Lookee here…
It’s a heart-hefting Chewbacca, Bringer of the LOVE!

This polymer-shaped, Sharpie-enhanced tribute to the Wookie of your dreams is available as a magnet or a pin, and evokes the spirit of Valentine’s Day with handcrafted humour.

And much like love itself…
this wookie is flexible, but fragile.

By BicycleOcean (Naomi) of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Michelle Zink packs good humour into every polymer bead she creates, from retro Flower Power beads to fairies and clown faces and jungle or farmyard critters.

You’ll find Michelle at home in a small coastal Oregon town with 2 dogs, 4 cats, 11 chickens & Petals, her goat (oh, and a couple of teenagers, too)… and you’ll find her original polymer creations on her website, Michelle’s Clay Beads.

Right now I’m crazy about the Chunky Princess beads from her Fantasy beads collection. And please don’t get me started on her silly bee beads, or those tiny polymer ice-cream cones…

Tie down your wallet, crafters! Yes, she does take custom orders.

I went looking for polymer beads and found a Treasure Box! It’s called Pitch with Easter Trance Spirals, by Lauren of thickneckARTS.

I’ve always loved hemp jewelry but without going to a craft/art show I could never find stuff that was unique or if it was, it wasn’t my style. Then I realized I would never find exactly what I wanted outside of my own creation. Only I could create exactly what I wanted!

Long story short, I bought some primary colors to play around with and have been hooked ever since!
~ Lauren

But what brought her to making a treasure box instead of beads for her hemp-knotted jewellery?

Lauren tells me she’d read that polymer clay could be used on “just about anything that could withstand the clay’s baking temperature” — around 225°F depending on the piece.

“It opened a whole other door for me with the clay,” she says. “I went from beads to candle holders to treasure boxes in a day!”

Basically, for the treasure box she used a wooden Home Depot giftcard box, black polymer clay, liquid polyclay and part of a polymer clay “cane” she’d already designed. (And for those of us who aren’t hands-on with the polymer clay yet, ClaySquared has an terrific photo show of the step-by-step process of how a polymer cane is built that, trust me, you’ll really enjoy!)

As Lauren explains her process, she wrapped the entire box — lid and all — with black polymer clay, attaching it using the liquid polyclay. Then she cut slices from the cane and stuck them onto the black clay in a random pattern — going for a polka dot-look.

“I had to use a roller to flatten it on all sides, then smooth the corners with my fingers. Once the box was completely wrapped and the “polka dots” in place, I made “incisions”, if you will, where the door and box would separate so that it could be opened once baked. Then I separated the door from the box, and baked both on a cookie sheet for about 15-18 mins at 200-215°F.”

If you want to try this project yourself, Lauren advises, it might be best to bake the wooden box before you cover it with polymer clay.

“The box I used bubbled sap up from its bottom into the box itself during baking. It still came out beautiful but the sap takes up a good bit of room on the inside. lol. Also, don’t try to make your corners too flush or too tight because when the clay bakes it will pull taut, so to speak, and may create cracks.”

Lauren made a wise design choice in the classic black-and-white theme for her first treasure box, I think, as almost anything black-and-white has an automatic touch of class!

(Another way to go might be with wildly funky colours and a lot of detail, if you’re afraid you might have an ‘ooops’ or two to disguise…)

As for the wood Home Depot box giving up some sap when it was heated — that sounds like these boxes are made with fairly green wood, so likely to have some shrinkage over the years in any case.

You might be able to pick up an old wooden box of the right size and shape at a yard sale, one that’s already well dried by age. Just be careful not to polymer-decorate a priceless collector’s item by mistake! So, come to think of it, I think I’d go with the Home Depot box and just try to plan ahead, to dry the box out gradually at a very low heat over a period of days, to prevent the wood from warping.

Why not get a couple of boxes, and just pop them into the oven whenever it’s cooling off after you’ve had a cooking spree? Saves on electricity, dries the wood out in a gentle way to prevent the box from warping as the moisture evaporates from its fibers, and gives you a couple of boxes all ready to go when a treasure box inspiration hits you!

Whomp!
Yep, that was inspiration hitting right now…

Find Lauren’s polymer beads, hemp jewellery, and other arts at thickneckarts.etsy.com.

