Poly Pipe Cane Tutorial

I saw a truck, the other day, carrying a massive load of poly pipe all stacked up on the back. It inspired me to get creative with my extruder. Here's a tutorial for my new Poly Pipe cane, instructions are in the captions! I've tried this with a few colour combos (as shown in the pictures at the end) and it's really effective.

I used Kato polyclay in black and white. You can use any colours as long as you get a nice contrast.
You will need an extruder with a few different diameter circle discs, a pasta machine, a ruler, a blade and a good clean work surface, I used a tile.

Condition your clay and then roll it out on a medium setting on your pasta machine. Lay the clay flat on your  work surface.

Cut out circles of clay using the extruder barrel.

Lay the circles of clay on top of each other as shown above.
Pattern used in this example: 2w 1b 1w 1b 2w 2b 1w 1b 1w 1b 2w 1b 1w 2b 1w 1b.
Or alternate pattern: 2b 1w 1b 1w 2b 2w 1b 1w 1b 1w 2b 1w 1b 2w 1b 1w.

Neaten stacks and reduce slightly to ensure they can fir inside the extruder barrel.

Extrude your clay stacks into snakes using 4 different sized extruder discs. Make 2 snakes at the 3 larger sizes and 1 snake at the smallest size.

Cut all snakes into 8cm segments.

Stack the clay segments randomly, forming a cane. Fill gaps with the smaller diameter segments.

Voila! Your Poly Pipe cane :)

Poly Pipe cane pendant

A different version of the Poly Pipe cane

Poly Pipe cane used for flower petals

Poly Pipe cane pendant

Burning up

Ever wonder what burnt polymer clay looks like? Wonder no more...I chose the wrong setting on my little clay oven and here's the spectacular result:

Before baking

After 'baking'!

Bettina Welker's Pixelated Retro Blend Cane

I saw the fabulous Pixelated Retro Blend Cane on polymer clay daily a couple of weeks ago and just HAD to give this a try! Lucky for me Bettina Welker has very generously published a tutorial on her website...yay!

Bettina Welker's tutorial

I just love the effects you can achieve with an extruder and this cane really shows off some of that potential. My first play was following Bettina's tutorial as closely as possible. I didn't end up making a very large cane so only made two pieces from it and a few beads.

I varied the technique slightly by using a square extruder disc and I loved the effect, the cane is lovely. Thanks Bettina!!

New Beginnings...

Well, it's quite hard to believe I put down my clay over a year ago. The last year has been...full on, to say the least. My husband, Todd and I decided to renovate and sell our house, which took about eight months of hard work, a lot of money and all our spare time to bring to fruition. The end of the year saw Todd and I living in our new house, with a new car and a brand new kelpie puppy, River. With an overseas trip planned to go see my mum and dad in Scotland. When we decide to change things, apparently we go the whole hog!! Needless to say, as you can see from my lack of blogging, polymer clay has had to take a back seat for a while.

Chloe and our new fur baby, River.

I named my polymer clay collection of work Inishkea, for the island where my nana was born. My beautiful nana, Sabina, lost her battle with Alzheimer's disease in August. It was hard on my family to lose someone so special to such a devastating illness, to see her fade away in mind and body. I wrote a poem for my nana, which my dad made into a slide show:

In March, we took a road trip with my parents through Ireland and were lucky enough to find someone who could take us out in his boat to visit Inishkea. An amazing experience I was so happy to share with my husband, my mum and especially my dad. We also had David, owner of the boat 'Wave Sweeper 2' and his father-in-law, Paddy Reilly (his father had grown up on the Islands) - who were both fantastic and had lots to tell us about the Inishkea islands.

The Wave Sweeper 2; Paddy, Me, Todd, Dad and Mum.

On Inishkea, the colours really struck me. Soft green grass, pale yellow sand, the grey of the stone houses, the orange rust of the hinges and tin roofs, the brown and white pebbles, the aqua blue of the water and the deep ominous blue of the imposing Achill island nearby. I've tried to capture these colours in my first Inishkea-inspired polymer work - my "Colours of Inishkea" cane.

Inishkea - looking to Achill island.

Inishkea.

Inishkea.

Ruined roof on Inishkea.

Colours of Inishkea - Ring.

I've returned to my clay table, after a year of so much change, with a renewed passion and buzz about my work! I hope Nana is proud of what I'm doing.

Week 5 - 52 pairs of earrings a year challenge

This week, before I could get to make any new canes...I made myself clean up first! So I used up some odds and ends of canes I had made recently in a new Stroppel cane. The first two cuts through this fresh cane turned into my funky '52 pairs of earrings a year challenge' entry for week 5!!

Week 5 - 52 pairs of earrings a year challenge. Organic Stroppel earrings.

Mad Hatter Brooch.

Organic Stroppel bangle.

With the same scrap cane, I made two pairs of earrings, the Mad Hatter brooch and the Organic Stroppel bangle shown above. Aaah how I love that cane - it makes cleaning up so much more interesting!!

My earring frenzy

On the eve of my first BrisStyle indie Twilight Market, I've finally gotten around to taking photos of all my stock. In particular, the 30-something pairs of earrings I have been busily making up over the past week or so in readiness for market night! These 30-something pictures have now been uploaded onto my Flickr site.

I've also joined a new challenge on Flickr, hosted by Anke - the "52 pairs of earrings a year" challenge. An amazing source of inspiration to get and keep creating! I must admit, I've been a little time-shy during the last four weeks since I started this challenge but am hoping to keep to the weekly schedule from now on!! Here are my first 4 weeks of earrings:

WEEK 1

WEEK 2

WEEK 3

WEEK 4

Mokume Who Now?

Mokume Gane is an amazing technique that can give some stunning results when applied in polymer clay work. It always catches my eye when I see it and as such it's a technique that really appeals to me but that I am yet to master! Here are a few examples to show the effects you can achieve:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artandtea/4688478570/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandarinmoon/5948541916/
http://www.thewhimsicalbead.com.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Envy_2.jpg

For the aussiepolyclayers December/January challenge, we decided we would "Challenge Ourselves." It's such a busy time of year and this challenge was perfect! It has run for two months to give everyone time to challenge themselves in their own unique way, in their own time. I have finally been able to spend some time with my clay this past week and got stuck into my chosen challenge - Mastering Mokume Gane!

I have tried once or twice before but never been happy with the results so I decided that for my personal challenge over this December/January, I would sit down with some web tutorials and try to master this technique.

The first web tute that grabbed my fancy was this one by Korinne Zimmerman. I followed it exactly for the green cane in Image 1. Then played about adding extras and more texturing and manipulation of the cane.

Image 1: Mokume Gane first attempt, pre-cured cane slices.

Image 2: cured and finished Mokume Gane beads and bits!

Image 3: MG earrings, made to cheer up a friend.