Fun polymer clay projects to keep you busy this Winter

Golden Polymer Clay Beads

Spring Bouquet Tutorial

Songbird Eggs

Rough And Tough Polymer Clay

Radiant Mica Shift

Persian Beads

Faux Enamel

Butterfly Cane From Basic Canes

Earth Toned Mokume Gane Beads

And a cool tip 🙂 Inside bottom of pop can makes a great curved surface to bake on. Just be careful of the sharp edges.

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Another Twist On The Extruded Spiral Cane

As you may recall I included a tutorial in my Blog Finds post the otehr day that showed how to extrude a spiral design. Here is a slightly different take on the same idea from 2 Good Clay Mates. Seems there were 2 different clayers experimenting with this idea at the same time 🙂

And some of the beautiful pieces where the cane was used.

A New Twist On An Old Extruder

Tina over at Polymer Clay Bytes shared a wonderful idea on how to make a add-on handle for your Makin’s brand extruder.

Another Extruded Project

I just saw the coolest idea using the Makin’s extruder over at the French blog, Parole De Pate.
Take a gander at her finished projects!

And this sheet she made using the extruded clay

Let Your Extruder Do The Work For You

Now that I have souped up my extruder, I am thinking there are more ways I can use it other than extruding bracelet cores. These other techniques include making quilt canes, retro canes and filigree work.

Filigree is actually an old favorite of mine, but I quit doing it because it was so hard to get the clay out of my little Kemper brand clay gun, even using the adapted caulk gun idea designed by Nan Roche. Thank goodness Makin’s came out with a better extruder. Which I made the best by attaching it to my cordless drill. 🙂
Here are a couple of my filigree project from the past.


Here you will find a gallery of filigree from a PCC Claypen.
Kelly Robinson wrote a nice tutorial on cover eggs.
Mia Rox shows here how to make a colorful barrette.
And a short tutorial over at Polymer Clay Express.
Ever wonder what to do with those old crumbly canes? Try this filigree technique.

I have made a couple retro style extruded canes, but I have no pictures. So here are a few wonderful projects by some talented artists.

Arzu Musa

Linda Sokovich

Keila Hernandez

Cindy Walcott

Look at this amazing vessel !!!!!!

Extrusions by Susan Lomuto Rose

A picture tutorial on making the extruded retro cane
And another tutorial at the HGTV website.

I have never tried to make a quilt cane, so I was very interested when I came across this YouTube video.
You can buy these cool shape disks from Quilted In Clay to extrude all the perfect shapes to make your quilt canes.

There is a dvd you can purchase by Cindy Beljan called Extruding Polymer Clay Canes for visual learners like myself.

A list of quilt cane tutorials
Latin Square Quilt Cane by the late Alan Vernall (he will be greatly missed)
Ohio Star
Quilt Cane
There is also a book called Adapting Quilt Patterns To Polymer Clay by Judith Skinner and Sarajane Helm.

I don’t own it (yet) but I am sure it will be a wonderful addition to any personal library.

I hope this inspires you to dig out your clay gun and create. 🙂