Beautiful DIYs with Polymer Clay – Basic Steps & Marble Pattern

1. 1. Welcome to this Class!: Hey, guys, welcome to this video tutorial on crafting with polymer clay and making beautiful model style patterns with it. My name is Vera. I'm in geographer, a blogger and creativity addict, And I'm really glad that today you can share with you my favorite material to work and craft and do de I wise with And that is Parliament Lee Parliament place and modeling material that is fun and easy to work with and that you can really nicely using the scope of your own home without messing up your living room are needing a huge amount off tools. Oh, money. Today, what I want to teach you is how to use Parliament, Leah's material, how to craft with it, to condition it to prepare it, how to mix and match cars and, most importantly, how to create a beautiful Scandinavian style minimalistic and clean. Check marvel PETA with the polymer clay by using a specific technique that's called modeling. I use it to make home to call or jewelry like this one. Not this one is my microphone, this one and I love it. It makes the parliament products really elegant and very professional, and I can't wait to share the techniques with you. So throughout this, cars are going to work you through the basics off work with Paul MacLean. How to make so much colors, how to create shapes, how to bake it in the often and how afterwards to finish your products so that you can actually use them. And they last for a while. I can't wait also to see your creative ideas mixed with my creative techniques. And at the end of the class there will be a class assignment, a class project that I hope you will share with me. In the comments below. I'm There are I love Parliament light and I am looking forward to working with you. See you in a minute. Let's get started right away. 2. 2. The Material: Polymer Clay: that's just dive straightened and firstly, speak about polymer clay as a material. Obviously we need for crafting with Parliament, Lay is politically. That's a huge diversity of colors that we can't use. I prefer mostly these once, Um, so I'm keeping it mostly to pastel and the like. So this is the former. The shape in which Parliament play comes I use primarily wants from two different brands. These ones are from a brand called So Strain of Green. It's a Danish brand. They sell it in Hamburg. A swell. This is a little bit cheaper, and the classical one that is really famous everywhere in Germany is called chemo, and they have what is called a few more affect colors, which are, I don't know if you can see that here, but they are a little bits. Barkley is a silver, and this is, say, rose, a gold type color. And this is just the regular female soft. It's just playing black doesn't have any glimmering, glittering qualities. This one's a little bit more expensive, and I need to say it is worth paying the price. You can work out with these ones, but I prefer female to be honest. What is regret about females that you can also use it really well, you can also really well use the left overs from beforehand. So he have a little bit offers a gold gray that I used to work with a different piece of gray and, um, the super beautiful marbled effect string that I've prepared previously. I will tell you later how it works to Teoh work this marble tire pattern. This is really the core off his class that we would work away up to that. As you can see, if I use this now, I can make it soft really easily. And in the next video, I'm going to show you a bit more about conditioning the polymer claim so we can still work with ease even after a couple of weeks or months even. I dare say so what we're going to do throughout this causes we're going to use these materials to make beautiful pieces like this one or necklace like this pendant or a variety of beats that commit and the basic technique off. That s what we go to learn throughout this video. And then some of it makes it a bit more advanced things in videos that I had to come 3. 3. The Tools: well, you can either make it called quite complicated, or you make it quite easy. I'm going, I guess, the middle path between the two. But it's important to know that it's really not very expensive to work with polymer clay if you don't want it to be so I have one or two pieces that are a little bit more expensive, a little but more professional. But every other stuff that I use is really mostly kitchen equipment that you would have anyway, right? So the first thing that we do with a polymer clay is once we've rolled it out and going to come back to that in a minute is we want to cut it into different shapes. So first and firstly and importantly for that we need a knife, a relatively sharp one. But any better kitchen knife will do. Really, it's actually ideally, it would be longer than this, but well, this is no my designated polymer clay knife, so it it's just not very long, but it's too works right then, Second leave, when I did is I went to one of these shops where you can buy loads of equipment to make cakes and cookies and muffins and all that stuff. And I bought I bought a bunch off these little cut out shapes. Thank you Would use also to decorate cakes. I'm not using it for food. I'm using it for politically. Andi, this is especially beautiful for doing jewelry. A zay will show