polymer Clay craft « Polymer Clay Etc.

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.

Bottle Stoppers, Business Card Cases, Perfume Pens, Christmas is Coming

Perfume Pen

Three more items going to AliceStroppel.Etsy.com. Perfume pen, bottle stopper and card case. All great gifts for the holidays.

Queen Bee

I had a special request for a wine stopper for a friends mother. She was “The Queen Bee” to her family and loved a good glass of wine. Perfect! I made two so she could have her choice. This is the second one. I wanted you to see the piece of costume jewelry that I used for her crown. Another way to use found objects to make your pieces unique. There are little bees flying around and flowers on the back of this fun and crazy piece.

Business Card Case

I’ve sold quite a few business card holder and continue to hear from my customers that they gets tons of compliments on their unusual case. I buy my blanks for all these great things at Boston Craft Works.

Creating Tags for Your Polymer Clay Creations

Tags Layout

I always include a gift card with any purchase online. It just makes your item look more professional and it is a great place to promote your name and contact information.

I begin by laying out several tags to be printed on one 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of card stock. I use 90# weight. Again, I use Adobe InDesign, but I know you can do the same thing in word.

The tags are 2″ x 3″ and will be cut and folded in half to equal 2′ X 1- 1/2″. The picture of my “girl”, my logo, is on the front and any instructions and contact information is on the back. This makes a very nice gift tag for the customer if they are giving the piece to someone else.

I also send these along to the shops, it’s a nice place for the retailer to put the price and inventory numbers. There is one difference, the retailer usually doesn’t want your contact information anywhere on the item. The customer has found your work because of the gallery or shop, the retailer wants that customer to return to them to buy again. You can’t blame them and it’s good for you if you sell more items in the retailer’s shop.

If possible, use your name or the name of your online shop or blog as your business name on the tag in some way. Or the other way around, name your blog or online shop after your business name. That way, if a person doesn’t live in the same town as the shop, perhaps a tourist passing through, and really wants to find your work online, she/he will google your name.

Tag Before Folding

This is a tag before folding. I would have all my contact information on the back for an internet sale, ask the retailer what they prefer. On the back of this one, I’ve included instructions that came with my perfume pens. It is a perfect place to add this kind of information or a story about the item, an explanation about polymer clay or whatever might engage the customer. Retailers really appreciate this kind of service and so do your direct customers.

I was somewhere the other day, showing one of my mermaid bracelets to someone and she asked, did you paint the bracelet? I know many of you get the same question. Boy do we need an explanation on the our pieces! In fact I think that I need to do that right away for my next batch of tags. We have to educate the public and let them know the time and skill it takes to create something in polymer clay and more important, that if they purchase this item, they will have a unique piece and something to start a conversation.

Tag Folded

I fold my tags in half, punch a hole only on the top back side and add a bit of stretchy cord. I attach it to my item and off it goes.

You could make the tags a single piece and not fold it over, you could make it smaller. There are so many things you can do with this idea. I’d love to see what you already do or what you come up with after reading this.

Oh and by the way, don’t forget to add a few pennies to the cost for paper, ink and time to produce the cards and tags. Yes you have to have them for promotion, but it is the cost of doing business and you have to recoup the cost through your sales.

So there you have it. Lots of items to get you on your way to a clean, smart look for your masterpieces in polymer clay. Good luck and remember please, to have some fun along the way.

Part 1 Selling Your Polymer Clay Artwork
Part 2 Pricing Polymer Clay Artwork to Sell Wholesale
Part 3 Mermaid Bracelet Listed on Etsy
Part 4 Inventory Lists for Your Polymer Clay
Part 5 Display Cards for Polymer Clay Pins and Necklaces
Part 6 Creating Tags for Your Polymer Clay Creations

Selling Your Polymer Clay Artwork

The Tourist

Creating with polymer clay is fun, addictive and costly if everything you make stays at home with you. Don’t get me wrong, that can be a good thing if you can wear a different necklace, earrings, and bracelet set every day. Have polymer clay art in every room of your house! Light switch covers in the dining room, cover vases and sculpture the livingroom, covered knobs on the bedroom furniture and mosaic tile mirrors in the bathroom. (Did you know you could replace all the buttons on your kids clothes with polymer clay……..oh never mind…sorry)

Then you start giving your masterpieces to your friends and relatives. And they love them, the first 3 or 4 that is. After all how many nercklaces, earrings, bracelets, light switch covers, vases, sculptures, covered knobs and mosaic mirrors can they use?

