Polymer Clay Canes for Beginners 27 videos, step by step, beginner cane workshop
What people are saying about this tutorial.
jennifer rose
Just finished this first workshop on how to make canes, and I must say I learned so much. This is exactly what I have been looking for, someone who could explain cane making in a step by step that process that I could replicate. I watched the videos, went into my studio and began to create all of the canes Alice showed. I finally have results I can be proud of, and I say thank you so much for doing this workshop. My only question now is when do we get more workshops. If you are only going to take one online class let it be this workshop. Thank you Alice for your hard work, and your dedication to helping others learn the joys of polymer clay.
Online Workshops with Alice Stroppel
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 I can only say that I was delighted to have this picture with Kathleen Dustin wearing her stunning Necklace. She is such an incredibly talented artist and the polymer clay community is so lucky to have her as one of our polymer divas continually leading the way to excellence.
The entire Synergy 3 – Seeking Higher Ground was about striving for excellence, improving and growing. Becoming the best that you can be.
The piece I’m wearing I’m sad to admit was made at the last minute. I am challenging myself to continue with the design and improve it if I can.
I have a beautiful peacock shawl given to me as a gift that I wanted to wear wear the night of the banquet. I worked on a couple of designs but wasn’t happy with them.
Even though I say it was a last minute thing, I did try out several ideas before moving on to the one I actually wore.
Here are the first three attempts at a pendant. The one on the far right was actually too literal and I wasn’t happy with that. The other two just weren’t coming together. Everything was just too constricted.
I liked this one better, but wish I’d started on it weeks before I needed to wear it.
I decided to use my cane mapping technique and add a touch of metallic. It certainly matched my shawl better and I liked the flow. The bad part was not having a fabulous chain to hang it from, even though I wore it just the same. That seems to me to be one of my largest setbacks, making a piece and not thinking about the rest of the story.
It’s why I usually just do pendants and “slides”. I don’t have to think about the rest. I plan to give that part more thought in the future.
So this is my challenge…….plan, plan, plan and Make it Sing
Wish me luck and go spend some time on Kathleen’s webiste if you haven’t been there for awhile.
“We’re all mad here.”
― Lewis Carroll (The Cheshire Cat), Alice in Wonderland
I feel like I followed the White Rabbit into a hole and don’t know when I’ll get out again. I began the long put off task of cleaning out my spare room. I won’t go into details, it’s just too scary. I didn’t need halloween, I had my own frightening adventure in my house.
But I’ve taken a day to play with clay and get something out of my head and into a design. It’s my contour cat bracelet. I think he is related to the other Alice’s Cheshire Cat, don’t you?
Here’s the other side.
And here it is on my wrist. I can tell you from experience that I always get compliments and comments when I wear my boldest contour bracelets, mainly because they’re so crazy.
I have lots more work to do on “the room” but I can’t stay away from clay for long. I agree with the Cheshire Cat, I am a bit crazy when it comes to clay. See you next time.
I had these wonderful people in my studio for two day last weekend. We had the best time, but we always do when this group comes to play. Thanks you guys for everything.
We took both days to experiment and give permission to ourselves to explore canes and designs in different ways. To let go of preconceived notions of how thing are SUPPOSE to look and let imaginations run wild.
On day two I we explored my Cane Mapping technique and how to cover something, make giant hollow beads or make a beautiful piece to frame. Everyone created very individual pieces. How fun are these?
Each person had their own colors and style making the day and the finished pieces so interesting.
Some of these were clip art and some were drawn by Tyra, who is very talented, and some were done without a drawing. And if you look close, I’m sure you’ll see a Stroppel Cane or two. *g*
 Betty  Beverly  Beverly  Kim  Kim
 Charline
 Tyra
 Sarah  Sydney  Linda
I was thrilled that my cane mapped fish slides were featured on Polymer Clay Daily last week. Thank you Cynthia! And I was so happy that all my swap buddies liked the little guys. But they couldn’t have liked the fish as much as I love each and every slide that I got to bring home with me. Thanks to all the swappers…..is that a word?