you in a different video. So with these ones, who can make really nice pendants for necklaces, but also earrings. I mean, this one, for example. You can already imagine very well being in hearing. So these are the basics that you need. And then what I also really like is to just use household things that have a specific shape , like around one like these glasses. I'm just Teoh to cut out the shapes. So I would just put them on the polymer clay like this, quite carefully, hold them, and then cut around them to get around shape. You know, we're gonna talk about that later, but if you just use it like with cookie dough, if you just kind of squeeze it onto the polymer clay, you might reshape it. You might crumble it. So that's what we don't want. Hence, it's nice to cut around with the relatively sharp knife, but about the actual shaping off the clay. We will speak later again then, especially if you want to make jewelry. Obviously, you're going to need some jewelry making equipment like this. Um, you know, legless like a chain. Here, then are different shapes for making earrings. Andi, along with that, maybe some blue, depending on what you want to do. But like I said, this is also fall a different tutorial. And then, um, if you want to produce little things that you can actually hang on necklaces or hearings what is really handy And are these toothpicks along with some some thicker needles? Because if you want to chain whatever you producing, you will need a whole, you know, to put the ring through. So this, depending on what you want to make, it's also something that's really useful. We gotta return to that as well. And then the one equipment peas that I have that is a slight bit more professional. Um, still also falls under the category off kitchen equipment because it is, uh, a pastor maker. So this is actually a machine that's used for making lasagna. Um, you can adjust, um, the width off these two roles here, if you want. So what you would do with this is we take the polymer clay, which is why in this, but we're going to come to that a little bit more later, and you're going to roll it through the machine. I'm gonna show you, show you that later a little bit better, and then you got what we're gonna have from this is just a really nice flat and really even piece off polymer, clay. So this is why we like the past to make every much cause. You can also roll it just with, um you know, these things you use for baking, but it will be a bit wobbly and a bit uneven, unless if we use this past a maker than it's gonna be really neat, and that is something that we really want. So from here we go on a transition to the next video on that, we got a look at how to condition the polymer clay how to condition. It means how to prepare it so that we can actually use it and make different shapes in different colors with it 4. 4. Conditioning (= Preparing) the Clay: all right. In this video, we're going to talk about how to condition the polymer clay, which means how to prepare it for use. As I said to you earlier, we can either use fresh packet of polymer clay like this one. It's open already, though, but it's still in the package. All that we can do is we use old piece that we worked with before. I mean, this one is relatively fresh slate gray color. But this one, for example, you can clearly see I've created this marble type of pattern before. And then I have just put it aside because this was a leftover. So to condition the polymer clay, what we basically want to do Let me just cut cut a little new piece out of this so you would just take the opposite, like the not sharp edge of your life to cut it from, uh, the rest. And then we have a little nice new piece here. So what we want to do with this it's now relatively heart and what we want to do with it. We want to make it soft. So that's what conditioning means, making it soft. And if you do it for the first time. It is a little bit. It takes a little longer ending heat. Any warmth to it is really very useful. So you want to do a mixture between really pressing on it firmly from different directions and then rolling it between your fingers between your palms toe at some warmth. Andi, I don't know if you can see it. I can feel it. This is already getting much. It's getting much softer. It's getting much more usable at the same time. This technique that I'm just showing you this rolling it firmly between the palms is one that we are importantly, also going to need for producing the marble pattern, which I will show you a little bit later, Right? So this piece is It's nice and soft now, see if you bend that it's not cracking. It's nice and soft and just the same. You can just use an old piece that you have. You know, that was left over from before, as I said, and we can again roll it between her hands, we can then press it, need it, and then we can from that create a nice and well conditioned piece the aim off this conditioning practices that we do not want our parliament clay to crack to crack up when we when we shape it. You know, we wanted to be nice and shape Herbal, as you can see here, another way of conditioning this and also off bringing it into the right form is a Zai have alluded to before is using the pasta maker. So I'm having this on a really white position Now it's I think seven is the widest, but its not wide enough. So I'm just going beyond the, um beyond the widest one here. And then what we want to do is we want to put this in at the top and then really, just get it through here. I'm going have to lift this because the table is in the way for the handle. But you can see we just Roebling it through the past, the machine. And then what we get is this beautiful, absolutely even piece. It's very thin, but not too thin on do. You can work super nicely with this afterwards in the next video. Now that we have conditional Clay, I'm going to show you how you can mix and mingle some of the colors and how you can really create this absolutely beautiful marble effects that I've talked about and that are really the core off this class as well. 5. 