Jewelry and Beading » polymer clay jewelry

Book review: Custom Cool Jewelry

Cyndi Lavin — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:00:27 +0000

Melinda Barta came up with a brilliant idea for this fun book. Instead of spreading her many talents out too thinly, she concentrated on just three areas: pendants, charms, and clasps.

It’s often hard to find exactly that perfect piece to customize your jewelry, and if you can make your own pendants, charms, and clasps, you can add them to readily available lain beads to create a masterpiece that is distinctively yours. Melinda includes over 275 quick and easy ideas for mixed media components as well as 7 full stringing projects. Once you start making these components, you’ll never run out of ideas about what to do with them!

Custom Cool Jewelry teaches you how to create personalized, affordable, and unique alternatives to store-bought beading components using a wide range of jewelry and basic crafting materials including embossing powder, collage papers, wire, fibers, glass etching cream, patinas, found objects, fabric, memorabilia and more.

Check out The Bookshop for lots more links to books about jewelry-making in addition to this fine guide!

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Polymer clay artist: Betsy Baker

Cyndi Lavin — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:00:47 +0000

Betsy Baker, owner of Stonehouse Studio, creates lovely classic jewelry from polymer clay. The combination of polymer with beautiful metal frames and findings makes gives it timeless style. Betsy writes:

I love the contrast between metal and polymer clay. Metal is bullied and cajoled into doing what you want by hammering, sawing and torching. Polymer, on the other hand, is the most cooperative, versatile and forgiving of mediums. As is so often true of opposites, the two work beautifully together.

My work is inspired by nature, which may seem strange since my primary medium is a synthetic plastic. But the chameleon-like qualities of polymer clay allow for innumerable ways of bringing an artistic vision to life. My polymer work encompasses a variety of surface techniques, including alcohol inks, acrylic paints and image transfers altered with colored pencils. The end result is jewelry that is organic, simple and very wearable.

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Polymer clay artist: Lauren Abrams

Cyndi Lavin — Sat, 23 May 2009 12:00:52 +0000

Lauren Abrams, owner of LaBeana, makes eye-catching polymer clay jewelry. I love the tribal/ethnic/bohemian feel to her pieces. Lauren writes:

I love polymer clay because of the immediacy of it as a medium. It is endlessly challenging yet among the simples of mediums to us. There are new techniques being developed daily and the excitement of trying new ones keeps it fresh and enticing. It’s great to be learning from other polymer clay artists(who are among the most generous of artists when it comes to sharing information) and a day does not go by when I don’t see something done in polymer clay that intrigues me….

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Polymer clay artist: Tina Farthing

Cyndi Lavin — Sat, 16 May 2009 12:00:32 +0000

Tina Farthing, owner of Chicki and ChickiBeads, sent some lovely pictures of her work. When you visit her bead shop, I think you’ll be immediately struck by the endless possibilities of jewelry you could make using her beads! Tina wrote:

I handcraft polymer clay jewelry. I create my own polymer clay beads and pendants and fashion them into unique jewelry. A lot of my items are one-of-a-kind and cannot be recreated.

I have always been a crafter. I can thank both my grandmothers for this as they are very crafty. I first picked up clay around 5 years ago. I took a couple breaks from it when I had my children and they were babies. I have been selling my clay jewelry on my store for just over a year now and I am really loving it! I love the endless possibilities there are with clay….it is so versatile!

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