wide.
Bake the polymer clay following the instructions and get the beads off the skewer(s) carefully.
On this photo you see my light green contrasting bead that I put between the others to make it look more interesting and you see a silver bead where I don’t remember how I coloured it.
I think that I used silver coloured metallic powder that I bought for some Mica shift projects.
I threaded my beads on a self-dyed violet silk cord and made the clasp from a black braided band and a big, round light green bead.
And that is a red necklace with Skinner Blend beads that I gave away – I’m sorry for the poor quality of the picture, when I took the photo at that time I didn’t know how to make good photos.
On both sides of the black central bead I let the colour blend go from light to dark red and loosened it up with narrow black beads.
The earrings are simply cones that I rounded at the top and that I carved slightly horizontally to make them match the necklace.
Links:
Skinner Blend
Don’t have a pasta machine?
Making A Jellyroll Cane Without A Pasta Machine
via: Glass Attic – Pasta machines – click on ‘No pasta machine?–other ways …guide rails’
Pasta Free Skinner Blend (Video)
Here at unikatissima:
Polymer Clay Mica Shift
Taking Photos from Jewelry
Poor Man Side Flash
Here I show the back of the frame.