5. Mixing Colours: all right. So after learning which tools you meet for work with polymer clay and after I showed you how to condition the clay and prepare it for use What we will look at now is how we can mix different colors together and in a later stage, then also hard to create the marble pattern. The first thing that I'm going to show you is how to blend two colors into each other. How to make two colors become one. For example, you can mix blue and yellow to get green. I will now, as I like minimalist colors. I will now mixed white and black to create gray. Obviously, you can just buy grey polymer clay. But I just want to show you how it works generally, if you want to mix some colors together. So the first thing that we want to do again now is to condition the clay. I'm going to fast forward through that because it's not very interesting, but I'm just making soft both the black as well as the white polymer clay here. All right. Now we have to soft pieces of Parliament, Lee, and pretty much I'm going to continue doing what I just did. I'm just gonna at the pieces together. And then again, I'm going to roll it between my hands. I'm gonna need it. Roll it, knead it. You can also some in between send it through the past, the machine, whatever makes it soft and stick together. So again, I'm gonna fast forward because it takes a while. But if you just keep needing and pressing and rolling them together, eventually they will become great. So, Ted, off This is the first option off melding colors off polymer clay together. I mean, these days, they really have pretty much all the colors in the shop. But if you want a bit off a lighter blue with darker blue anything you know you can really mix and match the colors together like this. Another way off mixing colors together is the so called skin a blend that waas at some point invented by a woman with a last name Skinner. And she figured out how if you use the past machine and a specific technique how you can create a re a beautiful blends are really beautiful transition between the colors. So I'm going to walk you through this one now as well. But it won't be. It won't be relevant for the model pattern that we are trying to create later on. What I've already started to do now is I am rolling out the too callous that I want to blend into each other. I'm rolling them out fairly thin. And then, um, cutting to square shapes out of them. These two square shapes I will then cut into triangles on and stick together the triangles off each color issue will see here. So I'm carefully cutting them in half with my knife diagonally and then peeling them apart on stacking the colors that are the same on onto each other again. All right. Used to try. And that's now we want to. I'm used to make a complete square again. So again, we're gonna we're gonna press them against each other so that they stick together quite firmly, and then we send them through the past, the machine a lot. And I mean, like, 30 40 times. So what we want to do is we want to make sure that we have the rose a color on one side, the gray color on the other side, and we do not ever want to change the angle in the direction in which we send the pieces through the past the machine. So however we get it out, we want to put it in the same way. Exactly. And them when. When it comes out, we're going to fold it in half and this same procedure. Get it out. Don't change the direction folded in half. Send it through again. Don't change the direction, Send it through a gate or the same procedure. We're going to do many, many, many times until you see the colors blending into each other and a Grady and will appear between the one and the other color. Okay, so, no, after what felt like 100 times off sending this piece through the past, I can we can see really nicely that become us, are bending into each other that there's a radiant that on the one side it's rosy on the other side. It's great to make this even smoother. I could continue doing this for another 20 minutes. I will not cause this is really just for demonstration purposes, but broadly saying this is how you create a skinner blend. All right, enough off this. Let's now move on to the court, this class to creating the beautiful marble pattern. 6. 