The time comes when you just have to find a place to showcase your work or just give it up all together. You know we don’t want to quit, some of us just can’t. So what’s to be done?

If you are reading this online, then you have the skills to find the right outlet for your work right at your finger tips. I’m not going to talk about Etsy, or ArtFire, or any of the other online places to sell. You probably already have a shop set up on one of these sites. If you are successful and are selling your art faster than you can produce it, then you can skip the rest of this post.

But if you are a bit frustrated with your online shop sales, then you aren’t alone. It’s hard to be the artists, the marketer, the agent, the packer, and shipper, etc. All you want to really do is make your art…..well sorry.. that will probably never happen for most of us! We will all have to do some things to promote ourselves. But maybe you are living close to a solution to your problem. Or at the very least another outlet for sales.

There are thousands of art/craft galleries around the country and almost every town, no matter what size, has at least one. Maybe you have contacted you local shop with no luck. Well how about shops or galleries within a hundred miles of your house? Tourist spots are fabulous outlets, or just busy cities with a reputation for “artsy” shops.

I randomly picked Jackson, Mississippi to see what I could find. I did a google search for “arts and craft galleries jackson, mississippi”. About halfway down the second page there was a link to the Jackson Free Press that said…………..
Culture The Fall Arts …The Jackson area certainly has numerous venues for arts of all kinds, from museums …. Chimneyville Crafts Gallery Works by 400 members of the Mississippi

That looked interesting so I click on the link and bingo! There was an article about the Arts in Jackson and the names of 44 arts and or craft galleries around the city.

The next step was to check over the list and see what sounded like a good possibility. I found several, the first was Chimmeyville Crafts Gallery. I did a google search and couldn’t find a website for Chimmeyville Crafts Gallery, but found out that it was operated by the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi, Inc.

I did another google search for the Craftsmen’s Guild and found their membership page

These were the membership benefits for $75.00 per year.

Benefits of membership include:

-Invitations to show and sell work at all sanctioned Guild events such as the December Chimneyville Crafts Festival
-Referrals to other national and international festival organizers
-Direct referrals to collectors, buyers, designers and wholesalers
-The privilege to sell and demonstrate work at Guild retail galleries and exhibits
-Direct referrals to feature writers, authors and producers
-A quarterly newsletter with articles designed especially for the professional artisan
-Invitations to special members’ meetings, workshops and social events

Notice that you can sell and demonstrate your work at Guild Galleries, I think they have two.
Also there is a referral service to collectors, buyers, designers and wholesalers. If I lived within 100 mile of Jackson, I would be a member of the Guild. If for nothing else but the referrals. ( I didn’t check any further to see if you have to be present to sell you work. Some places require that you volunteer a certain amount of hours a month.) But I would still join for the referrals.

I didn’t look any further, but there were several galleries that looked promising. I would see if they have a website, find their email address and mail them an introductory email and two or three (low resolution) photos of my work, asking if they might be interested in featuring them in their gallery. If you receive a positive reply, then an appointment can be arranged and a road trip planned. Find a friend to go with you and make a day of it.

Next post I’ll talk about the importance of pricing your work to sell on your own website shop with enough room to then be able to sell to the shop owner at wholesale. You shouldn’t undersell the retailer that is carrying you work.

You can do this kind of search for any city you live in or near. We have a great advantage outside of the internet. Not many people have seen the fabulous artwork that we are making with polymer clay. We have the opportunity to be the first in a gallery, shop or guild to offer polymer clay art for sale. You don’t have to do craft fairs or festivals, (even though they can be another great way to sell your work). It may just be a matter of finding a couple of just right galleries close by.

