Be my Valentine Earrings Week 6

With Valentines day falling in week 6 of the 52 earring project, it was not hard at all to come up with the theme.

I started out the week working with translucent clay, so made a few translucent hearts. I tried adding a red glitter to the clay, and red ink to the clay.  The red washed out.  Not too bad, but didn't ring my chimes.

I then thought I might try for a faux ceramic heart look.  My thought was to make a kinda banner across the heart.  My first try, the banner is too thick for my liking. Back to the pasta machine... this one I like better. With the first heart I used Watermelon ink to color the LPC.  The color was not red enough without putting on several layers.  It lost it's ceramic look.  So the next time, I used Pepper Red ink thinking it would be darker. Surprising, it was lighter than the watermelon. I only used one layer of colored LPC to keep it more ceramic.

Used a waterproof pen to highlight the stamped letters.

These I liked enough to make into earrings. But I was on a roll and did not stop here.  I was not happy being unable to get a good red color using ink, so I thought I would try using the PanPastel Chalk red - it is really vibrant.







I made a basic heart shape and used a needle tool to outline the stamped letters to make the banner. I then colored the bead with chalks and baked.  After baking, I used LPC colored with black ink to antique.  With the first pair, I did not realize that I was making marks that would look like a strawberry when colored in.  Opps... so the second pair, when they come out of the oven, looked a bit like wood. To keep this theme, I antiqued with dark paint and used a satin sealer.

Shortcake anyone?

 I added a little bling to spark these up.

I am really enjoying this challenge. Coming up with a new idea every week AND blogging about it. Keeps my creative juices flowing.

Faux Ceramic with Polymer Clay

One of the many artistic forms that I have attempted in my life was ceramics.  I really enjoyed it, even if I could never get the hang of the wheel.  I took lessons and open studio  for several years at a community art center near my work, mostly hand building, until the cost of going there got too high.

    One of the big draws of polymer clay for me is it's ability to mimic almost any other medium.  And since I still love the look of ceramics, I have played around with PC attempting to make faux ceramic beads.

 This is a necklace and earrings that I made a while back.  I made the base beads by stamping into white clay and cured them. I then mixed alcohol inks into liquid polymer clay and applied to the backed beads. I semi-cured them with a heat gun, to set the LPC so it would not drip in the oven during the second baking.  I like the  glazed look this technique achieved.