When you’re looking for a craft tutorial, nothing’s better than a good clear how-to video. This one, from Rochelle Dahl, shows a simple way to make polymer beads. The project is easy enough for beginners and kids, but the results — as the video shows — can be stunning and quite sophisticated.

Tutorial Summary:
Polymer clay is formed into a ball, pierced with a needle, and pressed between a pair of matching stamps to texturize it on all sides. (One key tip is to use talcum powder or cornstarch to prevent the clay from sticking to your tools.) Bake the beads in a toaster oven and then, as Rochelle says, the fun part begins! Using craft paints, colour and decorate your polymer beads in any way that your imagination suggests.

Jo Brooks (of Lampwork Art, where I discovered this bead-making video) reports that she tried this with her kid a few days ago, and the family bead-making project was a great success.

For today’s guest post, how about a bit of bling to usher in the Holiday Season? Please welcome Pelf Nyok — and she’ll introduce us to Malaysian jewellery designer April Yim whose opulent designs are inspired by the culture and folklore of the East… ~ Jen

April and her Hand-made Jewellery

Malaysian lass, April Yim, started making some really adorable polymer clay earrings about 2 years ago, and a year and many pairs of polymer clay earrings later, she ventured into jewellery-making where she experimented with real beads and pieces.

And what started as drawings on paper turned into jewellery-designing and making a natural process for April, who now owns a website — Vanity Vault — where she showcases and sells her products.

“Vanity Vault is not a real profit-making business. It started off as a way to fuel a girl’s obsessive hobby and I really intend it to stay that way. It also keeps me from staying in a healthy activity and de-stresses me…”

The expensive hobby

To date, April must have spent thousands of ringgits* on the raw materials for her jewellery. She was still a student when she picked up the hobby two years ago, and it was undeniably difficult on her pockets. In fact, a huge portion of her first pay cheque went to purchasing the raw materials (beads and stones) for her jewellery, which were imported from a variety of places.

“Each region of the world specializes in different parts and pieces. Cultured pearls are imported from Japan, China and the islands in the South Pacific, Swarovski crystals direct from Swarovski, Austria, and of course semi-precious stones are from all continents of the world.”

Each piece of jewellery can take as short as 5 minutes and as long as 5 days to complete. In fact, according to April, jewellery-making is definitely NOT a solitary craft because it requires a collective set of skills (such as beading, wire-work, moulding, painting, needle-work, metal-works, glass-works and of course, design). Moreover, the time needed to complete a piece really depends on the set of disciplines involved and how complicated the design is.

April’s favourites

Despite holding a day job, April manages to make an average of 8-10 pieces of jewellery per month. And 3 of her favourites are:

• Favourite necklace –
  Ultima

  There are more than 36 ways in which you can wear this convertible necklace. It is completely changeable into a necklace of different lengths, 3 different bracelets, a belt and a bag charm.







• Favourite earrings –
  Aethelwyne

  It features a very intricate design on a gold leaf shaped filligree, nylon coated gold wire, mirror beads with gold rim coating in green, black pearls and Aurora Borealis Czech glass beads. Note how the colours blend so well with the feature of the design.




• Favourite bracelet –
  Cleopatra
  The colours are in sync with one of April’s favourite ancient dynasties.

If you haven’t noticed it, besides designing and making jewellery, April is also a huge fan of names (did you see how she named the bracelet Cleopatra?!). She feels that each name should give each individual piece its own character and individuality. In fact, a lot of the names for her jewellery have been derived from stories she’s heard of or read about. Besides, she was sometimes inspired by the local and foreign languages, characters from ancient folklore and catchy quotes or phrases.

The other side of April Yim

In the past, April had donated some of her jewellery to raise funds for another Malaysian blogger, Yvonne Foong, who has Neurofibromatosis Type II (an incurable genetic disease). April also sponsored some of her items to raise funds for other charities and to help the less fortunate.

She would definitely love to work with more people in the future, so if you are organizing a charity event or fund-raising activity, do remember to contact April!

Note: The current foreign exchange rate is 3.3 Malaysian Ringgit to 1 US Dollar.

Pelf Nyok, the author of The Giving Hands, is a grad-student who is trying to save the turtles, the environment and humankind. Charity, conservation and volunteerism are things that are very close to her heart.
pelf-ism is contagious!