Playing with Swellegant

Sometimes I forget that I even have a blog. Facebook seems to be where everyone communicates anymore. I am getting better at using FB, now that Twitter is were a lot of people talk or whatever twitter does.
   Anyway, I finally had a quiet day at the Gallery of Ocean Shores where I was able to spend time playing with polymer clay and Swellegant.  Debbie Crothers has written wonderful tutorials using Swellegant to create interesting veneers and beads. I just had to try it!

    First step: create the veneer. So much fun.

 Next step.  Create pieces from the veneers: apologies for the background... don't have my photo booth set up at the new house yet. These were taken on the windowsill.

 

 This poor little flower was my first attempt at cracking.  I overheated the clay and when I picked it up,  the poor thing cracked and broke in several places.   So it was backed with a bit of black clay and turned in to a pendant.

Another veneer I overheated while attempting to crackle.  I just kept pushing it into the clay core hoping that it would not crumble in my hands.  Miracle!  It held together.

Got into creating Dagger pendants with the next several veneers.  I am getting the hang of crackling. 

 Don't know if you can see the subtle coloring the Swellegant made on the black portion of this Dagger pendant.  In real life,  it is quite striking.

And my last beads ... to start with, this was the ugliest veneer I had made.  I had dug into the clay in an experiment to see what would happen.  I was not at all pleased with the result.  So, what the heck,  can't ruin it anymore.  Wrapped it around a  skewer and what do you know ... butt ulgy turned out nice.