Embossed Wrapped Beads

Design Team Member Bea Grob recently shared these textured, embossed wrapped beads made with Makin's Clay® here on her blog. 

Black & Gold Paisley Bangle Bracelet

Black & Gold Paisley Bangle Bracelet by Cindi McGee

Materials:

Makin’s Clay® - Black

Makin’s Professional® Ultimate Clay Extruder® - 3 hole disc 

Makin’s Professional® Ultimate Clay Machine®

Wooden bangle 

JudiKins™ Diamond Glaze 

Gold microbeads 

DecoArt® Americana® Multi-Surface Satin™ - Gold 

CreateAlong.com Peacock Borders Silkscreen by Cindi McGee Designs

Paintbrush 

Scissors 

Squeegee 

Beacon™ 527 Adhesive 

Instructions:

Often when I am working on a project and have “leftover” clay I will roll it into thin sheets and allow it to dry. Then I have sheets ready to die cut or craft punch, etc. when I’m ready to create. To create the sheets I simply roll black Makin’s Clay® beginning on setting #1 of the Ultimate Clay Machine®, the moving up one setting at a time and in this case ending at a setting #6. 

Place silkscreen orange side down over the clay sheet. Apply gold metallic paint to squeegee.  While holding the silkscreen in place, carefully use the squeegee to apply the paint over the silkscreen, transferring the image to the clay sheet. Immediately wash the silkscreen and squeegee, and let paint dry on clay sheet. Then repeat to make a second border. 

 

When silkscreening is dry, use scissors to trim around the borders and create two rectangular strips of equal size. I purposely made mine about 1/4” narrower than the width of the bangle as I wanted to add a row of gold microbeads. 

Paint inside of wooden bangle with gold paint. Let dry.

 

Apply 527 Adhesive to back of first strip of clay.  Wrap around bangle. Trim second strip to fill in any remaining space, being careful to match pattern as best as possible. Glue in place. Let glue dry. 

 Use Ultimate Clay Extruder® and 3 hole disc to extrude black clay. Twist three strands. Add adhesive to top edge of bangle, wrap twisted clay around the top edge, trim to fit. Repeat on opposite side of bangle. Let dry 24 hours.

Apply Diamond Glaze to area between silkscreened clay and the twisted border piece. Add gold microbeads.  Repeat all around the bangle, on top and bottom edges. Let dry. 

 

Classic Black, Red & White Jewelry Set

 

Classic Black, Red & White Jewelry Set by Bea Grob

A classic jewelry set made with cup beads and tiny leaves made with Makin's Clay®.

Materials:

Makin's Clay® - black, red and white about 30 gr from each color

Makin's® 

 - CLAY MIXING RULER

 - CLAY TEXTURE SHEETS - SET E the Curly pattern

- Roller

Makin's Professional® 

- Ultimate Clay Machine®

- Cutting Mat

Tissue Blade

Findings

Headpins, 2 mm elastic cord and earring hooks.

Flat nose pliers, round nose pliers

Ponybeads in size 8

Instructions:

I used the mixing ruler to have always the same amount of clay for the flowers and leaves.

Use the hole Size E for the larger flowers, Size D for the small flowers and Size B for the leaves.

Simply fill the holes and then use the tool to push it out and at the same time start shaping a bit.

Form the clay more around the ballpointed end of the tool. I used the bigger sphere for the bigger flowers and the smaller sphere, you guessed it, for the smaller flowers.

To smooth them out a had a wet towel ready and did dip my fingers into. You want the somewhat damp but not soaking.

Then I carefully removed it from the ball and that is what it looks like.

 

Add the headpins to the flowers.

For the leaves, form first a flat leave shape, and then add the headpin before pinching it just at the bottom slightly together. The goal is to see the rounded end of the headpin, but enough wrapped so that the headpin stays in place.

Repeat to make flowers and leaves from white, black and red clay.

I use foam to hold them while they dry for 24 hours. I had approx 10 to 11 flowers of each size in red, white and black, and also about 10 leaves in red, white and black. 

Once the clay was dry, I began constructing the earrings.  Gather three parts at once and bend them to mark where the loop will start. As you can see I staggered them a bit.

Next, make the loops into each flower. I also added some pony beads in size 8 just for fun, but that is optional.