Good Luck, let me know how it goes.
Part 2 Pricing Polymer Clay Artwork to Sell Wholesale
Part 3 Mermaid Bracelet Listed on Etsy
Part 4 Inventory Lists for Your Polymer Clay
Part 5 Display Cards for Polymer Clay Pins and Necklaces
Part 6 Creating Tags for Your Polymer Clay Creations

Found Objects and Polymer Clay – Video

Baker Man

Boy have I had fun the last few days. Filming the video on found objects and polymer clay really got me excited about all the projects that I have promised myself I was going to do when I wasn’t working anymore. So watch out..I might be on a roll. I say might because I always have great intentions.

I could have made this video an hour longer, I had that many found objects that I could have shared with you, but I figured you would thank me if I kept it at 15 minutes.

The photo above is just one of the projects that I used some of my found objects on. Kitchen items from my husband’s grandmother and a necklace from a garage sale. I love using items that have meaning to members of my family. He is going to hang on the Christmas tree and once a year we will be reminded of grandma and the fabulous things she use to make for the holidays. Easter pie was a favorite, even for Christmas.

Embellished Book

This photo is of an old flea market book and one of the pieces I made in this video. Old watch part from my dad, who is no longer with us, fabulous magnifying spectacles that belong to a long ago relative. A great coffee table book. Enjoy the video!

A Nod to Naama Zamir and Her Special Stripes Cane

Naama Zamir's Special Stripes Cane

While I was searching for the author of the eye cane tutorial at the bottom of this post, I came across this tutorial from Naama Zamir. She Posted this tutorial on March 1st, 2009! I made my Ancient Mystery Bracelet on Aug.10, 2009.

I didn’t see her tutorial until 10 minutes ago. In fact I had already started this post to look for the author of the eye cane tutorial.

Ancient Mystery I

This post is to acknowledge that she thought of the technique before I did! It just must have been floating around in the air and landed on me. Take a look, she explains how to do it wonderfully.

Now to the reason I was searching the internet… this ikat cane tutorial.

Ikat Eye Cane

Do you know who wrote this tutorial for an Ikat Eye Cane? It was on a website several years ago.

I printed it out and I use it sometimes for my face canes. I copied and pasted it into another program to print it to save ink. I usually labeled things I printed out with the author’s name and the website address. But somehow I’ve lost that information.

I’ve searched for it online for quite some time with no luck. I’m afraid that it is no longer available. I would like to suggest this cane for my face canes and send people to this tutorial. If it is no longer available, then I would like to be able to share the technique.

If you know the author or the website address, or someone who might be able to help me, would you please leave a comment or email me at alice@polymerclayetc.com? Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Update.. Several people were kind enough to leave comments or email me about the tutorial. Click here to go to Kerstin Rupprecht’s Ikat Eye Cane Tutorial. Kerstin shared this tutorial in 2002, thank you Kertin.

Using Old Polymer Clay Canes

Ancient Mystery I

Here’s how this started! I was going to shoot a video to share about all the items I found while cleaning that I can use with my clay work.

But as always, I had to clean up my clay space before I could begin. There sat slices of canes that I used in my (not finished yet) Polymer Clay Collage Project…. you’ll see a line of red squares across the bottom. Some were slices that I messed up and then there was this small little piece of cane left.

If you have been following this blog at all, you know me well enough to know that I do not like to make scrap clay. So, I layered the messed up slices with a layer of black #7 on the pasta machine. Then I sliced the remaining cane and added those slices with the black layers in between. Ending up with a new cane.

Why I didn’t start filming this for you, I don’t know, except that I didn’t know that it was going to come out this cool.

I sliced this cane into thin slices and added them to a sheet of black. Then placed the whole thing on my bracelet. It looks pretty good, I liked it anyway.

Then I had just a couple of slices left of this scrap cane (and I’m laughing here)! I didn’t want to scrap the rest of the cane I didn’t use because I liked it.

