Mokume Gane Pendants with Beaded Bezels - Beading, Polymer Clay & Resin

I've been doing some beading instead of wire wrapping on my last batch of MG pendants because I liked the look so much more. It is not really a cost effective thing to do though! If I were to sell these factoring in the actual time it takes to make one....well, I'd have to charge more than many would want to pay, I think. It is the problem with doing something you love...:)

This one is reversible. I would also have to take that into consideration as a cost factor!

The black beads in the bail below are matte finish Toho beads. Love how symmetrical they are.

Here is the other side of the pendant above.

I used some matte finish Toho beads on the pendant below. Loved the verdigris look with the polymer clay colors! There is so much foil in this cabochon...hard to see in the photograph but the color really pops. I had someone ask me where I got all the colored foil to make these pendants with! That's why I love this method so much...all the sparkle! This one reminds me of a dragon eye!

This one is from my second batch of the Mokume Gane method Marilyn Ray Knopic teaches.

This is one of the older ones, too. I didn't really like this Mokume gane batch until I put the resin on!

This one is actually made with scraps. I think it's my best beadwork in this batch! :)

But those aren't the only things I've been working on! Here's some others...

I've made these flags before...there's a simple tutorial on the internet here for it - but the person I made it for told me the finding turned immediately....that's what I get for not buying real silver! So this replacement I made for her is 999 sterling. :) 

I've also been playing around with resin some recently and had these tiny dragonflies and gears from Lisa Pavelka that I thought I'd use with this setting I came across. I really like the way this one turned out.

This is another resin bracelet I came up with using my tiny gears and sprockets with Lisa Pavelka Magic Glos. :) First steampunk items I've ever made that I liked! :)

Now you know what I've been doing lately! Let me know what you think in the comments! And make sure to stop by my Pinterest page to see a lot more of my creations, and please like my Facebook page, Karmic Confetti!

Best Ones Yet - Marilyn's MG Technique - Polymer Clay

I must be addicted to this technique, because I keep trying it again and again! You'd think I'd be happy with the ones I've made, especially after rescuing that one batch, and yet...here's another attempt!

First side: Used my usual favorite inks, Mountain Rose, Sunset Orange, Pool, Stream, Mermaid, and added a new one - Purple Twilight...I think the new one is the one that made this batch so pretty!

This is the second side of the pendant pictured above. Puuuurrrrple...

The bigger sparkle is the silver leaf, especially if it isn't silver. The silver color throughout this batch is the Old Silver Inka Gold paint. I am happy to see it crackles...I love that look. Side A

Side B. 

Side A. Not sure where the brownish color came from. Additional colors I neglected to mention above are Sunshine Yellow, Lettuce, and Cranberry. Maybe the Cranberry mixing with the Lettuce is where the darker colors came from.

Side B.

Side A. This is one of my favorites. The sparkle in the black is the silver leaf..I really love it.. and wish I put more!

Side B. There is the Old Silver. It's really lovely inside the Magic Glos. There's that brown again...And a coppery color...

Another one of my favorites....oh, who am I kidding, they are all my favorite! Side A.

Side B. Definitely got to add more Purple next time!

Side A.

Side B. Love the silvery blue in this one. And how it crackled.

Not sure where side B is but this is the last one I'll bore you with!

Thanks again for looking - make sure to stop by my Pinterest page to see a lot more of my creations, and please like my Facebook page, Karmic Confetti!

UPDATED: I'll Stop Whining Now - Marilyn's Mokume Gane Technique #4 - Polymer Clay

Some of you may remember a couple of posts ago where I was complaining about the colors I picked for my latest batch of Marilyn Ray Knopic's tutorial for Mokume Gane. But there is NEVER any waste with PC so I took those uggs and made them pretty again! I am very happy with the redo! I added some liquid Kato Polyclay to the front of the ones I didn't like and rolled out flat pieces to cover. Trim, polish, and VOILA!

