Saturday, April 7, 2012

Deeper and deeper

Ever notice how you get into a new hobby and suddenly all kinds of doors open to you? You know. You take up knitting and find yourself wondering about spinning your own wool, for instance. We think when you consider adopting a sheep you might be in too deep but otherwise, exploration is good for the soul.

We've been playing with beads for a while now and recently began to consider the possibility of making our own. Why not? It's the logical next step, right? We tried paper beads but that just didn't grab us and then we found polymer clay. Oh, boy. Inexpensive and readily available. You can cure it (bake it) in a regular oven or even (imagine how much this excites us!) in a solar oven!!!

So, without further adooooooooo...... Here are our first polymer clay beads. They are dainty at 1/2-inch long which is the perfect size and shape for a beaded macramé bracelet. We used black, cherry red, silver and white and the beads that we got are more of a mahogany colour. It seems a big part of the process is: Surprise!! This is what you get.


We also tried a disk shape with the clay and colours more mooshed together. This one is also 1/2-inch in diameter. The pink is a little more pronounced. Pretty, right?


For the record, we don't see sheep in our future 
but we do see more bead-making.






5 comments:

  1. Aren't those fun?! I used to make a lot of jewelry, including polymer beads. There are some amazing polymer bead artists out there! My DH gave me a glass lampwork bead making class for my birthday one year. That's even more fun! Do you have a solar oven? Our house is mostly solar-powered... another passion...

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  2. I'm sure Mr. Coco is happy you chose to *get in deeper* with the bead making instead of the knitting. Sheep can take up a lot of your time and leave little for making beautiful polymer beads as shown year! Beautiful work!

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  3. It would really be b-a-a-a-d if Mr CoCo woke up to find a sheep in his b-a-a-a-a-ckyard some morning. That could never happen, right? :)
    Your beads are really pretty. You have so much on the go!
    Happy Easter, Cheryl.

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  4. The thought of sheep has always been intriguing... We have a border collie so not only would a sheep or two or three keep the dog and her human excessively happy, but of course the wool and the grass cutting feature and even the fertilizer! How could one loose? The only thing lacking is a yard that is bigger than the dining room...

    I was thinking of polymer clay for buttons, but beads could work too. Aw well, not today, I a sewing some new curtains for the kitchen window...

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