6. The Marbelling Technique & Creating Shapes: cool. So in this video, what I'm going to show you is the marbling technique that have hinted to a lot growed the other videos. And that is really the core technique off this class. It's really not too complicated to make that yourself, and here is how it works. Today's Marble Pattana chose to white pieces and made them a little bit larger than the other ones. Because I like the remarkable pattern to be fairly right, and I've got one dark grey Peace and two silver pieces that I'm going to mix together. The Beatles are already conditioned and tough so I can work with them straight away. And what I do just I start to rolling between my parts what we want to make it. We want to make each of the pieces into a long strength. I'm going to show you how so you roll them between your hands on the table just like this, unless you want to repeat with each of the colors, each of the pieces until you have equal size strands from all of the colors. Once we rode old all of the different pieces. What we want to do is we want to live together into one biggest trapped and then twist them . And after twisting, we want to repeat the same thing with before, with the individual transfer going to roll it out on the table again. And once it is right to be long again, we're going to join two ends together like this, and then we're going to twist the whole thing again again. We roll it out on the table, join the ends together, twisted. And this you do until you feel like the marble pattern that you're creating iss fine enough until you're satisfied with what you see. Once you're done with rolling out the loveless trend and you're happy with the result, you twist it one more time. But this time you don't stop twisting until you're have rolled it all up into a ball. So you're gonna between your path, we're gonna roll it into a ball, and then you're gonna flatten it slightly by pressing on it. And afterwards we will roll it out by sending it to be passed a machine. You can see already the beautiful marble pattern that it has, and it's gonna come out even better ones. We have flattened quickly. Look, See that it comes out of the past. The machine. It's really beautiful. And that's one of the things I love about working with politically in the marble technique is that every time you do it, it looks different. So it's a love. It it's super exciting. Every time it comes, it comes out differently. I'm gonna send it through the past machine and what time now just to have it, really even a nice on. Then we can start to create shapes. So what can we do with this kind of marble pet in that, for example, and something I did the other week is a coaster for underneath coffee mark like this one, Really beautiful Andi. It looks really elegant in my living room now, and another thing that we can do is, of course, jewelry. This is also what I'm going to stick to today, So I'm going to create a couple of pendants for necklaces that I'm going to build in a different video. Actually, something that I like to do and I am shaping a polymer clay and cutting cutting out different shapes is I like to do it directly on the backing paper that I'm using later on to bathe in the open baking paper is flexible, so it's really easy to get a plateful on the paper if you want to move it. And also you don't ruin whichever surface you are. You are doing it on course to play can be quite sticky. Today I'm going to use thes cookie cutters to cut out little pendants that I can use for necklaces or earrings. So, as you can see, the piece of politically that I have here is not extensively large, so I'm going to stick to smaller shapes today. So, firstly, I'm taking this square cooking got to here, and I'm looking for a beautiful spot on my piece of polymer clay, where I really like the marble pattern. When I'm moved the cutter, the clay will stay in it. So a trick that I used to get it out because if you press on it with your finger nail, it will it would be reshaped. So what I do is I actually take the cookie cutter towards my mouth and I blow on it really strongly. And then the piece off play with pop out. I'm going to repeat this procedure. Not for a number of times, until I've really used up all the surface off the piece of pollen play that I've prepared here. Yeah, and each time I'm gonna blow blow the tape out of the cutter on and I'm gonna fork pass forward while I do this. Now that we've cut out these different shapes, that's one important, important step. But we need to do before Baker's. After what? It won't be possible anymore. If we want to use them as pendants for jewelry, we will need holds in them where the ring can go through. Oh, no, to attach it to the hearings. And we do this using a thick needle. So I'm sticking my unusual into the polymer clay object at the point where the whole to be obviously and then very carefully on fondling it through sports. And then also very carefully, I'm pulling it out again while twisting the media back and forth because that makes it easier to get it through the parliament. Excellent. So now that we have, um, punched holds into all off the debt, it's actually time to walk over to the kitchen and put them into the office 7. 