I’m working on an Altered Shrine and needed some flourishes for the side made out of polymer clay. Because of the slight bend in the wood, I had to bake the polymer directly on the wood in the oven and this is what happened. I’m not sure if it was the wood varnish already on the wood piece, the polymer clay reacting to the wood, the epoxy resin I used to fix the top arch a few days ago or the acrylic paints I used to touch up the small “dings” here and there but it bubbled up and left a brown tinge to the rest of the polymer clay creations I had baking in the oven at the same time. Whatever it was I couldn’t repeat it if I tried, lol… and it gave the wood a great distressed look to it. Read below for some of the other things I made in Polymer today… so love that stuff!
Here’s the flourishes I made for the sides (funny THEY didn’t turn brown and were baked on the wood itself while everything else did turn brown that I had on the parchent paper, hmmm) a neat leaf and a few round doo-dads I can use on other future projects.
I saw the cutest buttons on another blog website this morning… so wish I had pretty vintage buttons and not all the ugly, plain ones in my collection. So polymer to the rescue… they still have to be painted but with some pearlescent and metallic paints they’ll be a knockout.
I ran some polymer through my paper crinkle hand tool thing and it made some neat textures! The polymer stuck to it like white rice on paper but the effect’s pretty cool. I think I’ll save these for a mixed media canvas I’m thinking about.
I’ve been dying to make atc’s out of polymer so I made a base sized at 2.5 x 3.5 inches. What I do with it I have no idea, but that’s for another day. I also made a few small square pieces to use on other projects and too neat… I ran my sheet of prepared polymer into a “stamp” shape punch-stamp and it worked! The impression came out beautifully. The second one didn’t align to the edges correctly and I only got 1/2 a stamp out of it, but it looks old and torn which is more than perfect.
That’s it for my polymer creations…. have to get back to my Altered Shrine and see what to do next!
Too cool! Your experiments on the polymer clay are wonderful. It is the most versatile medium. Those buttons are nice. I’ve got a button box that I have been collecting for about 40 years and you take PMC impressions of any of them.
That finish on your altar is magnificent also. You are right that it probably would not happen that way again. I see what looks like some air bubbles. It could be air trapped between the polymer and the wood or finish. It could also be that your finishes had not completely dried before applying the polymer. Whatever the cause, it worked perfectly. Keep up the excellent work. The world needs more artists like you.
Comment by Cathy Razor — August 19, 2009 @ 5:55 am
Hey Cathy, did you hear me whoop after I read about making impressions of your buttons? That will be so awesome… I’ll make two molds so we’ll each be able to reuse them later on. Also got some wing earrings that are going to make a great polymer clay mold base… if I could only find them in this messy office, lol. Thanks for the offer and I’ll see you in a few days
Comment by Robin — August 19, 2009 @ 7:23 am
It was probably the varnish and possibly some moisture within the wood that caused the happy accident. If there is any sort of fumes in the air of the oven when your pieces bake, they can get discolored quite easily.
Love how cool the crinkled clay turned out! Looks like a rusty tin roof. To keep the clay from sticking to your tools like that, you can coat the surface with cornstarch or water. In this case I would have coated both sides of your sheet of clay with cornstarch before trying to pass it through the crimping tool.
Comment by Cindy Lietz, Polymer Clay Tutor — August 20, 2009 @ 9:47 am
Thank you Cindy, will have to try that next time. I think you;re right about the varnish and moisture causing the problem. The bubbles were pretty neat but the discoloration from the acrylic paint against the natural wood was pretty ugly. I ended up covering it in decoupage tissue paper, will sand it down and wash it with an acrylic tint. Only 9 more days until the group meets, hope this shrine comes out 1/2 as nice as I’m hoping it will
Comment by Robin — August 20, 2009 @ 5:45 pm