Is This Some Kind of a Bust?

Ok, now that I have the attention of all of you Naked Gun movie fans out there (yay!), let me explain.

Well-endowed female suspect: "Is this some kind of a bust?"
Detective Frank Dreben: "Yes, it's very impressive, but there's no time for that now."


One of the mannikin busts in the Second Chance Store had lost its head, and its neck hole was looking pretty sad. Being an intrepid crafter, I brought it home to fix. It was a pretty easy 4-step process, requiring only some polymer clay, a little gold acrylic paint, and 2 clip earrings, which were rejects from the store.

If you ever need to do something like this, here's how:

1. Create a ring of polymer clay that fits well inside the neck hole, cure it, and affix it to the inside of the neck hole with super glue (and a little duct tape just for insurance--not shown).
2. Create a circle of cloth-textured white polymer that will cover the neck hole completely. Cure it and rub it with gold acrylic paint.
3. Remove the clips from the earrings. Remove the pink plastic gem from one and the gold metal disk from the other. Glue the disk inside the setting from the pink gem, and glue the piece to the center of the neck cover.
4. Glue the underside of the embellished gold circle to the top of the polymer neck ring. Voila! Is this some kind of a bust, or what?

Speaking of Dog Portraits . . .

I'm so thrilled with the responses to my Polymer Painting Workshop at Polymer Clay Adventure! Several of the students were interested in painting portraits of their pets. I've never used my dogs as painting subjects, but I did make some dog face canes and used them on bracelet tiles. I want to share them with you here.

The top one is a Chihuahua (in case you can't tell), and the bottom one is a Boston Terrier. I made the basic face canes without the ears, chest, or collar. Then I added those elements to each tile individually so that each dog would have a slightly different look.

I made these several years ago, but hearing people talk about portraying their pets in clay makes me want to have another go!

Re-purposing Costume Jewelry for a Good Cause

Things to Do with Old Clip-on Earrings (Chapter 2)

 

Here's another idea for turning old, unlovable clip-on earrings into wearable (and saleable) costume jewelry.

The middle earring (above, left) had no mate, but it did have a interesting shape and design that I thought would translate well into a pendant.

First, I removed the clip finding from the back with a pair of pliers. Generally, you can just pull them off without too much muscle. Sometimes you may need to file off some rough edges on the back.

Next, I removed the crystal-bead dangles from the other pair of clip-ons. I could have opened the eye pins to remove them, but it was easier to cut up the thin metal backing with metal snips and remove the closed eye pins that way.

The next step was to attach each dangle to the earring-now-pendant with an inexpensive jump ring. The dangles slide freely on the rings of the pendant, casting light from their facets for extra bling.

Finally, another jump ring attaches the sparkly pendant to a thrift-store chain. (I hadn't yet attached a clasp when the photo was taken.) Again, this may not be a great example of the jeweler's art, but it is an attractive costume piece made from throw-away items.

The clip-on at left was another "single." Again, I thought it would make a nice pendant and could be combined with the plain wooden beads and another pair of clip-ons shown at right. (I decided not to use the zebra in this design, but don't worry--it will be used eventually.)

I removed the beads from their string and dyed them with alcohol inks. This is easy! Just put them in a glass container, spritz them with isopropyl alcohol, add several ink drops directly from the bottle, and shake the container lightly to swirl. Let the beads dry in the container overnight, and you have brilliant, lasting color!

I removed the findings and the blue crystals from the donut-shaped amber resin earrings (shown inside the original necklace), and they instantly became focal beads. I drilled a hole through the copper earring/pendant and strung it on the bead strand with a jump ring.

I'm actually quite proud of the resulting necklace, shown below. I'm sure it'll sell quickly and bring a decent price to help homeless pets in Nassau County, Florida.

I still have more ideas for using clip-on earrings, which I'll share in the next few days.

Re-purposing Costume Jewelry for a Good Cause

Things to Do with Old Clip-on Earrings (Chapter 1)

My Facebook friends may have already seen this photo of a mixed lot of "junk" jewelry I got from Second Chance, a resale shop that benefits the Nassau Humane Society, where I'm a volunteer.

My first task was to sort this and clean and repair what could be made resale-ready without too much effort. I reclaimed seven pairs of pierced earrings with just a little metal polish and some inexpensive earring backs.

That's when the fun really began! I looked at the whole lot, deciding which pieces might be combined to create new/old pieces. There were several pairs of clip-on earrings (and a few single earrings) that included some good beads and elements that could be detached and used in new designs

This necklace (at right)  combines beaded elements from clip-on earrings and a partial macrame shell necklace (above, left). The beads were on eye-pins that could be easily detached from the earrings' thin metal base and strung directly between the shells and black beads. I only added stringing wire, a clasp, and some inexpensive aluminum beads from my stash.

The result might not win any design awards, but it's a pretty and wearable necklace that someone will buy at Second Chance to benefit the cats and dogs.

The clip-on coin earrings (below, left) needed a good cleaning. I removed the clip from the back with a pair of pliers, added a jump ring and a chain (also from a resale shop), and voila--a new/old pendant.