7. Finishing: Baking and Perfecting Polymer Clay Objects: Welcome to my kitchen. So now we're going to bake the poor McLean the often, and what's really important to doing this is that you take the requirements on your polymer clay. This one says, um, bake it at 110 degree Celsius or a 230 degree Fahrenheit 4 25 to 30 minutes. And if you leave it in longer than that, or if you do it hotter than that, actually that the clay will crack, it will burn and it will turn round on yellow. And this is something we really want to avoid. All right, let's do this. This beautiful collection off little pieces that marbled that I minimalistic and that are really nice, I think so. I made these three round shapes that you can use or I can use for making earrings and a necklace and a swell these squint ones. And then from the left overs that I had, I formed a number of beats that also, if you put them on a necklace, for example, make a really nice piece of jewelry you can mix. There may be also with playing black, plain white ones, so that is something I find really beautiful. You can leave them like they are. They will not changed from touching and everything but to make them a little more resistant . What you can do is well, firstly, we want Teoh even out. All the little mistakes that we have there aren't very many, but for for those that exist, we can just use some sent paper. I've got this one here. You can see it's already fairly used, but it's it's still good to go. It shouldn't be too. Course right. Otherwise you'll just damage your material too much on what we can do now. We take these pieces and there is a little rough Etch that I can see right here and we just sandpaper. So the best thing is actually to make sandpaper as well as the politically wet. I don't have any water here right now, but it really works best if you just dip it in a in a little bit off water and then you can . You don't have to be too careful. It's fairly stable, the material resistance. And then you can just sandpaper away the rough edges that you don't like. So this is the first way of giving your piece is a really beautiful finish, see, and then you just go over all the edges that you don't like. All the little bit stomach pieces. So that's that Number one. Here's, for example, also a little imperfection that I I just scrape off, right? So that's that. Another beautiful thing that we can see or I can see I'm not sure about you. And the video is that you remember the that I mentioned. The silver effect color has a little sparkle to it. So here you can see shades of gray off course. But you can also see that the silver effect color really sparkles, which gives the marble effect in an even nicer look right after you have reached amount, an amount of smoothness that you're happy with. The last thing you can do but don't have to, um, is to blaze the things to coat them with acrylic black. So, um, if you put just a see through coating over it, they will be a bit more resistant to, you know, like touching them with dirty hands on everything. However, I think what also happens is that they get a little softer again after baking them. So you need to decide what you like better. If you want to apply this own see through coating, then what? What I find very useful especially if I'm making jewelry, is to just take a toothpick and put it through the hole that I'm eight earlier. Right? So you can hold it like this super nicely, then get your acrylic varnish here. A little brush, you know, can just be should be a soft one. And just something to protect my surface here. And then you don't need much, right. So you just want to dip a little bit, um, are furnished onto your brush and then just, um, evenly distributed over the entire piece that you've made. It gives it a nice, shiny finish it protects it from and the environmental stresses. And, um yeah, there you go. So once you've gun all over this, you can just take the toothpick and just leave it somewhere like this to dry. And that's how you finish your pieces. If you have a larger piece, of course, you can take a larger brush, obviously, to save some work on time. But that is essentially how you finish the pieces. And once this is dry, which doesn't take super long, you can then just go ahead and make it. You know, put a ring put necklace and put it onto a hearing anything that you like. So now we have really been through the process off, working with polymer clay off, creating patterns and colors and shapes, cutting them, baking them, finishing them. So now, in the next and last class, you will see my face again. And we will very briefly just look at what the class project is going to be. And I really can't wait to see your polymer clay objects. See you in a minute. 8. 8. The Class Project: walk you through the basics of working with politically and also creating the beautiful model person I have super psyched to see what you come up with. Will you make jewelry when you maybe take a bit more Parma clay and make holding call objects like a candle holder or coaster for your coffee mug? I'm really excited to see what you will come up with. Follow Kasas Highland For this class project that you are going to do now I have put together pdf That explains again the different little steps off work with full McLay. Also the specifications for burning in the often baking it Sorry in the open and all these different things. So go ahead if you free download the pdf and then find itself so Parliament, parliament, clay get cracking. And I can't wait to see what projects you come up with using your own genius creativity coupled with the techniques that you learn from me during this class, please post them below. I can't wait to discuss them with you. And if you have any questions, any time is off