Adult Coloring with Makin's Clay® - Butterfly Wing

ADULT COLORING WITH MAKIN'S CLAY® by Cynthia Gougian 

It’s October, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook are filled marvelous Halloween creations!

Unfortunately, here in Georgia, my outdoor thermometer was telling me it was still summer!   My original intent was to design some Halloween dragon fly wings.  But, my muse and the weather took me in another direction.  And, I am so glad that happened!  I stumbled on an adult coloring technique using Makin’s Clay®  and Prismacolor® pencils!  I am just so excited to share it! 

Materials:

·     Makin’s Professional® Ultimate Clay Machine®

·     Makin’s Clay®  15 g in black (1/4 of a 60 gram package)

·     Christi Friesen’s Flutter Wings ©2015 texture sheet, deep texture sheet of your choice.

·     An acrylic roller

·     Prismacolor® colored pencils, or soft colored pencils of your choice

·     Small embroidery scissors

·     A craft knife

·     Cornstarch, or powder

·     Grumbacher® Matte Final Fixative

·     1.5 mm Wire ferrule (Sometimes labeled for 16 AWG wire)

·     4 mm and 6 mm jump rings, or jump rings in sizes of your choice

·     Necklace cord of your choice

Instructions:

Step 1:  I used scissors to cut off about a ¼ block of 60 gram Makin’s® black clay. 

Step 2:  I wrapped the remaining clay in the plastic packaging, then immediately put it in a plastic bag with a wet paper towel.  I removed the excess air from the bag and sealed it tightly.  Makin’s® clay will remain fresh for quite sometime if you store it carefully.

Step 3:  I dusted the mold with some cornstarch.  You can dip a soft artist brush into some cornstarch, then brush it on the mold.  But, I use an old trick from my cake decorating days.  I place a clean, knee -high stocking into another knee-high stocking. I then fill the stockings with corn starch, and knot the top.  This makes a corn starch pounce.   I just pat the mold with the pounce to apply the cornstarch.  It’s less messy!

Step 4:  I rolled the black Makin’s® clay through the thickest setting of the Makin’s Ultimate Clay Machine®.  Then I placed the clay over the mold, and rolled over it with an acrylic roller. 

Step 5:  After rolling, I pressed the clay into the mold with my fingers.  I wanted to make sure I got all the details! 

Step 6:  Once I demolded the wings, I cut of most of the excess clay with embroidery scissors. I didn’t try to cut too close to the wings at this point.  

Step 7:  I stored the excess clay away so that I could use it again. 

Step 8:  I used the 1.5 mm wire ferrule to cut holes at the top of the wings.  Then I let the wings dry for 24 hours. 

Step 9:  Once the clay was thoroughly dry, it was easy to cut out the wings with embroidery scissors. 

Step 10:  Here’s a close up of the wing completely trimmed.  

Step 11:  I used Prismacolor® Apple green to color some of the cells of the wing. I found it was best to use gentle pressure on the pencil. I also found that small circular strokes worked best to obtain full coverage.  Long strokes left the colored areas looking streaky. 

Step 12:  I used Prismacolor® Lilac to color the remaining cells.  

Step 13:  Once the wing was fully colored, I added Prismacolor® Parrot Green to just the inside corner of the green cells. 

Step 14:  Then I added Prismacolor® Violet to just the inside corner of the lilac cells. 

Step 15:  Then, I used a Prismacolor® Colourless Pencil to blend the darker colors into the lighter colors.  If you don’t have a Prismacolor® Colourless pencil, you can use a white pencil, or a very light grey pencil to blend.   

Step 16:  Once or twice, I had slipped with my colored pencils.  I had gotten some color where I wanted the only the black clay to show. But, I was able to touch up the black areas with a Prismacolor® Black pencil.    

Step 17:  When I had finished coloring the wing, I applied two coats of Grumbacher® Matte Final Fixative, allowing the wing to dry thoroughly between coats. 

I was very happy with how well the Prismacolor® Pencils laid down on the Makin’s Clay®! Even though I used black clay, I got great coverage.  Dry Makin’s Clay® has a nice “tooth” (slightly rough texture). This makes it easy to add layers of beautiful color with the Prismacolor® Pencils.  I am looking forward to exploring this technique further and sharing more adult coloring projects!

When the fixative was dry, I used a jump ring to attach the wing to a necklace cord. 

Butterflies in Flight Wall Art

Design Team Member Leila Bidler recently shared this colorful Butterfly wall art made with Makin's Clay®.  Leila used a craft punch to cut butterflies from sheets of dry Makin's Clay®.  You can die cut sheets of dry Makin's Clay® too!

Butterfly Pendant

Design Team Member Naomi Scarparo recently shared a tutorial for this beautiful butterfly pendant made with Makin's Clay®.  Find her instructions on her blog.

Spring Flowers

Cindi McGee shares a sneak peek at an upcoming project tutorial. She's giving her Makin's® Flower Clay Cutter set a workout on this one!  Makin's® also has several other clay cutter sets, including these butterfly and frog sets perfect for Spring projects!

Butterfly & Gears Steampunk Decorative Panel

Design Team Member Bea Grob recently shared this Butterfly & Gears Steampunk Decorative Panel.  She used Makin's Clay® to die cut her gear embellishments.   Makin's Clay® has a lightweight and flexible quality that makes it perfect for die cutting!