Stay tuned for more adventures in reclaiming usable (and even cool!) elements from old clip-on earrings.

Time Is Flying a Little Faster Than Expected

Polymer Clay Painting Workshop Coming Soon to Your Electronic Device!

Yikes! My video workshop at Polymer Clay Adventure has been rescheduled from April to February. I'm pleased because I'm anxious to hear how people like it. But I find myself a little "behind the 8-ball" when it comes to filling orders for the polymer painting tool/supply kit and providing photo images for you to paint (if you choose not to draw from your own photos, memories, or imaginations).

As of this evening, I've run out of a couple of items needed for the supply kits. I will reorder right away, but there will be a delay of a few days in filling your orders while I wait for my own orders to arrive. So all you Adventurers who still plan to order supply kits, please be patient. And let me explain again that it's not necessary for you to order the kits. I just like to make available a few of the tools I find most useful, and it may be convenient for you to receive them all in one bundle. But the video will show you exactly what the tools are (including stock numbers in some cases), so you can source them yourselves if you choose to.

Those photo images will be coming very soon! I plan to post them here and on the PCA website. Many Adventurers are also my Facebook friends, so I'll update you there on the status of the photos and supply kits.

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Blu-Tack, Sticky Tack, Poster Putty--The Magical Art Material

What’s made of polymers, mineral oil, mineral fillers, and pigment and can be baked in the oven? Nope—it’s not what you think. It’s blu-tack, a substance sold worldwide under many brand names. We’ve probably all used it to stick posters to the walls of dorm rooms and apartments, but did you know it can be a polymer artist’s best friend (OK, second-best after the real thing itself)?

To clean blu-tack when it gets dirty, just knead and stretch, knead and stretch; it’ll clean itself.

 1,000 Uses? Well, a Lot Anyhow

For Housekeeping

• Roll blu-tack between your hands often to pick up lint, junk, especially when working on white or light-colored clay.
• Roll a lump of blu-tack to a point to pick up bits of lint, stray glitter, pet hair, etc., that have landed on the clay (as long as they're not embedded).
• To replace lost container caps. I’ve had a blob of blu-tack on a tube of white acrylic paint for several years, and the paint is still good
• To prevent messy spills when transporting your supplies, put a bit of blu-tack inside the cap of your liquid-clay bottle or stretch a rope of it around the spray opening of your Armor-All bottle.
• Use blu-tack to pick up spilled beads.

For Sculpting

• When baking in stages, adhere the piece to the tile with blu-tack to hold it immobile while you continue to work on it.
• Hold 2 (or more) small tiles together with blu-tack when a sculpted piece needs to hang off the edge—for example, the legs of a figure in a sitting position.
• When using Kemper cutters, sometimes using the plunger to push the clay out will leave a depression in the clay. To avoid that, touch the cutter to a piece blu-tack (or even push it into the blu-tack slightly); the blu-tack will grab the clay piece, and you can retrieve it from there.

For Caning

• Use blu-tack on cane ends for less waste in reduction.
• Put blu-tack under a cane to keep it from getting a flat side when you slice.

For Bead-Making

• Use blu-tack to hold skewers or wires in place when curing beads on a baking tray.
• Use your old, dirty blu-tack to hold toothpicks upright when freshly varnished beads are drying.
  

For Jewelry-Making

• Use blu-tack as a stopper on the end of a bead wire as you’re stringingTo open a split ring, stick a small lump of blu-tack on your table and embed the split ring in it with the opening on top. Stab a sewing needle between the coils of the split ring into the blu-tack. This will open the ring and hold it open while you insert a finding, etc., between the coils. Then you can grasp the opening of the ring with a round-nose pliers, remove the needle, and rotate the finding until it moves freely in the ring.   
• To attach a crimp cover over a crimp bead on a bead strand, stick a small lump of blu-tack on your table and embed the crimp cover in it with the opening facing up. Grasping the bead strand on each side of the crimp bead, place the crimp bead in the open cover. With the blue tack still holding the crimp cover in place, hold your crimp pliers perpendicular to the table and squeeze the crimp cover gently to close it. 

For Sanding

• When sanding a flat object (or a flat side of a contoured object), you can spare your fingernails by using a lump of blu-tack to hold the item. This works well for sanding lentil-bead halves. Patricia Ritz of Boston shared a great tip: "I took the protective plastic covering that you find on most wide solid deodorant sticks, put a bit of blu-tack inside it, and voila! I get a good grip on the plastic piece, the putty gets a secure grip on the lentil half, and good contact is made on the sandpaper!”
  
  

  Non-Polymer Uses

• Use blu-tack to remove labels from CDs and plastic surfaces
  Use it to hold stereo speakers on speaker stands (from my husband, Stan)  
• Use it as an eraser when drawing.
• Place blu-tack invisibly under or behind objects you want to photograph to support them and hold them in position for the best lighting effects, etc.
  
  

  Other Blu-Tack Resources

•  Here's a catalog of uses from Australia (where they use blu-tack even more than in the US).
• A list of uses compiled by blogger James Ward, who admits, "I like boring things."
• There's even a whole Flickr group on the creative uses of blu-tack.