Creating Polymer Clay Swirl Beads at Lottie Of London

Throw back Thursday creating polymer clay swirl beads

I have a wedding to attend tomorrow and I have been playing with the idea of creating a necklace/pendant to go with a new dress I am keen wear.  Below is a close up shot showing the print and colour my dress.

The print of the dress is very bold as you an see and is almost animal like, but rather than replicate the print and colours I have decided to take some of the elements of colour in the dress and create some polymer clay swirl beads.

Here I have applied alcohol inks over each sheet of clay.

My first sheet has been applied with alcohol inks in  Wild Plum with hints of Stream and Pearl.  The second sheet has been applied with Stream and Buttercream.

Here are my swirled lentil beads prior to cooking, these are two test beads to test two types of application styles for swirling but also to test the colour once cooked.  

So after some more experimentation with swirling here are my final swirled lentil beads... as you can see I have included a red and gold bullseye cane into the swirl to give the bead more depth in colour as the wild plum colour was not strong enough.  

They now need a good sanding, buffing and polishing before I decide on my final necklace design.

Here it is my finished necklace and I'm delighted with how its turned out, initially I was worried that the beads would look slightly dull but after a good polishing, buffing and varnishing they are perfect and the Fire Opal Swarovski Crystals I have teamed them with give the necklace that extra sparkle, I can't wait to wear the necklace tomorrow.

Original blog post on Lottie of London's Polymer Clay Blog 18th June 2012

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