I would have posted this thank you sooner but I was without phone service and internet off and on. But oh what a wonderful time of just clay and friendship spent in a beautiful place.
I also spent two days after our retreat in Denver with Meisha Barbee. Meisha doesn’t have a website or blog but you can see her work on Polymer Clay Daily. We had the best time exploring galleries and museums and getting to know downtown Denver. It’s a beautiful city with lots of great places to eat and shop.
We visited Pismo Contemporary Art Glass Gallery where Meisha’s work is featured. It is an incredible gallery full of the most fabulous glass and jewelry, put it on your list if you’re going to Denver. We walked over to Show of Hands and what a wonderful shop it is, just my kind of funky, fun place with lots of interesting things to tempt you. Both places are so friendly and welcoming.
We also went to Boulder for a wonderful visit with Polymer clay artist Ann Kruglak and her husband Ivan in their gorgeous mountain home, thank you guys. Talk about view envy, what Ann gets to look at everyday out her windows is truly amazing.
Meisha and I made time to visit Marie Gibbons who is one of the featured artists on my other blog The Figurative Artbeat. I was so glad to get to see her studio and spend some time with her. I was delighted to be able to take pictures of her new work and add another piece of her fabulous swimmers from her Float series to my collection. I’ll be featuring Marie, her new work and the story of her swimmers in the next week or so on The Figurative Artbeat so check in often.
I’m back and full of inspiration and ideas that I can’t wait to get to. But first things first, I had to go to the grocery store first thing yesterday because…….. there was not one thing in the refrigerator, seriously! Then I decided to take just a small little nap and slept for hours so that today I am rested, excited and ready to get to work. The clay is calling me, I can hear it.
I have the best husband, he had such a wonderful surprise for me when I got home! I’ll share pictures tomorrow, think black and white checks. Thanks for checking in with me and to all those who signed up for my newsletter in the last couple of weeks, I’ll be sending one out in the next week or so.
I had the best time, but there is no place like home . (Clicking my ruby reds)
Arlene Harrison from Harrison Hollow Designs left a comment asking what a slide was. Well my understanding was something that slides off and on a cord or wire. But later I began to think about the difference between a slide and a pendent with a bail. Or why isn’t the fish with the hole considered a bead? If I drilled the hole more in the center of the fish would it be a bead or does a bead have to have a design on all sides and be round?
What is the difference between my fish and the pendant I made for my class at Beads F.O.B. in Sarasota? I made the “bail” out of polymer clay for the class pendant and drilled a hole through the bail, with the fish I just drilled a hole straight through with no bail.
 But when I googled bail here’s what I found;
Bail A finding that connects a pendant to a necklace. They come in different forms: some clip onto the pendant, some have mounts to glue the pendant to, and some attach to a ring on the pendant. The purpose is to hold the pendant flat when worn.
So maybe the pendant above is really a slide just like the fish? I don’t know …….I’ll just have to ask Marty and Karen at Beads F.O.B.. But the good news is I can tell you how to make whatever they’re called.
 Once I’ve finished my mosaic fish I mount it on a piece of clay (double thickness of the widest pasta machine setting) and cut out with a exacto knife.
Then I poke a hole straight through the body of the piece and then insert small rivets that you can purchase in the scrapbook department.
I bake it and then remove the rivets and re-drill the hole with my Dremel tool then replace the rivets with a tiny bit of super glue. Make sure you don’t fill the hole with super glue. The rivets just finish the hole and neaten everything up.
Here are all my almost finished fishies, some are going to my Etsy shop. But I have to finish them by signing the back with my name and the date, so it will be later today.
For the last few weeks I’ve been working on these fish slides for an exchange I will be taking part in. They really have been so much fun and each one is different than the next so I can’t say I was the least bit bored by the number. I still have more to go and hope to finish up in the next few days.
Even though you can’t see it, there is metal leaf on each one of these fish. I’ve recently begun to use the metal leaf with my cane mapping and have some other ideas that don’t involve fish, so stay tuned. By the way you can learn how to map out the use of your old canes by signing up for my newsletter if you haven’t already. Just fill in your name and email address in the spaces on the upper right hand side of this page. I send out a newsletter about once a month and a class up date from time to time.
