Polymer Clay Canes for Beginners

27 videos, step by step, beginner cane workshop beginner Cane Tutorial 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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[caption id="attachment_102" align="aligncenter" width="100" caption="Member IPCA"]Member IPCA[/caption]

Moth Versus Butterfly

moth mosaic

I was checking my clipart disks for butterflies to do using my mosaic technique and ran into the moth section and I realized that moths are pretty spectacular. The guy above is a moth, fantasy colors of course. I still have a butterfly on my table and there are some fabulous butterflies as well. I’m going to make a necklace out of this one.

You can learn this technique by signing up for my newsletter (in the upper right hand side of this page) and watching the free 20 minute video tutorial.

Stay tuned, because I’m going to be teaching a full day of this technique very soon. It’s lots of fun and the applications are limitless.

Polymer Clay Fish Mosaic

Fish Mosaic

I ‘ve been doing lots of new pieces involving the mosaic technique that I share with you when you sign up for my newsletter. I’ve made this fish and placed it on the underside of a 6×6 plate. It will make a perfect desert plate or a catch all for a dresser.

I have other things I’m working on that I want to share with you soon. Just wanted you to know I’m busy working at my clay table.

More Girls and Bracelets

 pen and ink, polymer clayI decided to do a couple more girls on bracelets yesterday. This picture shows each side of one bracelet and on the right side of the picture, all of the side put together to show what it might look like if it were a flat drawing.

I just received an package in the mail containing a large set of markers and couldn’t wait to try them out. In fact, I’ll be doing more experimenting today.

I’ve always been the kind of person that has to have every color of……well…..whatever I’m interested in at the time. I own every color of embroidery floss from years ago, every color of premo, every color of crayon (just because I love the smell) and I’m sure I’ve thrown away more supplies because I bought every color and then didn’t use them before they dried up.

But I’m not a clothes horse, I don’t have a million pair of shoes, but I probably have a million different kinds of supplies. They make me happy, they make me feel like I could at anytime create something wonderful because I have everything I could ever need to create anything. Okay, that’s not really true, I don’t have ALL the supplies in the world, but I’m working on it.

pen and ink polymer clayThese bracelets are really fun to wear because from the front, when it’s on your wrist, a person can’t really tell what it is. It just looks like an interesting, colorful bracelet. But then they say something about it and you show them the whole drawing, they are amazed. It’s pretty cool actually.

Then when you tell them it’s polymer clay, pen and ink, they want to know more. Mostly they say they can’t draw and could never do it. It’s really not true, everyone can draw something even it it’s just shapes and trust me shapes can be very interesting. But these girls are very basic line drawings.

Anyway, this is the face for the second bracelet. They will both be for sale in my Etsy Shop by the end of the day. Thanks for checking in.

Pen and ink and polymer clay

Faces and Shapes – Polymer Clay and Ink

When I came home from Woman Creative – Art and Jewelry Design Center just outside Atlanta, I came loaded down with rubber stamp shapes from Barbara McGuire’s collection. I started playing around with them and because I am so involved with my pen and ink technique I decided to marry the two elements. I, as always have created something I think if incredibly fun and a bit off beat, but I’m diggin’ ’em.

I have tons of old jewelry and buttons and well just stuff (cool stuff mind you) that I’ve be gathering over the years and have decided to continue to use those bits and pieces to accent my work. I’ve added a cool button to the top of the face pendant above.

Face Shape pen and ink and polymer clay alice stroppel

The pen technique is the one I demonstrate in my video for sale in my Etsy Shop and the shapes are rubber stamps from Barbara McGuire’s collection. The ways you can use the pen and ink technique are endless. Use some of these ideas of mine or dream up some of your own. The sky is the limit and the only thing keeping you from floating away is you thinking you can’t fly.

Okay, okay, you can’t REALLY fly, but you can feel that way sometimes if you lose yourself in your creativity. Stop judging yourself and you will be more than surprised at what you can create. I’m talking to myself as much as to you, I produce things I’m proud of when I make them for the joy of it, not for the dollars I might gain.

Learning to let them go to someone else is the next big stumbling block for me, but I’m doing much better at that too. I can’t wear, look at or hang all the things I make, so I find it much easier to let them go than I did in the beginning.

full figure

I’ve also been playing around with whole shapes. I like this girl and really wanted to keep her, but I’m putting her in my Etsy shop. I have ideas for oh so many more. Here I am again, too many ideas and not enough time. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow. Maybe I’ll see you then too.

