Kira: Hi, I am Kira.

Ilysa: And I'm Ilysa.

Kira: You’re watching Episode 6 of Polymer Clay TV. And today, we’re going to talk about jewelry, which is a very popular thing that people like to make from Polymer Clay, so we’re going to show you how to make pendants from a stamped image. And we have chosen this stamp by Stamp Zia and we really like it because it has eight different designs on it. And each one, there is a peacock feather, a dragonfly. I'm not sure what that is, its like an abstract design, a ginkgo leaf, a feather, this looks like maybe a lotus.

Ilysa: Yes.

Kira: Another abstract kind of a moth looking design and this—

Ilysa: A bird.

Kira: Bird. It’s like a crane. So eight different designs from one stamp and another thing that you want to look for when you’re creating jewelry is the right size. This are sized appropriately for something that you would want to wear on your neck.

So, here’s one made with this dragonfly. They translate really nicely into pendants. So, this necklace here was made with a couple of stringing holes put into the side like on this one, and it’s embellished with some canes. And we’re going to go into all of the different techniques we’ve learned so far. You can stamp this with inks. You can rub pigments onto them. Put little cane pieces on there. Anything you want to do. Here on this one actually has some holes poked into it to add to the design of the outside frame that was put around it.

You can go wild with jewelry and just do anything you like. So Ilysa have some others out in front of her and then we’re going to show you to make a couple of them.

Ilysa: Right, this one here, I've added some Swarovski Crystals onto it and just—I stamped the pendant. I did a little extra dimension, a little swirl on the side and I have a really nice pendant there.

And actually, I have to add a little extra clay on the back because I wanted my—to poke a hole going through this way. And in order to do that, I have to make sure it was sticking up so it wouldn’t break. I don’t want to take a chance of it breaking by being—in. So, that’s that one. Here’s that crane Kira showed you.

And there’s holes on both sides and up, so you can string it up, and I've added a whole—I’m just want to—but you can add a hole down at the bottom and you can dangle things as well, so that’s another option. Here’s another one where I've added some ink, a little powdered pigments, so now, I’ve added a little bit. I've just used my bamboo skewer and gone it around making holes.

This one, I've added a little clay around the edge and used my bamboo skewer to just kind of pushing on it to get this neat effect.

And then this one, I've added ink to it. So stamp and then I've actually come in back with my bamboo skewer.

So Kira is going to show you how we made one of those pendants.

Kira: Yup, and I'm going to do this dragonfly and put some holes in it for stringing it from the sides and dangling a bead off the bottom. So first, I've got a mix of pearl and silver clay that turns into a nice kind of light silver. And I've already knitted it up and gotten it nice and warm to work with. And I'm just going to roll it into a somewhat thick piece here.

Ilysa: Yes, you want to—if you’re going to be adding that hole from the side like I did, you want to use a thicker piece.

Kira: Right.


Ilysa: But if you’re going to punch the holes and do it yourself, you can go a little thinner because we’re using a Primo brand clay, and Primo still remains flexible, so it’s very much less likely to break.

Kira: Right, and also, when you’re making your jewelry, you have to think about this. I'm going to be putting either string or jump ring on here and a jump ring on the bottom to hold whatever is going to dangle off. So it has got to be thin enough that you can wire it up or put a ring on it, but also thick enough that it’s not going to break. So you have to sort of eyeball that.

In this, I'm just going to put on here. The way I like to do it is to actually press it in with my fingers. This stamp is pretty deeply impressed, so I'm not too worried about the impression that I got. I think I'm going to get a good impression if I put some medium pressure on here. And this green rubber, it’s pretty good, it releases the clay pretty easily. So I'm just going to lift it up and I've got a pretty good impression right there.

Ilysa: Yeah, and that was without any kind of releasing medium.

Kira: Right, I didn’t need to put anything on there.

Ilysa: It’s a different consistency that rubber isn’t it?

Kira: Yeah, it’s interesting. That’s good because it—sometimes it’s frustrating to work with because it doesn’t hold on to the clay as tightly as some other pink rubbers do, but I find it nice because I don’t have to put a release on it. And then if I'm just careful and I make sure not to move it around on the rubber too much, then it just pops right off.

Ilysa: Right, it’s probably more effective to do your way with this thing, because I like to roll my rod over it and it could move that way.

Kira: Right.

Ilysa: So it’s probably better to just use your fingers to press it in.

Kira: Yeah, so now, I'm just going to poke some holes so that after I poke my holes, I'm going to ink it up, and I don’t want to have to touch it too much after I do that. So I'm just going to make a small hole by twisting, and I feel it on my finger. So once I feel it poked through, I turn it over and poke the hole back through from the other side. And I'm just going to do that on all the corners of this one.

Ilysa: When you’re making your hole, make sure to twist your bamboo skewer as you go, so you get a nice clean hole.

Kira: Yup, it’s important especially when you have a design that you’ve just carefully stamped not to mess with the clay too much and pull on it because you want the design to stay. So here, I'm going to use some Tsukineko Rocket Red Gold Brilliance Dew Drop Ink. And I'm going to use the pad and just stamp it on to that design.

Ilysa: The Red Rocket is a really colorful.

Kira: Yes, it’s pretty color.

Ilysa: Yeah, it looks neat mixed of colors.

Kira: Yeah, so now, I can imagine this pendant going with maybe some carnelian beads or some red glass and it would look really nice. So I don’t want to touch it too much. Just lift it up like that so you can see it.

Ilysa: And you can just—like that.

Kira: Just bake it on your cookie sheet or whatever you use in your oven and it’s done.

Ilysa: Here’s eight different ones and I promised you, you won’t get bored.

Kira: Yeah.

Ilysa: Just have fun with it.

Kira: We did. So we will be showing which one Ilysa, the blue one?

Ilysa: Yes, we’re going to be showing this blue on our download and you can find that at polymerclayproductions.com. Thanks for joining us. We really hope you enjoyed what we did.