How to Make Polymer Clay Rings - DIY Pig Ring

1. Intro - Pig Ring Tutorial: Hello and welcome. My name is Faye, the creator, owner of sky Achilles story. And today we're going to be making these super, super trendy polymer clay rings. I've been making jewelry for as far back as I can remember. Now in the self-proclaimed queen of farmers markets crafting and hot Cheetos. Welcome artists, creators, and do it yourself first, this is clay school at FE. So let's go over what you're going to learn in this class. First, we'll go over the materials you'll need. How to pick the right kinda clay, how to prep your clay, how to sculpt and build your piggy. How to make sure it fits around your finger, and how to bake it. This project is perfect for anyone and everyone who loves to use their hands. If you've got little ones at home. This is a perfect family project that you can do together. By the end of this project, you'll have your own clay figurine and you'll have all the skills needed to create your own custom rings. So let's get started. 2. Tool and Materials: All right, so let's go over our supplies. The main thing you're going to need is click. These are the main three colors I'm going to use. I like to use the brand sculpting. It comes in through flag Primo and scopy, sorry. I highly recommend that you use either Primo are souffles and stay away from sculpt. Be sorry. If that's all you have and you're just making them for yourself, then go right ahead. But if you're thinking of starting a business and selling this product and definitely stick to Primo and souffle. The college are going to be using our YE blush or this darkish pink color and poppy seed, which is just black. You're also going to need a clear roller or you can roll things out with your hands. An exacto knife or anything sharp like a plastic knife, a toothpick, ring measuring tool. This is called a mandrel, a sculpting tool with a rounded tip like this guy. You could probably also use the end of a paintbrush or a makeup brush that might work as well. And for my work surface, I'm using a piece of tile that I found on Home Depot, but you can also lay out a piece of parchment paper and that will work as well. So this is the little guy we're going to make today. So let's go over what colors we need to make versus the ones we already have. For the eyes, we already have black, we have white, nose and ears. We have that darkish pink color. So the only color we need to make is this base color, which is a light pink. And we're gonna do that by mixing our pink with a little bit of white. 3. How to Prep your Clay: Polymer clay actually makes us very similar to pain. So if you want a lighter color and just add a little bit of white. And similarly, if you wanted a darker color, you would add some black and you can mix together primary colors like blue and yellow mix. Now I'm going to carefully mix my colors by folding them. You can't really tell here, I think I'll have a better, better angle in a moment. But basically you want to mix your clay and avoid creating bubbles. So now that you have a light pink, right, you're happy with. We are going to roll our clay into a long, thin rectangle. Depending on how much clay you're using you're going to want to you're going to want it to be about three inches by two inches. And your claims should be about a quarter inch in thickness, and then you can set them aside for the rest of the clay. We are still going to need conditioning. So what that means is we're going to need a warm it up and mix it for about a minute or two. My preferred way of conditioning clay is by flattening it out just like this. And then folding in on its side like that. And then using the clay roller to smush it right in the middle and squeeze the air out of the sides, avoiding trapping air bubbles. I'm going to repeat this step for about a 10 to 20 folds. We're also going to repeat this step with our black clay. And we don't need that much since the eyes are super tiny details. Again, roll, hold, smush, enroll. And the speeds was so tiny that I decided it was much easier to just roll with my fingers. Mix, mix, mix, still folding and set doc eyesight. Now I'm going to go back to my pink base color, clean off the table to make sure there's no leftover black residue. And place the light pink right in the middle. 4. Let's begin sculpting!: Now I'm going to use a straight cutting tool, but you can use an exact dough knife or anything sharp you have around the house. A plastic knife works just as well. And we're going to shape our ring. This is about half an inch in thickness. Set the rest aside. Now we're going to start adding his main features and we're going to start with the nose. So we're going to grab this really, really tiny piece of clay, roll it out into an oval, just like glass, and then smash it down flat. Now are carefully going to pick him up and place them in the lower middle of our ring. Right there. Press down with your finger to make sure he stays in place. And now we're going to use the rounded tip of our sculpting tool to make the little divots in the notes. So press down a little bit, it doesn't take much strength. Now you've got this super cute nose. Next we're going to make the eyes. So we're going to get black, a really, really tiny piece of black rolling into a ball and then press it down flat. Now, that's how you're going to make a pretty perfect circle. Repeat that twice to make sure that you have to same size circles. Just like that. And you're going to go back to that same sculpting tool, pick it up and place it next to the nose. You're gonna, you're gonna notice that this tool is super useful. Right now. He needs his ear is. So going back to that dark campaign could blush color. You're going to roll it into a little ball and then put weight on one side of the ball to make a cone. So Raul, and notice how it already has a tiny, tiny tip. That's what we're looking for. Repeat that with the second year as well. Roll, roll, roll. And now you have a pointy tip, just like that. Now using the sculpting tool again, you're going to pick up the ear and put them into place. And using your finger, you're just going to flatten them out. So now we're almost done. All he's missing is the little white sparkles in his eyes to bring them to life. Because they are so, so, so small, I'm going to roll it out into a long thin piece like a snake. And then use the tip of my exacto knife to cut the tiniest, tiniest white piece. And then I just roll it between my fingers. It's a little too small to roll on the tile like you normally do. But yeah, Relatively to my fingers use again my sculpting tool to pick it up and then place it at the top half of the eyeball. Press down. We will never repeat this step with the right eye. Very tiny piece. Once again, roll it between my fingers using my sculpting tool that pick it up and on the top half of the eyeball. So you can either stop here or I like to add a second even tinier aspect on the lower half of the eyeball. This adds a little extra sparkle to xy. 5. How to make sure your ring fits!: So now we're going to carefully pick them up and then place them over our ring measuring tool. I am about a size eats, so we're going to place them over the size eight line and wrap him all the way around, squeeze a little bit. So he stays on just like that. And now we're going to grab our exact dough knife and cut off the excess. Now I'm going to carefully remove them from my measuring tool in place them back down on my tile. Now that he's the right size to fit around my finger, I'm going to shape him into a ring. Just like this. Put the two ends together and squeeze. Now using something sharp, you can use the exacto knife as a toothpick. You're going to blend it together so that it forms one solid. Now don't worry about being neat right now because you can always go back and clean it up later. And bonus tip if you want to use liquid polymer clay, that is also an option. It is not necessary, but just know that that is an option. All right, So now he is ready to go into the oven so you're gonna place them on your piece of tile, it just like this. Or if you're using parchment paper and place them on a cookie sheet. 6. How to bake your clay: All Clay actually has different baking instructions. If you'll get mine, it says you want to bake it at 275 for 30 minutes for every quarter inch. So our ring is about at that. So we're gonna do to 75 for 30 minutes and I'm going to make it right on the tile, or you can make it right on your parchment paper on a cookie sheet. If you're doing that just not directly on a cookie sheet. 7. Outro: And just like that, you've got your own claim figuring now, I want to see your pieces, so please upload them to the Projects folder. I will make sure to look at them. If you post them on social media, make sure to tag me. And if you have any questions, don't be afraid to reach out. I am happy to see you guys next time and I'm super excited to see what else you create. Night.