This one is actually one of my LEAST favorite but I still like it a lot. It reminds me of an abalone shell. In fact, many of these do. I have a hover extension for Chrome that lets me point my mouse at a photograph and a larger image appears. If you don't have that, just click on the image to see it bigger. :)

The ones below (and the one above are not covered in resin yet. There is NO finish whatsoever! I did do some shaping with my rotary tool around the edges and glad I took the extra time.  I just gave them a polishing (220 and 2500 grit) and buffing with my rotary tool, for less than a minute each on the buffer. I found out that the lighter the touch when buffing, the better the shine! And in my opinion, the fact that it is Kato helped it shine more easily. This is the "front" (some of these could use either side for the front!) Doesn't it remind you of an abalone shell? If I had used pearl clay it would have looked even more like one...These are all Kato clay again.

The back...love those fine lines...

Front...aren't the colors awesome? These remind me of the painted desert rocks...

Here is the other side of the one above.

Really like how this one came out. The back is silver crackled foil leaf on black clay. You can't see the sides of these pendants but many of them show the very fine layering of the top colors. Neat effect. This stack was made with a variation on Marilyn's technique in that I added some Old Silver Inka Gold paint to the clay. I was advised to sandwich it inside layers of translucent, so I did. Then I added the foil leaf on the upper layer along with the inks. Hard to tell which shimmer is the Inka Gold but it's in there!

This one I used the rotary tool to trim off the edge...it was pretty rough before and I almost left it that way, but I am glad I shaped it. The buffing on this one came out great! I like this side the best. See the tiny "spiderweb"? :D

The reverse. The colors are a little muted in this one, but there is that abalone look again.

The shine on this one came out great! I wasn't pleased with where the original hole was so I filled it and need to redrill and use an eyelet in it still.

This is the other side of the one above.

Another one that looks like abalone shell. I love how it looks like layer after layer of shell!

Love the color in this one. The green is the Mermaid again...sort of an aqua color. I used Mountain Rose, Sunset Orange, Sunshine Yellow, and Wild Plum. The Lettuce nearly disappeared!

The opposite side.

This one got really shiny!

Side one.

The other side.

This is the first one pictured in this post that I put Magic Glos resin on.

A freehand shape. Resined again.

The other side. This is the other version of Marilyn's MG technique I tried with no black or white in it. Lovely color in this one...and yes, it is the dreaded Indigo! Not having all that black made it better, somehow...More of the foil shows through, as well, brightening it.

Same with this one.

The other side. I love the little star shape....faux spider web! :D And those colors! The Mountain Rose is a favorite of mine, as is the Sunset Orange.

Another with the no-black-or-white-clay MG tech. And the Indigo ink...and maybe even some of the (ew) Teakwood! I still like it, though. :)

The other side. I love the way it doesn't look round...it looks like it dips in on the left side...but that is an optical illusion. :)

Last one of this batch...for now! Love the colors! Forgot to drill holes before I resined it though...

Can't decide which side is the front. :) You can see the tiny faux spider webs on both sides with this one. SO, I am finally happy with those dark MG pendants I made! What do you think?

OH and an update I forgot to put on my last post, about the faux gold. I used my homemade clear stamping block polymer clay cutter for the leaves and flower petals. It works GREAT. See how evenly and THIN it cut? :) This photo kind of shows what I meant about making plain clay look like it has a gold reflection....

Thanks again for looking - make sure to stop by my Pinterest page to see a lot more of my creations, and please like my Facebook page, Karmic Confetti! 

Dark Matter - Marilyn's MG Tech again - Polymer Clay

I was so hopeful...after all, I'd never had a bad batch at this technique. BUT, I am not fond of my latest attempt at Marilyn Ray Knopic's Mokume Gane technique.. It looks promising in the photo below, doesn't it? I used some new Alcohol inks I hadn't seen before, Indigo, Mermaid and Teakwood. The reds are mostly from a try at making my own AI, using an alcohol ink marker in 91% alcohol...it's very bright but I like it!

 Here they are, pre-baking. Looks good so far, right?