So I decide to play with what I had left. this next bracelet was the result and I like it way better than the first one.

Ancient Mystery II

I laid the left over slices out on a skinny strip of black and ran it through the pasta machine. It was ragged along the edges and I kind of liked that, so I put it on a layer of ecru clay and covered the bracelet form, added dots and there it was.

It was interesting and fun to experiment and the best part is I made something out of clay that was going to become a gray blob.

But..I still haven’t made the video with the found objects to use with clay. It will have to wait now, I have a special request for more girl bracelets in my Etsy shop, so I better get moving.

I’ve listed the other two bracelets there, so cross your fingers that summer sales will happen.

New Polymer Clay Collage Project

Profile Face Cane Experiement

I wanted to do something with my profile face canes and really wanted to do something different. I used the piece of glass from my mosaic work and lots of canes both old and new and have begun a picture. I’ve placed a piece of white paper behind the glass so that the work would show up better. So right now there is no background.

This is stage one. I’m going to bake it now and add more to it later. I think, after it comes out of the oven, I’ll add a skinner blend background and see where that takes me. Stay tuned.

The Fuller Craft Museum Will Present – Sculpting Color – Works in Polymer Clay

The Fuller Craft Museum will present – Sculpting Color – Works in Polymer Clay – curated by Kathleen Dustin August 8, 2009 – November 8, 2009

Examiner.com has this slide show of work by Boston artist Betsy Baker of Stonehouse Studio and images from the Fuller Craft Museum exhibition, Sculpting Color.

The slide show at Examiner.com also includes the work of a few of the other artists participating in the exhibit, Steve Ford and David Forlano, Bonnie Bishoff and JM Syron and Kathleen Dustin.

Thank you to Kathleen Dustin for the work she is doing on what we all know will be a tribute to all the incredible artists that have elevated the art of polymer clay.

Covering Glass With Polymer Clay

My First Covered Vase 2001

Color Vase 2

Someone asked me the other day how I came up with the fish mosaic technique. I thought about the progression that led me to create that first fish.

The Color Vase in this post was covered with polymer clay canes by me in 2001 and even listed on Glass Attic. It was my first polymer clay work to be shown on the internet and let me tell you, I was thrilled.

It was when I still had my old business website, Talented Friends. The link is no longer active to say the least, but the listing is still there on Glass Attic under covering glass.

Color Vase 3

From this vase, I covered many other things and experimented with all sorts of techniques that I saw online or in books or classes.

Several years ago, while I was director of Highlands Art League, we were having a members exhibit and I wanted to do something in PC. I decided I didn’t want to cover an entire vase, I just didn’t have the time. Plus I thought there had to be an easier way to create the designs with clay than trying to do it on the actual vase.

I wanted the design to be recognizable, and something that would lend itself to cane work. I drew out a fish shape on paper and taped it under a flat piece of glass. From there I created the fish vase below and displayed it in our members show along with the Color Vase and two other vases I had done over the years.

Fish Vase Art League

I stepped away from the art league late last year because of my husband’s health. I was home now and had time to actually grow my clay work and expand my horizons. I opened an Etsy shop and decided to try and make small things that I could sell in my Etsy shop and went to clip art for my general pattern for the fish and even a crab. One thing always leads to another as you can see by the cuff bracelet I did this week with the same technique.

This fish led me to share this technique with you. By signing up for my newsletter on the right hand side of the page, you can view the 20 minute film showing the technique I used to achieved this design. I hope you decide to enter my contest too.

What I have discovered is that nothing replaces just getting your hands in the clay and letting the work evolve. One idea will lead to another. Be bold, experiment, enjoy the process. I know I do.

Group of Vase shown at Highlands Art League 2007

Group of Vases shown at Highlands Art League 2007

Polymer Clay Etc.

Polymer Clay Canes for Beginners

Online Workshops with Alice Stroppel

Catagories

Comments

Blogroll

My Other Blogs

Recent Posts

Meta