Susan Turney is the Winner

My Birthday Gift

My Birthday Gift to Susan Turney!

First, I’d like to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to join in my birthday giveaway and for all the wonderful things you had to say. You certainly made my birthday special. As I said before, I wish I could send you all a prize just for being so nice, but there is only one girlfriend to give away today.

After using the random number generator this morning to select # 18, Susan Turney is the winner of my Birthday Prize. I’m so happy to be able to send this girlfriend to a girlfriend made through our love of polymer clay.

Susan is not only a pc artist willing to push the boundaries as shown in her piece below, but she is also an accomplished quilter. You can tell she is a lover of color, a kindred soul.

by Artist Susan Turney

To view more of Susan work visit her Flickr site . Thanks again everyone.

Birthday Prize

My Birthday Gift

My Birthday Gift to You!

Friday is my birthday and I wanted to say a Big thank you to my newsletter subscribers with this small prize. A girlfriend Pin. Only one can win even though I wish I could send a girlfriend to everyone.

All you have to do is be a subscriber to my newsletter and simply leave a comment here on this post. You don’t have to wish me a happy birthday, thank you anyway for the thought, instead as a present to me tell me what you’re working on.

Or if you’re new to polymer clay, what you would most like to learn right now as you are trying to master this amazing product? Simple basic things, or more complicated techniques?

That’s it, that’s all you have to do and I’ll choose a winner on Saturday with a random number generator.

If you aren’t getting my newsletter now, it’s simply to sign up, it’s free and you get to watch a free 20 minute mosaic video. Just look to the right on this page and you’ll see the mosaic fish and there you are.

Thank you all for supporting me here at Polymer Clay Etc.

Correcting Pen and Ink Face

A Correction - pen and ink

After I posted my girl yesterday, I saw what I couldn’t see while I was working on her. Her jaw was way wrong. I had corrected it a bit while working on her, but not enough. It’s funny how you don’t really see something until you back away from it. In this case taking the photo and posting it, then looking at it later online made me see what I could before.

I think I was excited by how the coloring was coming out and the use of the canes in combo with the drawing and didn’t really want to look at the face.

So last night I operated and she looks a bit better. Thanks for sticking we me through all this experimentation. For all those out there that say you can’t  draw…..sure you can, you just have to look harder at what you’re putting on the canvas. We all know when something looks wrongand we can fix it.

Now to fix her nose……:)

P.S. I first was introduced to some of the colored pens I use by Kathleen Dustin. She is the master and a wonderful instructor. If you should ever have an opportunity to take a class with her, you should run, not walk to do it.

More Pen and Ink on Polymer Clay

Dark Haired Girl

I just have been having a fabulous time yesterday and today. Had a dental appointment but there was a terrible storm and I have to drive over an hour to get there, so I didn’t go.

That meant I got to stay and continue experimenting with different shapes to hold my pen and ink and polymer clay.

This was great fun, but it’s still a WIP. Needs beads and a chain. The pen technique is the one I demonstrate in my video for sale in my Etsy Shop and the shape was a rubber stamp from Barbara McGuire’s collection.

I’ll post it when I have it finished. I have several more pieces that I really am excited about and I’ll be sharing those with you too.

On this piece I drew the woman and then layered slices of canes off to one side. I like the way it came out.

New Pendants From Salvaged Work

Pen and Ink and Polymer Clay

I can’t stand to throw anything away, even when things go a bit wrong. I was working on two pen and ink bracelets (using the techniques shown in my video tutorial for sale in my Etsy shop) for Woman Creative – Art and Jewelry Design Center when somehow my oven when crazy and I had a couple of scorched bracelets on my hands. Not totally black, but not fit for sending to Ellen at the Center.

But today as I was taking them off the blanks, I just couldn’t throw them away. So I began to play around with them and I cut them apart and repositioned them on other pieces of clay and I began to really like the antique look of the pieces.

What didn’t work as one of my usual bracelets really did work in a different setting. In the beginning I thought I might want to add some more antiquing to them, but I really like them just the way they are.

I’m thrilled to have saved them and I think I might be on to something else. But that’s the way it is, too many things I want to do and too little time.

I guess what I really wanted to share with you was that sometimes what you think as failure might just turn into success, never give up!