Pre-baked still. Had high hopes for the one on the right.

These are baked. These are the "uggs". :D They are just SO DARK. I HATE the Teakwood! The indigo ink was waaaay too dark, although I tried to lighten it with some straight 91% alcohol...The one on the right above is the one about 4th from the top below. EW. See what the Teakwood did to it? EW. I think some of them could possibly be salvaged by using some Magic Glos but I may not even bother...

These are the ones that are salvageable. Not finished yet. A note: I used Kato clay on these, I hit a good sale at Hobby Lobby, 30% off all clays, so I got a few big blocks of translucent, white and black. The Kato is shiny while raw! And even before sanding the clay had a shine! Not sure if you can tell in the photo...I am going to use Kato exclusively, I think! I liked the way it rolled out and how it cut...it's a little stiffer than other clays but well worth it. I have a new system for softening tough clays, btw. I keep them wrapped up and place them on a brick, and beat them with my clay roller till they behave! :D It WORKS....Much easier to condition after that! You just have to show it WHO IS THE BOSS....lol.

Here's a closeup of a few that I resined. The bottom one is one of the uggs that I mistakenly wasted resin on. Still not TOO awful buuut...still an UGG. :D HATE that Teakwood with this technique...You can see that bright homemade red I was talking about. There's some Wild Plum in there too. I just wish I had used something besides that teak color! It would have been nice beneath the translucent, not like THAT color looks. :P Ew, ick!  The indigo in the one on the left isn't too bad, but it's probably where I attempted to lighten it with additional alcohol. Sorry for all the whining...

Now, these are still not the best but they'll pass. Was trying to show the shine these got once I buffed them. Sanded with 220 and then 2500, then buffed with my rotary tool. LOVE the Kato for the shine it gets! As I stated above, it almost comes out of the oven shiny...These two are front and back.

To make these hollow beads, you need two different sized (but close in size) cutters. To make the bottom of it, you cut out your clay sheet with the smaller of your two cutters and place it with the side you want to see in the finished bead face down on your claying surface...I used a sheet of copy paper. Then cut your top piece with the larger cutter, and lay the resulting circle (prettiest side down) on top of the BACK dull side of the smaller cutter, so that it lines up evenly with the edge of the smaller cutter and droops into it a bit. (You can make your dome higher by using a smaller circle cutter, but it may be harder to line up the larger cutout on the smaller ones). Make sure it's stuck to the sides of the cutter well, but not TOO well, and flip it over, centering it on top of the pre-cut bottom piece. and press gently to seal them together, capturing air between them. I then flip the smaller cutter over and cut the resulting domed circle out to neaten everything and make the seal better. Then I used a tiny circle cutter to cut out the hole in the center for a donut. The bottom of the one on the right caved in a little. I may have trapped air under it when I went to bake it, not sure. But you can see how shiny they got with minimal sanding. I noticed the other ones I domed like this shined better than the others, as well...

My technique with these stacks is to cut thin slices off the MG clump and place them on other sheets of clay. I decided to try a twist on Marilyn's technique by not using any black or white clay, just the trans. Interesting effect! Below is the raw stack. I used them on the back of the sheets I covered with the other dark stack. I guess I should've taken a photo after I started cutting into it, because this doesn't show much! See how pretty that blue is, though? That is the indigo! Not sure if I had lightened it with alcohol or not....The Indigo kept reminding me of when I washed my husband's pants with a pen in the pocket...that is the EXACT same shade of blue. XD

So, these are the backs of the previous pendants I've shown in this post. I like the effect, it reminds me of watercolor or something. Keep in mind these have NOT been finished. You see the foil much more with this method. Some of them are also very dark but the translucency kept it from offending me as much as the other beads do. :D

I am probably going to use the uggs by making a new clay stack and covering the baked pendants I don't like with it. Never any waste with polymer clay! Thanks for looking - make sure to stop by my Pinterest page to see a lot more of my creations, and please like my Facebook page, Karmic Confetti!