Stamped Butterfly Pendant by Cindi McGee

Stamped Butterfly Pendant 

Designed by Cindi McGee

Spring is here and that means butterflies begin to appear again and dance among the flowers.  The soft coloring of this pendant is from oil pastels.  Thanks to Design Team Member Carole Monahan and her "Dreamy Pastel Statement Necklace" made with Pan Pastels, I was inspired to pull out my oil pastels and revisit using them to color sheets of Makin's Clay®!  They were the perfect option for this blended, soft background color.  I am also sharing a new "technique" I discovered for shaping Makin's Clay® once it is dry...... 

Materials:

Makin’s Clay® - Natural or White 

Makin’s® Ultimate Clay Machine™

Makin’s® Cutting Mat 

Krylon® Silver Leafing Pen 

Clearsnap® ColorBox™ Crafters Ink - Purple

Pentel® Oil Pastels 

Sizzix® Big Shot 

Sizzix®  Bigz Die - Butterfly, Flower, Leaf & Shamrock

JudiKins™ Floral Wave stamp 

JudiKins™ Tidy Tray 

Fine paintbrush 

Heat tool 

Small glass beads - clear and pale blue 

Connie Crystal purple crystal bead 

Silver jump rings, jewelry wire, jewelry pliers, silver eye pin, silver closure 

Tapestry needle or tiny hole punch

Instructions:

Roll Makin’s Clay® in Ultimate Clay Machine starting on setting #1 and ending at setting #2.  Let  dry 24 hours. 

Die cut butterfly from dry sheet of clay using Sizzix® Big Shot™ and die.  

“Scribble” with purple and teal blue oil pastel crayon on both sides of butterfly.  

Use fingertip to gently blend colors together.   I added a bit moire of the purple in the center of my butterfly as shown. 

Stamp both sides with the background stamp and purple ink.  Use heat tool to dry.  Now this is what I discovered and think is really nifty.... While clay is still warm from heat tool, bend wings upward and place between two objects to keep there while clay cools.  The wings will remain lifted once the clay has cooled.   You can re-shape/bend DRY Makin's Clay® by heating it with a heat tool!

Use fine paintbrush to apply Krylon Silver Leafing to outside edge of butterfly. 

Cut jewelry wire to desired length for pendant.  Place glass beads in Tidy Tray, bead entire length of wire with clear and pale blue beads in a random pattern.  Add jewelry closure. 

Make a small hole in head of butterfly with a tapestry needle or tiny hole punch.  Add silver jump ring.

Place purple crystal onto eye pin with clear glass bead.  Add to center of necklace.  Add jump ring to eye to hang butterfly.

Tassel Pendants by Irit Shalom

Hello my dear crafty friends and welcome to my Makin's Clay® March tutorial.

March is the National Craft Month and to make a new jewelry piece with Makin's Clay® and tools, die, molds and paints sure counts as crafting. I decided to pick a few trends and to use them on this card piece. 

The recent trends are Rose quartz color of the year (it's just light link one); doilies are still trendy; tassels are back as a trend; glitter and gold are the most trendy items on this list. And as I believe, butterflies and flowers are trendy forever.

So here is my new Spring necklace and I made a tutorial for you , so you can duplicate with piece or to make a very similar one.

Makin's Clay® products used:

Makin’s Clay®

White

Peach (from Earth Tones)

Tools:

Makin’s Professional® Ultimate Clay Machine®

Makin’s Professional® Cutting Mat

Makin’s Professional®Roller and Cutters set®

Other products:

Molds- Plaid

Scissors

Glaze-Sweet Stamps

Acrylic paint-ColorArte

Jewelry parts , glitter, ribbon- craft shop

Instructions:

Step 1:  Roll a piece of peach Makin's Clay® over Makin’s Professional® Cutting Mat with a roller from Makin’s Professional® Roller and Cutters set®.

Make a sheet of peach clay using Makin’s Professional® Ultimate Clay Machine® on setting 5. Let the sheet of clay be totally dry and then die cut it with My Favorite Things small Doily die. Not every delicate die works on clay sheet; this one works even with small intricate die cutting.

Step 2:

Cut the piece of dry clay sheet (the same color from the previous step) to make a hand made tassel. Ad you can see Tim Holtz scissors are just perfect to cut dry Makin's Clay® sheet.

Step 3:

Pick two small molds  and use White Makin's Clay® to cast a small flower and a small butterfly. I used Plaid molds and didn't take a photo of this step as it was obvious and easy to understand.

Let your shapes to be totally dry and take them of the mold after a couple of hours. You don't need to wait for 24 hours to make the next step.

Step 4:

Paint the dry flower and butterfly with Colorarte Acrylic glaze paints and let it dry.

Makin's Clay® is just a perfect pallet for those shiny paint  as you can see.

Step 5:

Pick a round metal golden base and glue the painted clay daisy flower inside the circle using any possible glaze medium that fit polymer clay. I used Gloss Glastique from Sweet Stamps, but any glaze medium for clay will work.Add some clear fine glitter over the glaze and around the flower.

Glue the painted butterfly with the same glaze over  the die cut clay doily, add some clear fine glitter around and let it dry.

Step 6:

Glue the clay doily over the back side of your metal golden base and now you have double sided clay pendant. 

Add the golden cap over the fringed cut clay to make a tassel. Arrange the base and the tassel as shown and add a black ribbon.

Enjoy you very trendy necklace!