Polymer Clay, Bangle Obsession and BOTB 2014

I thought I would make a little quick update on what I've recently been up to... :)

So yeah, I caught the polymer clay bug really big time these last two weeks, and I've been a bit obsessed with making a couple of bangles which I'm sharing in this post.
I've been wanting to create polymer clay bangles for quite some time, but the thing that has always kept me at bay from it was that I didn't have any bangle bases to work with - they cost about 3-5 euros depending on where I buy them from and what sizes I want.
So what made me finally create bangles?
Simple.
I'm a member of a couple of different beading and polymer clay groups on FB and one of the polymer clay groups, which mostly focuses on sharing tutorials (free or those that costs moneh), a lovely lady shared her way on how to make bangle bases from scraps of clay. Yes, I decided to take pretty much all the scrap clay I had put a side and ended up creating a couple of different ones in rather unregular sizes - I only eyed them, I didn't measure them to 100% accurate, which wasn't needed anyway as the shapes ended up looking great.

Due to my recent, greater journey into polymer clay I've been thinking about creating another blog which only would put focus on my polymer clay creations. I'm just wondering if I should make the blog now, or wait till after this years vacation to Sweden, we'll see.

This year I'm also very happy to announce that I'm participating in "Battle of the Beadsmith 2014", and there about two weeks left until I finally can begin my battle piece.
Gosh, I'm actually starting to get nervous as I really hope I can keep up with the time (have two months, but you never know!).
I finally have somewhat of an idea what I want to create and I really hope I can stick with the plan and that it will turn out as I want it to *crosses fingers*.

Bead Embroidery Fractal Necklace II

So, yeap! I made another necklace using two of the fractal cabochons I created a couple of weeks ago. I decided to use two, since well, they are the same fractal I just decided to render them with different color scheme when I created them in Apophysis.
The fractals are placed against a black background so I decided to stick to black pretty much throughout when it came to my bead choices. I just decided to use some similar colored beads here and there + the fringe to give it a little extra something.

When it came to the fringe, I didn't want something too basic, so I decided to make a few strips in peyote, herringbone, spiral stitch and raw. It was fun doing the fringe like that as I could just play around with each one of the shapes in the fringe one at a time until I got something I ended up liking.

Necklace using my own fractal cabochons

So I ended up with this idea in my head that I wanted to make some really personal and unique pieces creating cabochons with some of the fractal artwork I've been making over the past few years.

This is the first piece I made, and I feel really encouraged to make more.

I'm including the piece I made a cabochon from. Saying that, I didn't use the whole image, but just a portion of it as I worked the resolution of ti really high and getting a lot of the details from it made the cabochon look a lot better. Sorry for the water stamp in the middle of the image, but I'm really paranoid as I've seen a lot of people making their own cabochons using other people's artwork and then make money from them! So yes, I would like to avoid that... A lot of work went into making the fractals, there are not just pieces that I tossed together but a lot of hours and ma thematic calculations went into making them.

So on to the necklace design...

I wanted to keep it fairly simple so I just used bead embroidery for the pendant itself, and then I added a St. Petersburg chain, which is one of my very favorite chains to make. And my stubborn arse wanted to make it very sleek so I used 15/0 seed beads for it, which, gah, made it took a lot longer to make.

 

Necklace: Novae

I just managed to finish up my latest necklace that I've been working on. For those that are following me on instagram, I've been posting some progress photos ones in a while as I've been progressing on this one.

When I created this piece I had both a plan and not a plan. As far as I had planned the design was where I wanted the dichroic glass cabochon to be and also where the five spangled glass cabs should go. I measured them out and glued them, bezel them and then I pretty much worked everything else free-form. I stopped when I had a shape I was happy with, which took a while as I kept on changing my ideas and trying out new ones.

My very first video tutorial

So I had a few requests on my instagram, after posting some photos of my own glass eye cabochons and people wondering if I could make a tutorial for them.

Well, after pondering some time, I decided to make the tutorial into a video one since I thought it would be a lot simpler then doing a step by step photo tutorial. Also we bought a HD cam almost two years ago when we went to our vacation to Sweden, so might as well use the darn thing instead of letting it stand still and collect dust.

I noticed that I mumble A LOT, lol. Something I need to work on it seems, heh :P
Might do more vid tutorials in the future since this one got me a bit hooked up, lol.
Enjoy! :)