Okay so I’m not telling the exact true about being bored with these fish. I can say that bored is probably not the right word anyway, I think I get tired of doing the same type of item for a long period of time and have to break it up with other projects or activities along the way. But I’m always excited to come back and make more because they make me smile. Okay so they don’t make me laugh out loud like my girls do, but they do make me smile a lot.
I usually sit down and make five in a row, get them baked and the holes drilled, then I do something else for awhile. Today I am playing around with how to package them. Most of the time in an exchange just including your card is enough, but I wanted to do mine a bit different this time.
I’ve used cards like this before to display my pins and I think I just might use them this time as well. These are smaller than the ones I’ve used before and I like them better for these smaller pieces.
I have soft wire that I’ve run through the slide and out the back of the card, twisting it together to hold the fish in place. I use a very small hole punch to make the holes so everything looks nice and neat.
The next thing I’m going to play with today is the design of the card. I think it might need some updating, I just signed my name on the top but I don’t think I like that. You never know until you try…words I live by.
The next class in my studio will this month, July 30, 2011. We’ll be using up your old canes and creating some very cool fish.
I’m using fish as the subject, but you could cane map almost anything. I’ll be showing you a couple of other cane mapped items in the next few days. The photo above shows one crazy fantasy fish that I applied to this cute little tea pot. Fun! Here’s a close up. It’s only about 3″ square.
The Class is $55.00 and that will include lunch and Foam core for mounting your finished fish and cording or pin back to finish your small fish. Plus…I’ll add a bit of metal foil to add the pop need to create a fantasy fish.
Click here for all the information. Hope to see you here,
Alice
I’m trying other ways to display the fish that I shared with you the other day. I still like the black background so I decided to see how a lone fish would look in a square frame. I can see a group of these on the wall. I like this as well as the larger grouping.
Still, nothing is permanent yet, plus I used very small glue dots to hold the pieces in place. They are used in scrapbooking and it only takes one or two to hold each item and I can easily remove the polymer piece if I want to. They will mess up your background though so keep that in mind.
This is a 9″ x 9″ frame and the fish is only about 3 1/2″ from lips to tail, so you could use several in a grouping.
This is kind of my finished fish piece. Kind of…..I’m still playing with it and not sure I like everything about it and might do something different with the flower stems. The metal leaf was left over from the fish and I thought I try it as stems. It wasn’t what I had in mind and I’m not sure I won’t try my original idea after all.
I haven’t glued the pieces down yet, I had a black background in mind, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t want to try to do the background in polymer, so if I want a different background I have to think of something else. I’m not much of a painter, but I’m thinking of painting a lighter background on board. Plus I’m still arranging and rearranging each piece and wondering if I need more fish.
I might have to let this percolate for awhile, but hopefully not too long. I like to finish projects and get them either out the door on the way to a new home, or among my many polymer clay keepers.
Anyway, it was fun and if nothing else I’ve added metal foils to my cane mapping techniques and I’m ready to see what else I can do with it besides fish………love fish but……. well you understand I’m sure.
I’ve been working on more fish and some other fantasy flowers for my WIP but it’s not finished yet, so I thought I’d share these fish today.
I find that I am using more and more of those little canes I made from scraps of other canes like the ones I show you in my video Don’t Waste That Little Bit of Skinner Blend. In fact while I’m doing these fish, I am making more little canes to use. It’s just plain fun because nothing has to be perfect and you kind of create as you go.
I usually create that way, just begin and see what come from it. Some days I like to just mix colors and have them ready for making a series of canes that coordinate. Other days I like to make skinner blends for the same reason. It makes creating a project so much easier, working flows easily when you have canes made up but also when you have bits of left over colors from your canes so you can make quick little matching canes to accent a piece.
I’ll try to post a picture of the flowers tomorrow. Hopefully I can finish the whole picture by then, maybe!
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