 

I don't recommend adding the loops directly to the earring hooks. The just hang better if you add a small jump ring. Then you can add the jump ring to the earring hook.

For the bracelet, make the loops right at bottom of the flowers or right after the bead. I did about half half with beads and with out beads. The reason for I wanted them to be a bit staggered too.

I used the 2 mm elastic cord for jewelry and marked the ends. I simply wrapped around the wrist to figure out how much I needed.

Next, tie a black bead on one end and start with 3 flower/leaf combo before adding two beads again. I did try to space them somewhat between sizes, forms and colors.

Mokume Gane with Makin's Clay®

Mokume Gane with Makin's Clay® by Bea Grob

Lately, I have been experimenting with the Mokume Gane technique with Makin's Clay®.  Right away, yes it did work, but you have to adapt a little bit if you are coming from the oven bake clay. 

Materials:

Makin's Clay® - Vineyard Tones, Peach, Black 

Makin's Professional®

• Ultimate Clay Machine®
• Cutting Mat 

Makin's® Clay Cutters, square Set Nr.  36002  

A spray bottle with plain water

Piece of plastic wrapping or household wrap

Cording, earring wires, closures, findings, etc. as desired

Instructions:

For this project I used the set with the Vineyard colors, every color except the brown. You need colors that give some contrast also in value. So I did add the peach color as a light value and the black as dark value.

First, I ran every color through the Makin's Professional®Ultimate Clay Machine® on setting #1 and progressively increased ending on setting #8.

I started with peach and stacked the other colors on top. 

I added some metal leaf to second layer of peach.

The final sheet was black. 

This is what the whole stack of sheets looks like. Don't worry to much if they don't match perfectly. Even though I had roughly the same amount of clay, the squares didn't come out exactly the same.  

Next, I trimmed the edges a bit.  This is what the stack looks like from the side. 

Back to the Makin's Professional® Ultimate Clay Machine®... I ran all the stacked sheets first through the setting # 1 and then stepped up the #8 again. You get a long sheet like this.

The next step is to cut 4 equal squares and then stack them together again (and keept the cut offs, we need them later).

Next, I used a tool to make indentations, here I use the back end of a brush.  Experiment with any of the tools in the Makin's Professional® Professional Tool Kit®, they would also work well!

I ended up with a stack like this. 

The stack is still a little to wide for my taste, so I squeeze it into a log. I took my time and rotated the log quite a bit to squeeze from all sides.

When finished, you can see the distortion on the sides, which is good, so no worries.

Now it is time to make a jewelry form. I ran all the leftovers and cutoffs again through the clay machine to make a uniform color. When it all was mixed together I made sheet on the setting # 1 of the clay machine.

I cut the first piece with a flexible clay blade and stacked it on a second sheet again from the same sheet and made it double thick.

To smooth out the seam I used one of the Makin's® clay tools. Just add a tiny bit of water and smooth it out with the round part.

I cut the first piece with a flexible clay blade and stacked it on a second sheet again from the same sheet and made it double thick.

To smooth out the seam I used one of the Makin's® clay tools. Just add a tiny bit of water and smooth it out with the round part.

In the meantime the stack had a little bit of time to begin to dry. Usually, you want to put unused clay

 into a zip lock bag together with a damp paper towel to prevent drying out. But for cutting slices from the log it is easier if it has dried just a bit, but of course not completely. If it is to soft, then you have to let is sit another 10 minutes or so. It also depends a little bit on area you live in.

I started cutting off slices from my log. I used more a sawing motion then running quick through the log. You can't cut really thin, so I did run it through the clay machine again to get an elongated piece which I then use to cover up the jewelry pendant form.

I wrapped the pieces around the edges  of the pendant form and cut them flush on the backside.

To make a hole I  used use a piece of a straw on the first pendant.

For the second pendant I added a hole through the top of the pendant. I used a needle tool and with a drilling motion to run it through. 

I also made some beads, again I used the leftover as a base and then wrapped it with the slices. To get  even sized beads I use the Makin's® Clay Cutter, square Set Nr.  36002 to cut out squares from the sheets and then I rolled it into a core bead. 

Next, I sliced the cane again and formed them a bit over my knuckle. This makes it easier to wrap the core bead from the scraps.

The next day I was ready to turn my pieces into a completed jewelry set.